Institut Ramon Llull and HB Studio bring together artists from the documentary play MIVION (RADIO SARAJEVO) for an HB Public Conversation
HB Studio is pleased to continue its partnership with Institut Ramon Llull to present Playing Together: Catalonia at HB Studio, a special showcase of select Catalan plays followed by discussions with the artists. Next up in the series is the the documentary play MIVION (RADIO SARAJEVO) and a discussion with the artists about their intentions and creative process. Join us! View the event program.
MIVION (RADIO SARAJEVO) is a piece of documentary theatre about the siege of Sarajevo and a journalist that resisted it through the radio, written and created together by Slobodan Minic, Arza Suljic, Marc Soler, Carles Fernández Giua and Eugenio Szwarcer. The talk hosted by HB Studio will feature Carles Fernández Giua (director), Eugenio Szwarcer (set and video designer), and Arza Suljic (performer, co-creator of the show), pictured above. Moderated by HB Teaching Artist Maria Fontanals.
Our talk, which features Azra Suljic whose family is from Srebrenica and arrived in Catalonia as a child fleeing from the war, will be presented just one day before the anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre on July 11, 1995.
Please watch the play in advance of your attendance. The play will be made available to those that register to attend the event via email on July 3rd. Access to this play is made possible through an arrangement with La Conquesta del Pol Sud. Please do not share with others.
About MIVION (RADIO SARAJEVO)
Watch the trailer for MIVION (RADIO SARAJEVO)
“Like water, life always finds a way.” – Slobodan Minic
MIVION is an acronym in the Serbo-Croatian language, formed by the abbreviation of the words “We”, “You” and “They”. MIVION was the title of a cultural program (referring to artists, audience and critics), conducted by Slobodan Minic, a renowned journalist who also was director of the Culture programming at Radio Sarajevo. In that radio show, Minic interviewed artists such as Bosnian poet Sidran, filmmaker Emir Kusturica and musician Goran Bregovic.
During the siege of his city (1992-1996), Minic resisted by doing what he knew best: radio and journalism. Finally, like thousands of other people, he fled through the tunnel excavated under Sarajevo and arrived into Spain, where he established himself together with his family in a little village on the coast of Catalonia, in Spain. There, he worked as a waiter and raised his two sons.
Minic’s story is a testimony to the progressive advance of intolerance, nationalism and authoritarianism, but also to the strength of culture. His story is about the power of the human voice to offer comfort as well as how words and speech can be used to promote hatred and construct an “us vs. them” mindset that can eventually lead to a civil war.
MIVION (Radio Sarajevo) also explores the crossing of cultures and generations. It is a set of mirrors between the voice and the experience of Minic and the lives of two young people, Bosnian Azra Suljic, who also arrived in Catalonia as a child fleeing from the war, and Catalan dancer and performer Marc Soler who was born in 1998 and hardly knew anything about the Bosnian war before joining the project.
MIVION (Radio Sarajevo), magically merges radio and theatrical languages. Journalist Slobodan “Boban” Minic is on the air broadcasting live from his house, just as he was at the station from which he resisted the siege of his city. On stage, two young people who, due to the pandemic had experienced a lockdown that somewhat connects their experiences to Minic’s, Azra Suljic, a translator and interpreter who has never performed on a stage before, and performer Marc Soler. There are also the images filmed in Bosnia and Serbia during the documentary travel, which was an essential part of the creative process of La Conquesta del Pol Sud.
The referential framework for the play is the eclecticism, variety and dynamism of the radio, the ‘natural environment’ of the protagonist. A language in which interviews, moments of reflection and intimacy, musical interludes, even connections with correspondents operating in other spaces are alternated. The language of the radio offers many possibilities for the imagination.
Length: 80 minutes. The show is performed in Catalan, Spanish and Bosnian, and presented with English subtitles.
CREDITS
- Created by: Slobodan “Boban” Minic, Azra Suljic, Marc Soler & La Conquesta del Pol Sud
- Performed by: Slobodan ”Boban” Minic, Azra Suljic, Marc Soler
- Stage Direction: Carles Fernández Giua
- Set & Video Design: Eugenio Szwarcer
- Movement: Ariadna Montfort
- Lighting Design: Luis Martí
- Sound Design: Damien Bazin
- Live Stream Video Operator: Xavi Domènech
- Assistant Director: Mònica Molins
- Executive Production: Carol Murcia
- Booking & Communication: Lidia Giménez
- Stage Photography (pictured above): Alfred Mauve
Presented by La Conquesta del Pol Sud and Institut Ramon Llull with the support of the Catalan Institute for Cultural Companies (ICEC) and Terrassa Arts Escèniques, with the collaboration of Taula de cultura de les Escoles Velles i l’Ajuntament de Sant Esteve de Palautordera & of Nau Ivanow. With appreciation to: Dina Minic, Goran Minic, Borchi Minic, Vera Bilbija, Sifa Suljic.
ABOUT THE COMPANY
La Conquesta del Pol Sud is a company formed by Carles Fernández Giua and Eugenio Szwarcer and has a number of regular collaborators. The company is interested in contemporary dramaturgy, which asks relevant questions and requires a challenging study concerning the theatrical language used on a project. Now the company has reached a moment in which it’s looking for new forms. They find themselves more often interested in reality as theatrical material, bringing them to the world of documentary and the world of non-fiction as a space of equilibrium between emotion and debate. They are interested in exploring how poetry emerges from reality.
Provided with support from the Noël Coward Foundation.