četvrtak, 7. studenoga 2013.

NEWS:

Shadow Casters: "Vacation from History" @ AKCENT Festival, Prague


Time:       November 16 2013 @ 6pm and 10pm
                and                

                November 17 2013 @ 6pm and 10pm
Location:  ARCHA Theatre, Na Porići 26, Prague 1, Czech Republic

A Vacation From History is a magical journey unfolding on the border between dream and reality in which the audience – deprived of the usual theatrical ritual and spectator’s distance – takes part with their entire being.




A Vacation from History is also a multimedia theatre performance in which the Shadow Casters re-establish a new synergy with the audience each time it is performed, making each performance unique in content. This work represents the final stage of a four-year-long trilogy dedicated to Kafka. The journey we are offered in Vacation from History is a passive and serene one, almost melancholic, as it gives space to each of the spectators to see a part of his/her own forgetfulness. The performance has several phases, none of which is fixed, and which are more an instruction to instigate memory or self-reflection than a rounded segment. Vacation from History is a meta(physical) comment on Kafka’s work: a travel to the edge of collective and individual consciousness, through the realms of dream and death as the only safe refuges from history.

Vacation from History, has been so far presented by international theater festivals in Croatia and abroad: Zagreb, Pula, Sarajevo, Belgrade, Subotica, Maribor and Cluj and was awarded: Special Jury Prize BITEF 2009, the 2008 "Avaz dragon" Award at the 48th MESS Festival, 2010 “Cloud” Main Award of the 16th Pula International Festival PUF.

Concept: Boris Bakal
Script, Directing: Boris Bakal, Katarina Pejovic
Dramaturgy: Katarina Pejovic, Bakal Boris
Authors and performers: Damir Klemenic, Lopatic Jelena, Bojan Navojec, Marija Škaričić, Stanko Juzbasic, Katarina Pejovic, Boris Bakal
Collaborators: Sinisa Jakovcevic, Zeljko Zorica, Barbara Blasin, Stephen Filipec, Milan Žerjav, Miran Juric


Shadow Casters is a multi award-winning and critically acclaimed international artistic and production platform for interdisciplinary collaboration, creativity and reflection on inter-media art from Zagreb. Working with public urban space through various art interventions and projects is one of the main areas on which their work is focused. Since their founding in 2002 they have realized numerous projects, among which: Shadow Casters, the trilogy Process_City (Process in Progress, Exposition, Vacation From history), Man is Space: Vitic Dances, Re-Collecting City/Re-Collecting Time, the Trilogy on Togetherness (Explicit Contents, ®evolution: Master Class, Male-Female/ Female-Male) and Parafernaliae. For their work they have received numerous awards including two Special Jury Prizes at BITEF, the MESS Avaz Dragon and two main prizes at PUF Festival.
www.shadowcasters.blogspot.com

Tour is organized with the help of Croatian Ministry for Culture and Zagreb City Council for Culture, Education and Sport





subota, 20. studenoga 2010.

NOVI DATUMI/NEW DATES/NUOVE DATE

**please click HERE for English text about the next scheduled performances**

**please click HERE for English text about the show**

**please click HERE for selection of reviews and essays on the show in English**


Predstava preispituje klasičnu poziciju gledatelja, igra se granicama percepcije i obogaćuje gledatelja na čulnom nivou, mjenjajući time percepciju upotrebom intimnog prostora”.
Obrazloženje za Specijanu nagradu Bitef-a 2009.:
Međunarodni žiri: Patrice Pavis (predsjednik), teatrolog i teoretičar kazališta, Oliver Frljić, kazališni redatelj, Maja Pelević, dramska spisateljica, Roland Schimmelpfennig, dramatičar, te Vladimir Aleksić, glumac i performer.



Emerson, Lake and palmer - From the begining .mp3
Found at bee mp3 search engine
SLIJEDEĆE PREDSTAVE:


Bacači sjenki: “Odmor od povijesti” na IETM-u Zagreb

26. listopada/oktobra 2012. u 19h
27. listopada/oktobra 2012. u 11h
Dvorana Jedinstvo (Pogon) Trnjanski nasip b.b.


Predstava Odmor od povijesti predstavit će se dva puta domaćoj publici i međunarodnim sudionicima plenarne sjednice mreže IETM (danas najveća mreža izvedbenih stvaralaca i producenata na svijetu) koja će se održati 25. – 28. listopada 2012. u Zagrebu.

