East European Performing Arts Platform (EEPAP) supports the
development of contemporary performing arts (dance and theatre)
in 18 countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

Bacači Sjenki (Shadow Casters), Croatia

sylwias
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phone: +385 1 464 02 62
Description
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Bacači Sjenki (Shadow Casters) is a non-profit international artistic and production platform concerned with interdisciplinary collaboration, creation and reflection within the field of intermedia arts, especially in the domain of its implementation in urban spaces. It was co-founded by Boris Bakal and Katarina Pejovic. Seated is in Zagreb.

 

Through its activities that encompass a broad range of projects – multimedia performances, cultural memory projects, urban-human networks, educational projects, workshops, lectures, conferences, urban performances, installations and exhibitions - SC continuously instigates intercultural dialogue and active exchange between Croatian and international artists and professionals, thus questioning the existing concepts of individual and collective identity.

The platform also strives to stimulate the debate on the nature and contradictions of the on-going globalization process, dealing with the social, political and cultural issues that reveal the acute problems and issues of a certain society. Issues like the politics of public space, consequences of transition processes, the status and forms of intimacy as well as the systematic production of amnesia and discontinuity are emphasized.

Throughout its 9 years of existence, SC has produced a number of projects on both a local and an international level. The majority of the projects, created as performative and educational projects, multimedia or socially engaged time sculptures, examine the relation of man and space through unconventional approaches: a specific study of cities that takes on the shape of poetic-detective urban travels ("Shadow Casters"); amalgamating and juxtaposing the material space of the performance and the real time of actors with the virtual space and the delayed time of film ("Process_City, part III: Process_in_Progress").

One project penetrates into the microcosm of one Zagreb skyscraper and the multi-facetted revealing of its past, present and future ("Man is Space: Vitić Dances"); travelling through the material space of memory of a city neighbourhood that turns into a unique travel through one’s own memory, feelings and sub-consciousness, thanks to the special sensorial conditions of the visitors ("Process_City, part II: Ex-position"); a metaphysical travel on the edge of collective and individual consciousness, through the realms of dream and death as the only safe refuges from history ("Process_City, part I: Vacation From History"); creating a multimeda archive of urban events that become the tool for studying the hypertextuality of space ("Re-collecting City/Re-collecting Time"); questioning the status and sense of theatre community as a pseudo-community of “suave strangers” and the possibility of its transformation into a more organic form ("Explicit Contents: part 1 of trilogy On Togetherness"); investigating in the form of Master Class, where actors and audience share the responsibility and pleasure of building a performance together, what kind of revolution is possible, desirable or dreamed of today ("®evolution: Master Class", part 2, "On Togetherness").

For their work, SC have received various recognitions and awards. They have won the Special Jury Award at the 2007 Belgrade International Theatre Festival BITEF for their production of "Ex-Position".

Awarded the Avaz Dragon Award at the 2008 Sarajevo International Theatre Festival MESS for the entire trilogy "Process_City", the main award Cloud at the 2009 International Theatre Festival PUF in Pula for Ex-Position, Special Jury Award at 2009 Belgrade International Theatre Festival BITEF for "Vacation From History" and the main award Cloud at the 2010 International Theatre Festival PUF in Pula for "Vacation From History".

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