Theatre DAH and the Open Air Market

18-5-11 @ 10:05

Hotel Royal, Belgrade

Sorry about the delay in posting…it’s been an interesting two days.   

Soon after my last update, I went down to a wonderful breakfast.  This is not your American continental breakfast, this is like a home cooked meal!  Hard-boiled eggs, omelets, bread, orange juice, Turkish coffee, kijmak (basically butter cream spread), salted cheese, sausages…it was fantastic! Keegan, Lucas, Lynnette, Sam, and I went for an exploratory walk around the city until we were to meet as a large group around 10:15 for more exploration.  It was nice to just explore the city for awhile, and I’m starting to pick up on landmarks a little bit – between the two walks, I knew pretty much where I was in relation to the Hotel the entire time.

After some time, we boarded a bus to another part of the city to visit Theatre DAH’s location.  They are located in part of an elementary school and to Americans would be fairly poor off in their theatrical and administrative facilities.  They assured us, however, that they have more now than they ever would have dreamed of.  They have great pride in being one of the few theatres to have never taken any government money.  

As I was talking with one of the ladies who had came to Coe this past fall on their United States tour (that Dennis had helped to arrange), she jested that maybe I could come and rewire their facility and install some new equipment…She really got me thinking though.  These ladies (and Yugi, a fairly recent addition to their ensemble) are some of the finest, nicest people I have had the pleasure to meet.  They are now in their twentieth year of operation.  This entire time they have been speaking about the unsung atrocities that no one else would.  The Serbian people, partially because of laws and sanctions in place by their own government, have a habit of not speaking against the government or atrocities committed in front of their faces.  I’m not talking of government conspiracies.  I’m talking of the events everyone knows of – Goli Otak during Tito’s reign for example.

Goli Otak was a bare island that Stalinists were sent to after World War 2 to be reformed into “Tito-ists.”  Remember, these weren’t the opposition to Tito’s government – these were the men who fought for a united communist Yugoslavia right beside Tito.  These men had sworn allegiance to him.  But Tito was Stalin’s right hand man in the Balkans.  By swearing allegiance to Tito these men had indirectly, but more importantly, sworn their allegiance to Stalin.  Everyone knew someone who had been to Goli Otak, no one was allowed to speak of it.  Ever.  And that’s not uncommon throughout Tito and Milošević’s reigns.

Anyways, twenty years ago the women of DAH decided they had to speak out, and so they started doing street performances.  They are a movement based company, so what you see is not always what’s being spoken about…there were still sanctions in place about content.  But everyone, performers and audience alike, knew exactly what was being said.

Fast-forward to now.  I think it would be great to help Theatre DAH in any way I could.  If I could scrape the money together – grants or what not…anything! – I would love to come back and give them more ability to control the mood and atmosphere of their small theatre (we’ll go into what the space is like at a later date – when I’m participating in their workshop).

We left DAH to their meeting – they are in the middle of planning their twentieth anniversary festival – and wandered around another part of Belgrade for the afternoon.  Dennis took us to a burger joint, Mc Dek’s, which smelled wonderful.  They made huge burgers and only charged 200 din (about $3.00).  Keegan and I wandered up the street further to an open air market and browsed around the fresh fruits and vegetables before deciding on purchasing broccoli, strawberries, and cashews for lunch.  It was an interesting experience to purchase from people who speak no English but very useful.  I realized I need to go back and spend some time with numbers…and learn how to ask them to repeat their words slowly! 

We met back up with the group before all heading to the market for a while. After spending time in the market, we went back to Hotel.  We were going to meet Katie in the Hotel lobby around four for a tour of Kalemegdan.  I went and took a nap briefly before we headed out on our next adventure.