Novost: predstava se igra u novom prostoru za 52 gledatelja/osjetitelja.
Pratite razvoj situacije!
Vaši Bacači.


USPJESI SEZONE 2010./2011.:
*** 3. prosinca 2010. u 14.30 i 20.30h - Casa Transit, Cluj, Rumunjska
Gostovanje na međunarodnom kazališnom Festivalu INTERFERENCES,

(između 1 – 12 prosinca 2010.) u Cluj-Napoca, Romania.


***20. i 21. prosinca 2010. u 20h - DCK MOSORZagreb, Zvonimirova ul. 53

***Predstava je gostovala na 45. Borštnikovim srećanjima u okviru međunarodnog programa MOSTOVI, 17. prosinca 2010. u SNG-Maribor u 16h i 22h

***Predstavi ODMOR OD POVIJESTI” je na 16. Pulskom međunarodnom festivalu PUF dodijeljena nagrada “Oblak” međunarodnog žirija (Bojana Custić Juraga, Davor Mišković, Branko Potočan) koja se dodjeljuje za scensko promišljanje koje svojom cjelovitošću i zaokruženošću ostaje središnjim i prestižnim ukrasom kazališnog neba PUF-a.

Predstava je bila dva puta izvedena u prostorima Stare tiskare/Galerija Muzeja suvremene umjetnosti  (Sv. Ivana 1. ) 5. 07. 2010 u 18:30h i 22:30h.

Ovo je druga nagrada «Oblak» Bacačima Sjenki koji su je dobili i na prošlogodišnjem 15. PUF-u za predstavu «Ex-pozicija  - proces_grad 02». Predstava «Odmor od povijesti – proces_grad 01» do sada je nagrađena i na 48. Mess-u u Sarajevu nagradom žirija kritike te Specijalnom Nagradom 43. BITEF-a.




USPJESI U OVOJ SEZONI (2009/2010):
2. Bacači Sjenki su zaključili svoje međunarodno gostovanje na novoosnovanom međunarodnom/regionalnom kazališnom festivalu Desiré Central Station 2009 - West koji se održavao od 22.–29. studenog 2009. u Subotici (Srbija) pod umjetničkim vodstvom znanog kazališnog stvaraoca Andrasa Urbana i u produkciji kazališta »Kosztolányi Dezső«, jednog od najplodnijih centara inovativnih izvedbenih umjetnosti u Srbiji, ali i regiji.

Bacači Sjenki su na festivalu sudjelovali s dva djela trilogije »Proces_Grad«.
ODMOR OD POVIJESTI je izveden 2 puta u Mađarskom kulturnom društvu “Népkör”
petak, 27.studenog u 17h i 21h






:::::VACATION FROM HISTORY AT 43. BITEF FESTIVAL::::::

3. Netom nakon osvojene Specijalne nagrade žirija na 43. BITEF-u, beogradskom međunarodnom kazališnom festivalu, nagradjena predstava “Odmor od povijesti” izvedena je na PROGRAMU festivala PERFORACIJE - Kinu Mosor, Zvonimirova 63, u srijedu, 29.09. u 24h.




5. **43. MEĐUNARODNI KAZALIŠNI FESTIVAL BITEF -BEOGRAD**

ODMOR OD POVIJESTI u Glavnom programu ovogodišnjeg Bitefa igrala je 4 puta i to 20. i 21. rujna u 17:00 i 23:00 h.u paviljonu "Cvijeta Zuzorić", Kalemegdan.

Predstavu je međunarodni žiri festivala nagradio Specijalnom nagradom za doprinos razvoju izvedbenih umjetnosti. 




Johnny Cash - Hurt .mp3
Found at bee mp3 search engine


četvrtak, 12. lipnja 2008.

UVOD....INTRODUCTION

Autor koncepta i redatelj/ Author of concept and director: Boris Bakal
Scenarij/ Script: Katarina Pejović

Autori i suradnici/ Authors and collaborators: Jelena Lopatić, Marija Škaričić, Damir Klemenić, Bojan Navojec, Stanko Juzbašić, Ognjen Bogojević, Kristina Gavran, Martina Karla Franić, Željko Zorica, Iva Aras, Ena Schulz, Stjepan Filipec Ges i razni/e drugi/e.

