dVORišTe – Bringing Experience to Life

Every artistic endeavour, when it is exploratory and driven by an inner impulse rather than by production or market calculations, is a risk — one that can sometimes lead to failure. By carefully and economically balancing our ambitions with our possibilities, our productions generally succeed in achieving an important aspect of sustainability: the longevity of the work itself. Despite modest budgets, the lack of a permanent performance venue, and our distance from dominant cultural and market policies, most of our programmes have managed to sustain a continuity of activity uncommon among comparable organisations on the independent scene.

A particular commitment to integrating life and art remains a stubborn guarantee of survival — as does, perhaps, the fact that in the environment we inhabit, we have little choice but to establish our own space of play. A space in which the exchange of convivial relationships through emotionally charged artistic content becomes a shared value between performers and audiences.

Here we highlight a number of significant productions and events whose accumulated experience has become a source of value on which we base our confidence in both our present and future work:

• 2005 — Radovan Ivšić’s visit to Zadar: a literary matinée and the premiere of King Gordogan.

• 2007 — Juraj Aras: Nulovanje, an original monodrama directed by Christian Suchy from Vienna; around thirty performances, four guest appearances, two through the Clubture platform, and an award for acting.

• 2006–2011 — Organisation of the Obrovac Cultural Summer in collaboration with the OKLJ association.

• 2008–2011 — ARTIKULTURA project at Kino Pobjeda, in collaboration with seven other associations; around 250 events organised for approximately 10,000 spectators.

• 2010 — SCREAM by Boris Kadin, co-produced with Glej Theatre Ljubljana; seven international guest performances.

• 2010 — The Place Where We Haven’t Been by Žanina Mirčevska, directed by Natalija Manojlović, featuring guest actors Dario Varga and Uroš Maček from the Slovene Youth Theatre in Ljubljana.

• 2011 — EU PIONIR, a music performance; collaboration with NMG – Mavena.

• 2013 — Bankruptcy, a performance about the individual as a unit of capital burdened by debt, based on texts by Maurizio Lazzarato, Ben Stigler, Boris Postnikov, Damir Avdić and The Black Book of the Swiss Franc.

• 2013–2014 — TRAFO project in collaboration with Kristin Guttenberg and The Moving Academy Berlin: workshops in performative-activist direct intervention within the community.

• 2014–2019 — ARTAKT Festival.

• 2015 — Desnica: Games of Spring and Death, based on Vladan Desnica’s The Springs of Ivan Galeb. Selected by Igor Ružić for the 2016 Marulić Days programme; around thirty performances and seven guest appearances. The production officially opened the small auditorium of the Zadar Puppet Theatre, performed at ZKM between 15 and 20 December 2016, and at the Janković Tower in Islam Grčki, where the novel was written. It was also featured on Ante Perković’s programme The Hidden Side of the Day on Croatian Radio 3.

• 2015 — Installation of a commemorative plaque on Vladan Desnica’s birthplace; its subsequent removal by the city authorities sparked controversy in four national newspapers.

• 2016 — Othello: An Unlawful Liturgy, directed by Zlatko Paković from Belgrade and featuring guest actress Hrvojka Begović from ZKM. Political theatre addressing Europe’s policies towards immigrants and examining racism, power, the state, patriarchy and the love “we have grown accustomed to loving”; around thirty performances and a regional tour.

• 2016 — NOSI SE, originally a Teatro VeRRdi showcase of its own work, develops into a meeting place for independent projects. With the addition of Discursive Relay, it evolves a polemical format for confronting social reality, culminating in an attempt to ban the festival in Benkovac in 2025.

• 2018 — DERIVAT, an open-air festival of good music and conviviality, featuring energetic performers ranging from rock ’n’ roll to electronic music alongside fairs and workshops, conceived in a nomadic format.

• 2020 — The Shell Murmurs, a monodrama by Maruška Aras based on Slobodan Novak’s Outboard Logbook, directed by Hrvoje Korbar; around thirty performances, several international guest appearances, and an acting award.

• 2023 — Chronicle of Disappearance, a two-hander by Maruška Aras and Lucija Matković, inspired by works by Dubravka Ugrešić, Slavenka Drakulić, Daša Drndić and Georgi Gospodinov; around thirty performances, international guest appearances and a Clubture tour in 2025.

• 2025 — Make Room for ____, an original production written and directed by Hrvoje Korbar, co-produced with Studio Tres Pas and in collaboration with the Ribnjak Centre.