Following auditions for actors held in April this year, the organization Arterarij has begun rehearsals for a new play as part of the Eclectic of Otherness project, co-financed by the European Union through the Creative Europe program. The play will premiere at the end of the year.
Building on the established aesthetics and ethics of Arterarij, director and actor Romano Nikolić, in collaboration with playwright Dorotea Šušak, will, after a year of research and a creative lab where they presented the research results, explore the issue of war-time rape during the last war in the former Yugoslavia. This will be done through a narrative about two parallel families with different ethnic, religious, and life backgrounds.
The cast includes: Anita Matić Delić, Dušan Gojić, Jelena Graovac Lučev, Nikola Nedić, and Davor Tarbuk, who, during the first rehearsal, had a discussion with Marijana Senjak, a psychologist and counselor at the Center for Victims of Sexual Violence “Women’s Room.”
EoO represents a partnership initiative of three cultural organizations from Serbia, Croatia, and France, and is dedicated to exploring identity tensions between “us” and “them,” insiders and outsiders, those we believe belong, and those excluded from that privilege. EoO reveals and respects the challenges faced by the unknown, foreigners, outsiders, immigrants, newcomers, and refugees on their difficult paths to safety and freedom, presenting the obstacles they face in navigating new lives and identities.
The project coordinator is the Heartefact Fund, and the project runs from February 2023 to January 2025. The project is co-financed by the European Union.