Produkcija/ Production: Bacači Sjenki u suradnji s gradskom knjižnicom "Bogdan Ogrizović", Gradskom četvrti "Donji grad", DSZS-om Republike Hrvatske te Hrvatskim Crvenim križem.

Koprodukcija/Co-production: Orchestra Stolpnik - Bologna

Projekt uživa potpore/ Financial support: Ministarstva kulture Republike Hrvatske i Gradskog ureda za obrazovanje, kulturu i šport grada Zagreba.

Posebne zahvale/ Special thanks: Nini Violić, Zagrebačkom Kazalištu Mladih, G. Vitasu, Plesnom Centru Tala, Makrobiotičkom Centru Nova, Mioni, Jagi i ostalima, a posebno Mativo d.o.o..

Premijere/Opening nights/Le prime - travanj/ April 2008/ Aprile 2008:
1. (u/at/alle 21.30h), Hvala svima!
6. (u/at/alle 20.30h), Hvala svima!
7. (u/at/alle 21.30h), Hvala svima!
8. (u/at/alle 21.30h), Hvala svima!
9. (u/at/alle 21.30h), Hvala svima!
10. (u/at/alle 21.30h), Hvala svima!
11. (u/at/alle 21.30h), Hvala svima!!
16. (u/at/alle 21.30h), Hvala svima!!
17. (u/at/alle 21.30h), Hvala svima!!
18. (u/at/alle 21.30h), Hvala svima!!!

O SLIJEDECIM DATUMIMA IGRANJIMA PREDSTAVE ČITAJTE NA OVOM WEBLOGU!!!


Broj mjesta po premijeri/ No. of places for each opening night: 16 (obavezno rezervirati najmanje dva dana prije svake izvedbe/ it is necessary to researve ticket few days in advance!).

Cijena ulaznica u preprodaji 100kn, za studente 60kn. Moguća je on-line prodaja preko www.aukcije.hr gdje je početna cijena karte 50kn, ali budući se radi o aukciji, cijena je podložna ponudama!
Uputa za kupnju na www.aukcije.hr: nakon otvaranja početne stranice treba upisati u trazilicu Bacaci Sjenki i potom odabrati datum za koji se zeli kupiti kartu; nakon toga treba upisati ponudu te otvoriti korisnicki profil. Sretno!
Za grupe od 5 do 10 25% popusta. Za grupe veće od 10 osoba 50% popusta!!

Kontakt, karte i informacije/Contacts, tickets and information: bacaci_sjenki@europe.com or +38598287373 (Katarina)

subota, 5. travnja 2008.

ODMOR OD POVIJESTI (proces_grad, 1 dio)




Ako pristanemo (makar i iz ironične naklonosti spram Fukuyamine teze, danas sasvim očito naivne i nedostatne) na ideju da je povijest već doživjela kraj, te usput zaobidjemo i post- klopku, onda je ono što danas živimo ne-povijesno vrijeme. Na neki način, to i nije daleko od istine. Povijest nije ništa drugo do skup dominantnih percepcija prošlosti; dakle, zbir subjektivnih pogleda na ono što se dogodilo, i to onih subjektivnih pogleda koji su prevladali, najčešće silom, sve druge moguće poglede. Načela koja upravljaju današnjim svijetom jesu načela ubrzanja i ekspanzije i sve ključne pojave i procesi zahvaćeni su njihovom vrtoglavom dinamikom. Proizvodnja, potrošnja, ratovi, primirja, prirodne i čovjekom izazvane katastrofe, bogatstvo jednih i siromaštvo drugih, prikrivene istine i javne laži, rastu i šire se brzinom koju je sve teže pratiti, odnosno, koja sve više otežava percepciju stvarnosti. Svega je previše i prečesto - i to u dramatičnim razmjerama - da bi opstalo u kolektivnoj ili individualnoj memoriji dulje od vremenskog intervala između dva TV dnevnika ili izdanja dnevnih novina. Prezasićenost zapažanja vodi ka gubitku kriterija za klasificiranje po važnosti, a potom i gubitku osjećaja za važnost samu. Gubitkom važnosti postupno nestaje i smisao. Nije li to idealna prilika za one koji (misle da) upravljaju ubrzanjem i ekspanzijom svijeta da, usred pre-smisla i pre-važnosti, (misle da) kroje povijest po svojoj želji, kad se sve ionako pretvara u ne-smisao i ne-važnost?

