The unique international Shakespeare Festival is held from July 1 to 5 with the support of UNIQA Insurance and this year is a program of contemporary world productions of Shakespeare’s works. The ninth Shakespeare Festival re-enacts how others play Shakespeare, why they play it, what they find in it, and then where our theater is in all this.
Within the festival, in two theatrical halves, a total of 7 plays will be shown, namely – 4 plays in July and 3 in October.
Theaters from Italy, Montenegro and Norway will present themselves to the audience in the ambience of the Villa Stanković residence, on the main festival stage. For the first time since its founding, the Shakespeare Festival opens with a dance performance “Hamlet” performed by the internationally recognized Italian dance troupe imPERFECT DANCERS COMPANY under the artistic direction of its founders Valter Mateini and Ina Broek (former dancers of the Monte Carlo Ballet). repertoire represented around the world: in North America (Canada and USA), South America (Colombia, Brazil and Uruguay), Africa (Tanzania), Asia (Israel and Turkey), Europe (Spain, France, Croatia, Germany, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Macedonia, Armenia …). The play “Hamlet” has been a guest at many important world festivals – Hong Kong Shakespeare Festival, Monaco Dance Forum, Gdansk Shakespeare Festival „
“Tamed Mountain”, one of Shakespeare’s most famous comedies directed by the famous Macedonian director Dejan Projkovski, whose successful interpretations of Shakespeare are well known and will be presented to our audience on the second day of the festival.
The Shakespeare Festival in Serbia is one of the initiators of the large international project of the European Shakespeare Festival Network ShakeSPHERE 2021/2022. After an open invitation to the world theater community for the most original artistic concept of Shakespeare’s work, the European network of Shakespeare Festival received 42 applications from 25 countries.
By the decision of the international jury, the project “Romeo and Juliet and other catastrophic loves” from Norway was declared the best, which earned the right to participate in Gdansk Shakespeare Festival (Poland) / Craiova Shakespeare Festival (Romania) / Helsingor Hamlet Scenen Festival (Denmark) and Shakespeare Festival Serbia.
The first half of the Shakespeare Festival closes with the play “Hamlet – Records of the Crimes of a Monarchy”, by the famous director Livija Pandur, performed by the Marin Držić Theater from Dubrovnik, as one of the most significant achievements in Croatian theater this year. Critics there describe it as “a play that hints at the beginning of World War III and depicts a nuclear explosion”.
The second part of the Shakespeare Festival, scheduled for October, will be marked by the famous British theater troupe Forced Entertainment, which performs all of Shakespeare’s works. In the play “Collected Works: With Shakespeare at the Table”, six performers create concise versions of all of Shakespeare’s plays using a collection of everyday objects for the characters on stage, represented by an ordinary table. This sensational project of Forced Entertainment, in which 36 Shakespeare plays are performed for several days in front of a total of 1,800 visitors, has participated in almost all major world theater festivals: Berliner Festspiele, Epidaurus Festival Athens, Royal Shakespeare Company World Shakespeare Festival… as well as in London, New York Chicago, Paris, Amsterdam, Zurich, Frankfurt, Barcelona, Los Angeles … Articles about the project Complete Works: Top Table Shakespeare have been published in the New York Times, The Guardian…
The Shakespeare Festival is coming to an end with the premiere of the play “Macbeth” directed by Nikita Milivojevic. The Serbian National Theater, the Belgrade Drama Theater, the Budva City Theater Festival and the Novi Sad Theater are also participating in this new ambitious production of the Shakespeare Festival.
The accompanying program is intended for the younger festival audience. After performing the play “Hamlet”, the Imperfect Dancers Company will hold a workshop at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, and the Vladimir Jevtović Reading Theater will perform the play “Romeo and Juliet” for high school students in the municipality of Indjija in October.
The program of the 9th Shakespeare Festival was announced by Nikita Milivojević, director and founder of the festival, in the fairytale ambience of the wine studio “Šapat” in Novi Slankamen.
“This year’s Shakespeare Festival will also remind us that Shakespeare’s world is the real world, the same one we live in. In it, we rediscover: “except the unreal – nothing is real.” That is why we are older again, at least in a year, and Shakespeare is younger again.”
On behalf of the institutions that supported this event, Jelena Dobrović Bojanović, Assistant Provincial Secretary for Culture, Public Information and Relations with Religious Communities, Nemanja Milojević, representative of the Municipality of Indjija and Sonja Marić, director of the UNIQA Insurance Brand and Communications, also spoke.
“I am glad that UNIQA and the Shakespeare Festival continue to play together on the authentic international stage of the magnificent Villa Stankovic. As a company for which support for culture is one of the important determinants of socially responsible business and an investment in a secure wealth of spirit, UNIQA has proudly supported the Shakespeare Festival for nine years. We are glad that we contribute to the festival growing with our support from year to year, bringing us the best performances from domestic and world productions every time. This year, too, we will enjoy the timeless works of the greatest playwright together, as we are used to – under the open sky. We are looking forward to another unforgettable edition of the Shakespeare Festival, which through new, different and unexpected performances, reaffirms that with Shakespeare “except the unreal – nothing really is”, said Sonja Marić, Director of Brand and Communication UNIQA Insurance
International Shakespeare Festival In 2019, the European Festival Network officially included it on the list of the most important on the Old Continent. Designed to authentically portray time and cherish the memory of the world’s greatest playwright by performing in the open air, the Shakespeare Festival has been held from the beginning with the support of the Provincial Government, the Municipality of Indjija, the Ministry of Culture, the City of Novi Sad and UNIQA Insurance.
The founding of the Shakespeare Festival in Serbia was initiated by director Nikita Milivojevic after the premiere of his play “Henry VI” at the famous Globe Theater in London in May 2012. In addition to wanting to discover Shakespeare in a new way, Nikita Milivojevic was guided by the idea of making the state residence, Villa Stankovic – an exceptional space closed to the public in Serbia, an attractive cultural and tourist place.
Tickets for the 9th Shakespeare Festival can be purchased from June 17 at all Tickets.rs outlets