ACTION 1 | KOSOVO.BLOOD.THEATRE.PROJECT.
By Markus Zohner & Jeton Neziraj
Theatre Performance
Place: Printing House “Rilindja” – Pristina, Kosovo
Opening 15 December 2006, 18:00h
New approach to theatre in post-war Kosovo
Theatre starting from ground zero again. Realizing and accepting what is broken. Taking care of the shards.
Nothing exists. No tickets, no stage, no sweet red seats, no glorious theatre hall, no curtain, no mirrors in intermission, no nice costumes, no microphones, no light effects, no stage tricks.
No money. No speculation, no attempt to keep up dead, old structures.
Theatre in Kosovo does no exist any more. Destroyed by war and corruption, destroyed by TV and by total lack of cultural orientation.
Theatre, this most fragile of all arts, after total catastrophe in Kosovo remained without any power to stand up again.
Who are we? What is a human being?
So, we try to start elsewhere. We try to concentrate on the basic inner powers of theatre. We try to start from ground zero, from level of explosion on which nothing exists any more.
But trying to start from ground zero, we feel that the first step has to come from even deeper. So we are digging ourselves into the ground, to look for completely new spaces, desperately searching for asylum for our wounds, searching for a refugium for theatre, which is just another word for soul.
For being able to raise our heads an look on, we have to free ourselves from all pressure pushing us down to muddy ground. To be able to open the eyes again, we have to free ourselves from daylight, for being able to hear again, we have to turn away from noises, from electricity and television, from vanity, from success, from cigarettes and drugs, and we have to hide from all the vegetative rumours of this town resembling a human body in koma. The vital functions of this body are more or less working- but where does this body look? Where does it wish to go? What does it dream? What are its fears, its desires, its wishes, beyond crude half-dead surviving?
And we find subterranean spaces which hold us. Which protect us from money, from success, from politics and and from any pressure. Spaces making us breath again, spaces giving us back contact with ourselves.
Spaces giving space. Giving us back hunger for human contact. Spaces for a moment giving asylum to our lost souls. Spaces, which by their darkness give us the chance to re-discover what light means. Spaces, which through their coldness give us back the warmth of theatre.
Just Spaces. Noting else.
Nothing but 7 actors.
Nothing but seven human beings. And 30 human beings as public.
Nothing but encounter between human souls.
Nothing but sharing time, space and fantasy for a moment.
Nothing but imagination.
The very beginning of theatre.

KOSOVO.BLOOD.THEATRE.PROJECT is supported by:
Swiss Cultural Foundation PRO HELVETIA / Zurich, Swiss Confederation / Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, PRO HELVETIA / Prishtina
>ACTION 1 | KOSOVO.BLOOD.THEATRE.PROJECT. is part of KOSOVO.BLOOD.THEATRE.PROJECT., an international theatre project jointly developed by MARKUS ZOHNER THEATER COMPAGNIE / Lugano and CCTD-MultiMediaCenter / Prishtina.
It is a project focussing on a new approach to theatre in Post-War Kosovo, concentrating on the actor’s work and by this researching for the basic powers of theatre.
Theatre in Kosovo has completely other meanings and senses than in Central Europe or in other parts of the world. There is virtually no living theatre scene, and after inner and outer devastations of war, in this moment people just do not go to theatre.
Departing from Theatre Improvisation as a technique for creation in theatre, KOSOVO.BLOOD.THEATRE.PROJECT. will try to develop new approaches to theatre in Post-War Kosovo.
>ACTION 1 | KOSOVO.BLOOD.THEATRE.PROJECT. is the first public performance during this project, which in its first part will last for more than two months, ending in february 2007. After this date, it is planned to go on tour with a theatre performance in Kosovo, in the Balkans and in Central Europe.