Boreći se s dominacijom zvanične povijesti, ustrajnim istraživačima do skora se uvijek pružala prilika za iznalaženje tragova osobnih povijesti, koje bi donosile nove podatke o hijerarhiji važnosti i smisla dogadjaja u odredjenom razdoblju, i time postajale djelovi i djelići mozaika paralelne/ih povijesti. Ako se, iz današnje perspektive, zamisli posao koji će na uzorku naše stvarnosti obavljati neki detektiv-arheolog u budućnosti, može se naslutiti drugačiji ishod: bivajući i sami izloženi ubrzanju i ekspanziji, životi današnjih pojedinaca sve su sličniji magnovenju koje vrvi od prekomjernih htjenja, nerealnih snova, neispunjenih želja, žestokih ambicija i još žešćih frustracija. Oni sve više podsjećaju na oboljelo tkivo, nemoćno u odupiranju pomahnitalom metastaziranju svakodnevice. Sveopćoj inflaciji informacija podliježu i osobne informacije, ali osobnog vremena za njihovo procesiranje ponestaje geometrijskom progresijom. Paradoks je gotovo bolan: nikada nije postojalo više mogućnosti za bilježenje i distribuiranje sopstvenih viđenja stvarnosti, i nikada nisu šanse da ta viđenja postanu relevantna bile manje. Inflacija informacija + deficit vremena = entropija mjerila važnosti i gradiva smisla. Usred te paklene jednadžbe, kako oblikovati osobnu povijest - onu koja u zbiru mnoštva osobnih povijesti, daje posve izvjesno različiti podatak o jednom vremenu – tako da njeni kriteriji nadvladaju tu entropiju?

Cijena koja se plaća traženjem odgovora na ovo pitanje nije ništa manja od one koju je platio Franz Kafka nastojeći iznaći odgovor na to i slična pitanja. Trilogija “proces_grad”, inspirirana Kafkinim “Procesom”, nastojanje je Bacača Sjenki da se, kroz Kafkino djelo, govori o tom pitanju (dakako, uz plaćanje odgovarajuće cijene) i to s barem 3 različita motrišta, te u nekronološkom slijedu. Tako je treći dio trilogije, “process_in_progress”, istodobno i prvi realiziran, kao sintetička reinterpretacija cjelokupnog korpusa “Procesa” u susretu dva medija – kazališnog i filmskog - podvrgnutih višestrukoj montaži uživo, u rasponu od VJ’inga do gledateljevog pogleda; drugi dio, “Ex-pozicija”, pošavši od parabole o Zakonu, otvara dveri putovanja u osobne povijesti i podsvijest drugog u susretu 1:1, promičući gledatelje u osjetitelje, zamjenjujući njihovu institucionaliziranu pasivnost empatijom (su-osjetitelji), izlažući ih pogledu javnosti u trenucima njihove potpune posvećenosti intimnom, darujući im i pogled iz “ptičje perspektive”, sve to uz mogućnost prolaska kroz sve pozicije, priče i faze. Na kraju trilogije koji je njen početak, “Odmor od povijesti” se izravno hvata u koštac s pitanjem u pitanju. Iza transparentnog naslova krije se snovidjenje kafkijanskog dana, no lišeno klišea o kafkijanstvu, pa i o povijesti. Kafkin metafizički odmak, koji tragičnost humorno lišava patosa, sastoji se od paradoksalnog spoja: s jedne strane, kategoričnog odbijanja imperativa upisivanja u vječnost, i s druge strane, vedrog povinovanja tom zahtjevu ukoliko se on pokaže uistinu neizbježnim. Ravnodušnost do povijesti čini ju nerelevantnom na način koji spašava relevantnost osobnog iskustva. U toj optici, osobno se kroz vrijeme i prostor prenosi i ostavlja trag nezabilježenim putevima: kao pogled koji neminovno mijenja ono što je posmatrano; kao misao koja, izrečena ili ne, mijenja ono što je mišljeno; kao osjećaj koji proizvodi ton po kojem će se uglašavati ili mu kontrapunktirati nadolazeći osjećaji drugih; kao cjelokupno prisustvo u odredjenom prostor-vremenskom trenutku, jedinstveno i neponovljivo, i kao takvo posve nerelevantno kao materijal za hranjenje entropijskog proždirača povijesne relevantnosti. U kakvom se obliku može materijalizirati to iskustvo?


