Theatre and Performance as a means of survival and resistance during the Siege of Sarajevo If a society is ruled by violence and decay, the artist must defend with ferocity, with teeth, the preservation of our more compassionate nature. Kindness, generosity, tenderness and beauty must be held up as reminders to an audience more than ready to let nihilism and its attendant seductive gestures hold sway. The responsible artist seeks to illuminate and remind the witness through a presentation of kindness stripped to its core.1 The Siege of Sarajevo 1992- 1995 was the longest recorded in modern history, one in which Robert Donia explains ‘nearly every Sarajevan became part of an epic struggle to preserve a treasured way of life’.2 This treasured way of life was threatened by Bosnian Serb nationalists who surrounded the city, cut off all electricity, water and food supplies and ‘resurrected the medieval siege in the service of modern nationalism’.3 The violent and unforgiving attack on Sarajevo’s once multi-ethnic and religiously plural culture was all in the name of an imagined plight; that of the aggressor’s concept of a greater Serbian nation which originally inhabited the land. The irony of the attack on not only Muslim and Croat, but also Serbian people was in its utilisation of religion. The conflict in Yugoslavia marked a turning point in attitudes to that which was important in normal life, and that which was a basic human instinct. Prior to the war, Sarajevo had been famous for being a multi-ethnic and cultural hub, a rare place in the former Yugoslav Republic where all three of the major religious/ ethnic groups lived in harmony. Theatre and performance proved themselves to be highly withstanding in the battle for normality. When nothing else was left, no water, food or electricity and a test on humanity was failing, art remained. CHAPTER ONE- THEATRE WITHIN THE SIEGE OF SARAJEVO The Siege of Sarajevo began in April 1992, as Serbian criminals surrounded the 1 Caridad Svich Theatre in crisis? Living memory in an unstable time in Theatre in Crisis? Performance manifestations for a new century ed Maria M. Delgado and Caridad Svich (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002) p. 16 2 Robert J. Donia Sarajevo- A Biography (London: Hurst and Company, 2006) p. 287 3 Ibid., p 289 1. city with heavy artillery and trapped its citizens within its confines. James Thompson stated that ‘The people and places of war demand responses that are specific, multiple and interconnected. Cultural practices that rise to the challenges spreading web-like from these moments are different and interdependent’.4 Indeed, the siege of Sarajevo prompted an immediate cultural reaction from its citizens, many of whom jumped at a chance to work in such a torrid time. During the siege, the most important functioning theatre companies were the Kamerni Teatar and SARTR, both located in the centre of the city in theatres which were once artistic hubs. As Thompson’s quote outlines, there was inevitably a dividing line between those involved in theatrical and performative endeavours in this time; namely, in the form of their work. There were those who wanted an out right physical protest against the horrors inflicted upon them, and those who wanted to take a more personal and analytical approach to what they were experiencing. However, despite differences in form, the aims of resistance, escapism and urgency to continue life with a certain normality were prevalent in all. Thompson’s statement that ‘In a period of chaotic and frequently appalling violence, there is a desperate search for structure’5 is very relevant; art was one of the remaining forms in which people could occupy themselves in a structured manner, and feel as if they were healing their traumatic burden of the situation. A focus on the most predominant productions, Hair: Sarajevo AD 19926, Bomb Shelter7 and Greatest Hits of the Surrealists8 will highlight these differences and the various ways in which the artists grasped the challenge they faced. The Kamerni Teatar, located in the centre of the city was also in the centre of an artistic uprising; in November 1992 the 1960’s protest musical Hair was revived with a Sarajevan twist. Whereas the original was in retaliation to conscription during the Vietnam War, Hair Sarajevo was current and specific to a conflict which was directly on the Sarajevan’s doorsteps; even taking part was a terrible risk on their lives. Slavko Pervan, the director, wanted to take this intense approach, ‘I had to protest, I was 4 James Thompson Digging up Stories- Applied Theatre, Performance and War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002) p. 