The League of Time

BADco. "League of Time" (2009), Photo: Lovro Rumiha

BADco. "League of Time" (2009), Photo: Lovro Rumiha

A literature that is alive does not live by yesterday’s clock, nor by today’s, but by tomorrow’s. It is a sailor sent aloft: from the masthead he can see foundering ships, icebergs, and maelstroms still invisible from the deck. He can be dragged down from the mast and put to tending the boilers or working the capstan, but that will not change anything: the mast will remain, and the next man on the masthead will see what the first has seen.
In a storm, you must have a man aloft. We are in the midst of a storm today, and SOS signals come from every side. Only yesterday a writer could calmly stroll along the deck, clicking his Kodak (genre); but who will want to look at landscapes and genre scenes when the world is listing at a forty-five-degree angle, the green maws are gaping, the hull is creaking? Today we can look and think only as men do in the face of death: we are about to die- and what did it all mean? How have we lived? If we could start over again, from the beginning, what would we live by? And for what? What we need in literature today are vast philosophic horizons- horizons seen from mastheads, from airplanes; we need the most ultimate, the most fearsome, the most fearless ‘Why?’ and ‘What next?’.

Yevgeny Zamyatin, 1923

The 2009 BADco. production presents a complex operation in time. At the beginning of the new century we ask ourselves: What happens to all future times whose time has run out? What happens when the founding social narratives no longer offer the key to understanding reality?

Embark on a theatrical journey through parables of the future and recapitulations of the past, through an archeology of utopian tales and visions never realized. Kafka’s parallel world of an imaginary “Amerika” he never had the chance to visit, the futuristic vision of Mayakovski’s “The Flying Proletarian”. A flight two hundred years into the future during which you will meet the surviving members of the League of Time: an ufologist, a pilot, a man-machine and a cosmonaut, get a bird’s eye view of the Red Square, hear slogans of biocosmists and peak into American psychedelic art.

Authors: Pravdan Devlahović (performance and choreography), Ivana Ivković (dramaturgy), Ana Kreitmeyer (performance and choreography), Tomislav Medak (dramaturgy and performance), Goran Sergej Pristaš (directing), Nikolina Pristaš (choreography), Zrinka Užbinec (performance and choreography).

Collaborators: Helge Hinteregger i Jasmin Dasović (sound design), Tor Lindstrand (set design), Daniel Turing (software), Silvio Vujičić (costume design), Alan Vukelić (light design).

Translators: Marina Antolković, Alisa Terekhova, Marina Miladinov

Company manager: Lovro Rumiha

Based on texts and works by Franz Kafka, Vladimir Mayakovski, Aleksei Kapitonovich Gastev, Július Koller, Georg Schoelhammer, Factory of the Excentric Actor, U.S.C.O., Konstantin Melnikov, Joe Meek, Stano Filko, Owen Hatherley

Coproducers: BADco., Drugo more, Croatian National Theater Ivan pl. Zajc
Supported by: Zagreb City Council for Education, Culture and Sport; Ministry of Culture of Republic of Croatia
The production was prepared at the Culture Center Novi Zagreb and Prostor+ in Rijeka.

The League of Time is commissioned by Black/North SEAS, an initiative of Intercult, Sweden and is funded by EU Culture 2007-2013.

Premiere: July 2009 in Rijeka, Croatia

BADco. "League of Time", photo: Ranka Latinović
BADco. “The League of Time”, photo: Ranka Latinović

Živa književnost ne živi prema jučerašnjem satu, niti prema današnjem, nego prema sutrašnjem. Ona je mornar kojega su poslali gore, na katarku, odakle vidi kako tonu lađe, gleda ledene sante i opake struje koje se ne razlikuju sa palube. Mogu ga skinuti s katarke i privesti kotlovima, u utrobu broda, ali to ne mijenja ništa: drugi će s katarke vidjeti isto što je vidio prvi.
Mornar je na katarci potreban u buri. Sada je bura, s raznih se strana čuje SOS. Jos se juče pisac mogao mirno šetati palubom, škljocati kodakom (svagdan); ali kome će pasti na pamet da na filmu gleda krajolike i žanr-slike kada se svijet naherio za 45°, zijaju zelena ždrijela, a paluba trešti? Sada se može gledati i misliti samo kao pred smrt: eto, umrijet ćemo – i što će se desiti? kako smo živjeli? ako ćemo živjeti ispočetka, na novi način – onda čime, radi čega? Sada su književnosti potrebna golema, katarkasta, avionska, filozofska obzorja, potrebno je posljednje, najstrašnije, najhrabrije “Zašto?” i “A što će biti dalje?”

Jevgenij Zamjatin, 1923.

Predstava Liga vremena (2009.) kazališne skupine BADco. otvara kompleksnu operaciju u vremenu. Početkom novog stoljeća, postavljamo si pitanja: Što je sa svim prošlim budućim vremenima čije je vrijeme isteklo? Što kada temeljni društveni narativi više ne nude ključ za stvarnost?

Otisnite se na kazališno putovanje kroz parabole budućnosti i rekapitulacije prošlosti, kroz arheologiju utopijskih priča i nikada ostvarenih vizija. Kafkin paralelni svijet imaginarne “Amerike” koju nije imao prilike posjetiti i futurističku viziju “Letećeg proletera” Majakovskog. Let dvjesto godina u budućnost tijekom kojeg ćete upoznati preživjele članove Lige vremena: ufologa, pilota, čovjeka-mašinu i kozmonauta, panoramski preletjeti preko Crvenog trga, čuti parole biokozmista i zaviriti u američku psihodeličnu umjetnost.

Autori: Pravdan Devlahović (izvedba i koreografija), Ivana Ivković (dramaturgija), Ana Kreitmeyer (izvedba i koreografija), Tomislav Medak (dramaturgija i izvedba), Goran Sergej Pristaš (režija), Nikolina Pristaš (koreografija), Zrinka Užbinec (izvedba i koreografija).

Suradnici: Helge Hinteregger i Jasmin Dasović (oblikovanje zvuka), Tor Lindstrand (scenografija), Daniel Turing (software), Silvio Vujičić (kostimi), Alan Vukelić (oblikovanje svjetla).

Prijevod: Marina Antolković, Alisa Terekhova, Marina Miladinov

Producent: Lovro Rumiha

Temeljeno na tekstovima i radovima Franza Kafke, Vladimira Majakovskog, Alekseja Kapitonovića Gasteva, Júliusa Kollera, Georga Schoelhammera, Fabrike ekscentričnog glumca, U.S.C.O., Konstantina Melnikova, Joea Meeka, Stana Filka, Owena Hatherleya

Koprodukcija: BADco., Drugo more, HNK Ivana pl. Zajca
Podržali: Ured za obrazovanje, kulturu i sport Grada Zagreba, Ministarstvo kulture Republike Hrvatske
Predstava je pripremana u Centru za kulturu Novi Zagreb i Prostoru+ u Rijeci.

Liga vremena je naručena od platforme Black/North SEAS, inicijative Intercult, Švedska i podržana od programa Kultura Evropske zajednice 2007-2013.

Premijerno izvedeno na Riječkim ljetnim noćima u srpnju 2009.

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Mayakovsky's Theatre of Operations

Mayakovsky's Theatre of Operations

To download an early work-in-progress slideshow presentation of our production The League of Time click here (PDF, 5 MB).

Ukoliko želite pogledati prezentaciju tema predstave Liga vremena iz perioda nastanka predstave, kliknite ovdje (PDF, 5 MB).

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