Dok ležim u tami, na prelazu između dva dana, puštam da se tišina ispuni slikama, glasovima, zvucima, osećajima prethodnih sati, dana, paralelnog prostor-vremena misli, želja, prizivanja, strahova i nada … Asocijacije uleću među njih, pletu mrežu; o tu se mrežu odbijaju trenutačne senzacije, da bi se nanovo uhvatile u mrežu i o nju odbile... Moja je glava hitajući noćni vlak. U jednom osvetljenom vagonu dva čovjeka igraju ping-pong, ali s mnoštvom loptica. Dok vlak-glava reže mekoću tame, ljudi-asocijacije šibaju loptice-misli koje lete tamo-amo, amo-tamo… Ili ne? Možete li zamisliti kretanje ping-pong loptica u jurećem vlaku?

Ako pristanemo (makar i iz ironične naklonosti spram Fukuyamine teze, danas sasvim očito naivne i nedostatne) na ideju da je povijest već doživjela kraj, te usput zaobidjemo i post- klopku, mogli bi posve jednostavno zamisliti to kretanje. I/ili ga doživjeti.

Katarina Pejović

petak, 4. travnja 2008.

VACATION FROM HISTORY (process_city, part 1)


Concept: B. Bakal
Scenario, dramaturgy and direction: Boris Bakal, Katarina Pejović

Authors and performers: Damir Klemenić, Jelena Lopatić, Bojan Navojec, Marija Škaričić, Stanko Juzbašić, K. Pejović, B. Bakal

Collaborators: S. Jakovčević, M. Žerjav, P. Težak

A Vacation From History is a magical journey unfolding on the border between dream and reality in which the audience – deprived of the usual theatrical ritual and spectator’s distance – takes part with their entire being.

The impression that is born out of the half-sleep is so sincere, deep and healing that it is worth more than the entire repertoire of a theatre season.
B. Munjin, “Bitter Sludge”, Feral Tribune, Zagreb 23/04/2008

This experience, lived during the one-hour-forty-minutes theatre session, is simply unforgettable. (…) If there is paradise, this is how one should be introduced to it!”
Z. Pakovic, “Vacation From (Hi)Story”, Politika daily, Belgrade, 26/09/2009

Real Vacation from History: 
If we concede (if for no other reason then out of ironic predilection for Fukuyama’s thesis, at present obviously naïve and inadequate) to the idea that history has already reached its end, and we manage at once to avoid the “post”-trap, then we might claim that what we live today is a non-historic time. In a way this is not far from being true. History is nothing else than an agglomerate of dominant perceptions of the past; hence, an agglomerate of those subjective views on past events that have prevailed all other views, usually by force. The principles ruling today’s world are those of acceleration and expansion; all major phenomena and processes are affected by their vertiginous dynamics. Production, consumption, wars, truces, natural and men-made disasters, the wealth of ones and the poverty of the others, concealed truths and public lies – they all grow and spread with a speed that is ever harder to follow, or rather, a speed that increasingly obstructs the perception of reality. The amount and frequency of everything is too abundant – and in dramatic dimensions – to survive in either collective or individual memory longer than the interval between two editions of TV news or daily newspapers. The satiety of perception leads to the loss of criteria for classification of information according to importance, which is followed by the loss of sense for importance itself. Losing importance gradually brings the loss of sense. Is this not an ideal chance for those who (think they) administer the acceleration and expansion of the world to (think they) tailor history by their own whim, amid over-sense and over-significance, when everything turns anyway into non-sense and in-significance?

Fighting against the domination of official history, determined explorers would nevertheless always find a way to discover traces of personal histories, those that would reveal new facts on the hierarchy of significance and sense of events in a certain period, thus becoming parts and particles of a mosaic of parallel history/ies. This was so until recently. If one imagines from the present-day perspective the forensic investigation that some future detective-archaeologist would have to perform on the sample of our reality, one might also imagine a somewhat different outcome: exposed to acceleration and expansion, the lives of today’s individuals remind more and more to a delirium thick with excessive drives, unrealistic dreams, unfulfilled desires, burning ambitions and even more burning frustrations. They are similar to an ailing tissue, helpless in its efforts to resist the furious metastasising of everyday life. Even personal information succumbs to the overall inflation of information, while the personal time for processing them disappears by geometrical progression. The paradox is almost painful: there have never been more opportunities for recording and distributing personal views of reality; yet there has never been less possibility for them to become relevant. Inflation of information + time deficit = entropy of relevance criteria and sensible substance. Amid this diabolic equation, how should one shape his/her personal history – one that, in the sum of a multitude of personal histories, provides with utmost certainty a different view on an époque – so that its criteria overcome this entropy?