239-40 5 Ibid., 38 6 From now on referred to as Hair Sarajevo 7 Author’s translation from original Bosnian Skloniste 8 Author’s translation from original Bosnian Top Lista Nadrealista 2. besieged, I didn’t know how to fight, but what did I know? How to make theatre. Theatre of resistance’.9 His choice of Hair was made carefully as he elaborates, I thought it was ridiculous at first. Even during Peace [Hair] would be a difficult feat to tackle… I thought about it for a long time and realised that Hair was the real deal. Anti- war. We adapted the musical, so that it belonged to what was happening in Sarajevo…we were all really doing it out of the need to do something. That is the ultimate message of the piece. Protest. Staunch resistance to the people killing the city, for a reason I cannot to this day take seriously at all.10 Due to the impossible requirements of the production in a city without electricity, it was adapted and shortened to fit its own cause. The love story was kept but rewritten, with ‘make love not war once again’11 as the ultimate message of the show. The siege was a surprise to many, and Pervan goes further, ‘In that context, we didn’t believe that war was actually going to happen, so that when it did, we had nothing’.12 However, Hair was a spectacle, the set made from scraps and anything people could lay their hands on, recycling parts of their previous lives to make do for the show, using electricity generators to power a small band of musicians and performing in the day for natural light.13 The limitations imposed on Pervan were huge in terms of casting the show, ‘I began gathering those of us who stayed in Sarajevo. It is interesting that the best artists, in all realms, are the ones who stayed’.14 To what extent this is the case is questionable; perhaps the power of their decision to stay in the city heightened their feeling of belonging to such a cause. It is indeed true that those who stayed threw themselves into the spirit of the production, in order to make it as enjoyable and as alive as possible. Perhaps Pervan means that the better artists were better people in the sense that the loyalty they had towards their threatened city was resolute. News of the show was certainly received, as The Kamerni Teater was bombed 9 Author’s interview conducted with Slavko Pervan 18/02/09, Sarajevo, translated from Bosnian 10 Author’s interview conducted with Slavko Pervan 18/02/09, Sarajevo, translated from Bosnian 11 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x86ljm_kosa-hair-sarajevo-part-1_creation 12 Interview conducted with Slavko Pervan 18/02/09, Sarajevo, translated from Bosnian 13 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x86ljm_kosa-hair-sarajevo-part-1_creation 3. twice. Was this success in Pervan’s eyes? Yes, because it obviously provoked a reaction from those it was aimed at, and such a reaction that the show was condemning. A performer described ‘It is simply an example of what we can do, with those animals shooting at us’.15 Indeed, as critic Gradimir Gojer postulates, ‘at the premier we all dressed up, our best suits, some wore ties… everyone was dancing and the room fell into a collective trance, one against evil. To beat that evil through art’.16 The notion that this art was a spiritual force against the Serbian army may have been in itself an imagined one, but its power to give people hope was more than real. Gojer’s comment defines the urgent need people had for structure and normality; even in the siege they made an effort to dress up and go to the theatre. People dressing up were doing so in order to pretend that this was still an important thing to do. This pretence could be seen as a performance in itself, thus raising the thought that performance was the crux to resistance and survival in the City; performing rituals of normal life made people feel as if perhaps, for those moments, the siege was not taking place. Pervan seems reluctant in revealing what inspired his choice to put on a musical, ‘This might not bode well with everyone, but my inspiration was Partisan Theatre. They would make theatre in the worst conditions…Partisan Theatre, we’re hungry, barefoot, naked, but that’s what we have left; Soul’.17 The subject of the Partisans is somewhat of a taboo in Bosnia today, and fear of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time is ever present in a still reeling society, ‘You are recording me. You could send it off to the police and I would be in trouble for telling the truth’.18 Looking back for inspiration to such a group of people and also to the situation they had utilised theatre in - World War Two - must have urged Pervan on even more.