Our Final Day with the DAH Workshop

30-5-11

Hotel Royal, Belgrade

On our final day of the DAH workshops, we spent our time with Sanja in what used to be her dance studio – the main space was being ready for The Nastasijevića Code performance that evening, Crossing the Line for the next evening, and their 20^th Anniversary Festival which began around the time we were leaving Serbia.

Again with Sanja we did quite a bit of Drum work…I would say she worked us harder than anyone else – we kept going and going and going….and going.  She would periodically switch us over to different pieces of music before going back to the drum.   For the second half of the session we were given a dance bar for our set and told to create a scene utilizing it.  She gave everyone a prompt, mine was “Who are you?”   After we finished our individual scenes, Sanja worked them into different montages – similar to how DAH performances are created.  It was really cool!

In the afternoon, Dijana gave her lecture entitled, “The Role of the Artists in the Dark Times” which discusses DAH’s history, mission, and why it is imperative that artists speak out when no one else will.

That evening, we returned to DAH to watch their newest work The Nastasijevića Code.  The Nastasijevića Code is a unique piece of audience immersion theatre.  Patrons of the theatre, or Guests, are invited and led into the space.  It is supposed to evoke a sort of artistic soirée evening.   The Nastasijevićs were a group of three sisters and four brothers who lived together all their lives.  Only the youngest brother ever married and for that the rest of the family practically ostracized him.  Each member of the family was creatively gifted in some form or another.  You can probably find more information on Wikipedia or something if you’re interested.

After the performance, we went out the bar that Jugi recommened nearby.  After some struggles to find it, Jugi just decided to join us and show us in.  It was a great little spot with a nice patio out back.  A little after midnight, we decided to leave – the bar technically should have closed by then, but they hadn’t (If you had walked by the front entrance, you never would have known they were open).  As we were leaving, the owner of the establishment offered us food for the next evening in exchange for us coming back and drinking more…we weren’t about to deny free food and so we quickly agreed to return after Crossing the Line.

After leaving the bar, we returned to Rif for a second time and spent a good little while there, though only drinking a beer or two.  We decided to leave about an hour or so after we arrived.  Lucas, Liz, Britt, and I chose to walk back to the hotel since the busses were no longer running.  It was a fun walk, though a little longer than I expected.  No biggie – plus, on the way back I saw a poster advertising the dance party Lucas, Keegan, and I had attended the night before…so I grabbed one for each of us to have a souvenir.