The price paid for seeking an answer to this question is not lower than the one paid by Franz Kafka who sought to find answers to this and similar questions. The trilogy process_city, inspired by Kafka’s Trial, is an endeavour of Shadow Casters to speak of this question through Kafka’s work (paying an adequate price naturally comprised) from at least 3 different viewpoints and in a non-chronological sequence. Thus the third part of the trilogy was at the same time the first to be realised as a synthetic interpretation of the entire corpus of Trial on the crossroads of two media – theatre and film – submitted to multiple live editing spanning from VJ’ing to spectator’s gaze. Having the Parable on the Law as its starting point, the second part, Ex-position, opens the gate of journeys into personal histories and the subconsciousness of The Other through a series of one-on-one encounters that promote spectators into sensators, exchanging their institutionalised passivity for compassion, exposing them to public view in moments of their utmost dedication to the intimate, offering them also a bird eye’s view of the situation lived moments earlier, all this accompanied with the possibility for the sensator to pass through all positions, stories and phases. At the end of the trilogy, which is in fact it’s beginning, stands Vacation From History, which tackles directly the mentioned question. Behind the transparent title there hides an onyric voyage through a kafkian day yet deprived of clichés on kafkianism and even on history. Kafka’s metaphysical distance that deprives the tragic dimension of pathos in a humorous manner consists of a paradoxical blend: on the one hand, the categorical rejection of the imperative to leave a mark for eternity; on the other hand, the cheerful complying with the imperative if it proves to be truly inescapable. Indifference towards history makes it irrelevant in a way that saves the relevance of personal experience. From this perspective, personal experience travels through time and space by unrecorded trails, leaving its trace as a view that inevitably alters that, which is being observed; as a thought that, spoken or not, alters that, which is being reflected upon; as an emotion that gives birth to a tone by which all imminent emotions of others will be tuned or counter-pointed: as an entire presence in a particular time-space sequence, unique and unrepeatable, and as such utterly irrelevant as the food for the entropic devourer of historical relevance. What is the shape in which this experience might materialise?

While I lie in the darkness, on the bridge between two days, I let the silence be filled with images, voices, sounds, feelings of the past hours, days, the parallel time-space of thoughts, desires, recollections, fears and hopes… associations fly among them, weaving the net; momentary sensations bounce from the net only to be caught again in it and bounce once again… My head is a running night train. In a lit wagon, two men play ping-pong with a multitude of balls. While the train-head slashes the softness of the dark, people-associations whip the balls-thoughts that fly back and forth, back and forth… Or not? Can you imagine the movement of ping-pong balls in the running train?

If we concede (if for no other reason then out of ironic predilection for Fukuyama’s thesis, at present obviously naïve and inadequate) to the idea that history has already reached its end, and we manage at once to avoid the “post”-trap, we might easily imagine this movement. And/or experience it.

Katarina Pejović






REVIEWS/ESSAYS:


EXCERPTS FROM SELECTED REVIEWS ON “VACATION FROM HISTORY”

