The play for young people “Better Field or Playing the Republic” directed by Aleksandra Jelić and written by Bogdan Španjević will be premiered on Wednesday, June 15, at 8 pm in the Little Theatre “Duško Radović”.
ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE
Director and host of the drama process: Aleksandra Jelić
Text: Bogdan Španjević
Expert associate on stage and costume design: Filip Jevtić
Choreographer: Miona Petrović
Animations: Darko Duckin
Music: Moby *
*With the consent of mobygratis.com for non-commercial projects
Roles **:
Jovan Đokić
Andjela Zlatkovic
Dejana Krilić
Dragica Obućina
Sonja Stevanović
Ema Klopić
Predrag Bilić
Jana Zamečnik
Milica Gračanin
** Students of the Elementary School “Ilija Bircanin”, Zemun Polje
OFF voices:
NARRATOR
Vladislava Djordjević
THE VOICE
Damjan Kecojević
Recommended age: 12+
Little Theatre “Duško Radović”, Elementary School “Ilija Birčanin” and the organization “ApsArt” were in charge of the implementation of the project “Democracy and Puppetry” in Serbia. The first workshops will start in October 2021, and the play “Better Field or Playing the Republic” directed by Aleksandra Jelić, based on the text by Bogdan Španjević, which was created as a result of a dramatic process of joint design with 6th and 8th grade students of Ilija Birčanin Elementary School.
The project of the interactive theater play “Better Field” is based on the concept of video game simulation. It is known that games that simulate the development of society (eg Civilization), city development (eg SimCity) or world building (eg MineCraft) are very popular among the young population. We use the fact that such games are widely known and widely accepted as a research platform for our theater project in which children will create their own play that will have elements of video games, and the audience will be an active decision-maker.
The goal of this “game”, and in fact the dramatic text that emerged from the dramatic process with children, is to bring them closer to the idea of building a society / world based on law, democracy and human rights – through the concept of video games.
In that video game, children, as a kind of characters from the game – build their imaginary world by solving one challenge at a time, which is set before the citizens in the right society. In this way, the characters in the play actually offer answers to problems and questions that children, if they have not already, will certainly encounter during their growing up and life in society. Thus, this play has both entertaining and educational character, as it opens a controversy on issues important for the functioning of any society.
It is especially important that the audience actively participates in the construction of that “world” or society by voting. Each scene / level in the game ends with the audience voting on the issue that was addressed in that scene. Based on the votes of the audience, the world or the society that is being built on the stage will get a different shape and outcome.
In that way, this play is actually a small school for practicing democracy, which in practice shows how our decisions shape both our life and the society in which we live.