Following the great success of their performance “Ex-position” and their concept which we might freely address to as the laboratory for reanimation of human fantasy, the theatre group Shadow Casters from Zagreb has come up with a new theatrical intervention in which everything is put upside down except one thing – remembrance.
(…)
The performance “Vacation From History” is a magical fairy-tale on the verge of dream and reality in which the audience – deprived of the usual theatre ritual and spectator’s distance – takes part with their entire being.
(…)
What one gets is not something that takes place on the stage, because there is none; it is neither the actors for we barely see them; it is something that happens – very individually – within the heads of those present. The set is almost completely in the dark; the spectators lie in modest compartments divided with sheets; a remote light from the street is faintly seen and the overall atmosphere reminds that of a refugee camp inhabited by those who have survived, let’s say, the last of the Balkan wars. And it is then, in that narrow corridor between consciousness and unconsciousness, when we are too week to hate and too tired to think ill of ourselves, that these distant voices visit us; sounds that we might have heard in our childhood, the intimate history that caresses us for we have gone completely mad from the real one.
(…)
This is exactly where the concept of director Boris Bakal lays: in showing how the outraged reality – in which we cannot discern the beginning or the ending of anything – merely deposits heaps of ill information into us creating a sludge which numbs us. What we are left with is to reach for the images of the real history of our own lives in the state of semi-conscious haze. The manner of achieving those images is truly masterful: deeply romantic and frightening at once.
(…)
Besides director Boris Bakal, dramaturg Katarina Pejovic, set designer Zeljko Zorica and composer Stanko Juzbasic, the team between the beds includes Jelena Lopatic, Bojan Navojec, Marija Skaricic and Damir Klemenic, an extraordinary breed of actors who have agreed to take on a precarious journey instead of the routine repeating the usual stage roles.
(…)
Technically speaking, this performance is deprived of classical story, visible acting and even of spectators in the usual sense of the word; yet the impression that is born out of the half-sleep is so sincere, deep and healing that it is worth more than the entire repertoire of a theatre season.
Bojan Munjin, “Bitter Sludge”

(Feral Tribune, April 23, 2008)


(…) This is a poetic theatre of great performative power, whose co-ordinates are determined by the political nature of Bakal’s previous performances: if the content of history is the constant degrading of human material (Hegel: ‘History is equally a slaughterhouse of individual happiness as it is a massacre of state wisdom’), it is legitimate to ask whether there is any place to rest from that routine destruction. The group Shadow Casters takes us to the communication context of childhood; to a time of bedtime story-telling, a time of parents tucking us in the bed and sneaking out of the room in which the little ones are dreaming away.
(…)
The spectator is turned into one “gigantic ear” of a lyrical landscape of white sheets that surround and separate the beds, occasionally reminding of sails on a night-time cruise, while the cacophony of sounds gradually transforms itself into a peculiar, suggestive score of darkness. Thus the child in all of us is suddenly awarded with a possibility to peek into the adults’ world: to “cross the ramp” so fiercely guarded by our parents during the actual childhood, and see what was it that those who would remain awake after us would actually do.
(…)
It is through the prism of parent-protagonists that “Vacation from history” poses various questions: what we actually do with the minutes in which we may finally be alone or with our partners; how we fill in our most private time; are we capable at all to rest from the brutal everyday history; last but not least, does that vacation end with childhood?
(…)
My impression is that this performance would not be possible without the immense confidence among all performers as well as between the director and the performers, which I would determine as the criterion of highest theatre quality. And although there is no vacation from history, what is essential is that, at least in theatre, there is a lyrically precise reflection on how people should wake (watch) over each other: as if our childhood fragility actually never ceases.
Nataša Govedić, “A Pillow Full of Night-time Visions”
(Novi list, April 20, 2008)


(…) Step by step, layer by layer, we are drawn into a twilight zone, a space between dreams and day-time awakeness, real and imaginary world. At least this is what happened to me. Abandoning to the performance comes out of physical and mental openness, which are, I would say, the prerequisites for the reception of the entire experience.
(…)
Physical openness arises from the fact that we are placed in a passive lying position reminding of childhood, dream, illness, death. Mental openness is born out of the slumber in which one loses the need for control. Openness and abandonment incite the feeling of vulnerability; yet the caring kindness of performers and the temperance of events bring calm.
(…)
“Vacation From History” took me into a state similar to meditation. Soon I renounced the effort to discern; logic and reason have dozed off. It was a slumber from which it was hard to awake; the strange feeling went on for hours, as it always happens after experiencing self-confrontation. The experience is, understandably, entirely personal; therefore any more detailed account is not only inappropriate but also volatile. I am convinced that the peculiarity of experience is guaranteed to everybody.
Iva Gruić, “How to Cross the Ramp in Avant-garde Theatre” 

(Jutarnji list, April 18, 2008)


If the overall domination of superficiality can be of any use, than it is mostly useful as a challenge to which Shadow Casters gave a memorable answer with their latest premiere, “Vacation From History”, process_city 01.
(…)
In their creation but also their approach to the recipient, Shadow Casters take resort in intimacy and this is literally what they do in Vacation From History: the stage and the auditorium are merged into a dormitory divided in several compartments, while the seats are being replaced by beds.
(…)
The smell and taste of oranges, the quiet bed-time conversations with the performers, a long calm monologue broadcasted in the privacy of headphones – all this implies a tacit suggestion of sleep and dream as an equally efficient and desired possibility of being in the performance, while its dynamic and changeable scenario invite for a repeated viewing, i.e. vacation.
(…)
As the narrative of the performance seems persistently to elude or escape us - as does history saturated with the immensity of information - its place is filled with endemic occurrences in the 21st century, such as the feeling of calm and pleasantness in an unknown place, with unknown people, amid the safe incompetence. The realisation of the impossibility of finding out, grasping or controlling EVERYTHING, overwhelms the spectator as a legitimate way of living, freed from our present-day panic and bestowed with a bud of different sense, celebrated in the performance most appropriately with “awakening” through conversation and a glass of champagne.
Višnja Rogošić, “Dream as a Possibility of a Performance”

 (Vjesnik, April 17, 2008)


The performance “Vacation From History” is extraordinary in that it offers us through an all-encompassing immersion in the performance the revelation that the essential Kafkaesque labyrinth is in fact the labyrinth of our intimate histories and that the essential Kafkaesque problem is the problem of finding the sense and the goal of our private history. 
Aida Pilav (Dnevni Avaz, October 22, 2008)


(…) The entire performing team have raised a great number of issues that regular theatre performances never manage to reach, probably because the tissue of Vacation From History is mainly created out of personal testimonies treated as a scripting of collective consciousness and sub-consciousness potentially familiar to everyone. This dramaturgical procedure, characteristic for the last two Shadow Casters’ performances, is something I consider as one of the most vital points of our theatre today, in which the spectator, in interaction with the actor, is acknowledged the possibility of performative co-creation.
(…)
Vacation from history – if there is one in the first place – manifests itself as “memories shared”, i.e. as a performatively initiated reflection on the tragic-comic situation in which people are being pushed into straight jackets of political regimes. (…) Bakal’s ensemble asks us when exactly the “fear of darkness” and its abstract monsters is being replaces by the fear of too a bright daylight, its media superficiality and concrete criminal protagonists. The thing is that we can, we are allowed to be both over-awake and over-sensitive: in my mind, Bakal’s performance permits us to have confidence in those agitated wakes of ours, so different from the declarative “directness” or the single-minded reality of military machineries.

Nataša Govedić, “Drunken Orgies, Bed-time Stories and Wake-up Calls”
(Zarez, April 18, 2008)


In the time and space that was not exactly spared by various kinds of ideologies and other so-called history systems, the offer of “Vacation From History” is not really something one would refuse. This is what Shadow Casters were well aware of, by offering precisely a little less than two hours of someone else’s small history along with the encounter with one’s own.
(…)
If Ex-position was an extroverted entrance into other people’s lives, into stories of ordinary and great men and women, and an active participation in them, Vacation From History is its introverted antipode, which leaves room to each of the visitors to summarise at least one part of his/her own existence, assisted by a guide. In other words, whereas Ex-position took one into a story, Vacation From History takes the story to the visitor.
(…)
Vacation From History consists of several phases, none of them being concluded; it is more of an instruction to stimulate memories or self-reflections than a rounded-up whole in the sense of a prose chapter or an act of a play. Being in bed in a collective situation reminds of boarding schools, hospitals or a mythical journey in a sleeping car-wagon; the sounds bring close the childhood; the subtle care of performers for the audience suggests a near-death state while the music evokes some latently better past.
(…)
Each show of Vacation From History is at once a premiere as if with each show and the addition of personal histories of each of the visitors the concept itself has purposefully augmented its importance.
(…)
Vacation From History deliberately leaves no traces, certainly not as spectacular as the ones left by Ex-position but it offers instead a possibility of a subtle step away, which makes those productions an ideal combination for presentation at some big and programmatically dense festival. It is undoubtedly yet another extraordinary and therefore unavoidable contribution of Shadow Casters to the Croatian theatre scene, irreducible to usual theatrical parameters.
Igor Ružić, "Vacation From History" 

(Radio 101, Dnevnikulturni, April 9, 2008)