The Walking Theory School for the Theory and Criticism at 42nd Bitef 08

THE WALKING CRITIQUE

Supported by Instituto Cervantes in Belgrade

Critique Workshop Moderator: Isabel de Naverán (Spain)
School editors: Ana Vujanović PhD, Miško Šuvaković, PhD.
School coordinator: Bojan Đorđev MA
Lecturers: Hans-Thies Lehmann, PhD., Miško Šuvaković PhD, Ana Vujanović PhD, et al.
Tutors: Ana Vujanović PhD, Miško Šuvaković PhD, Bojan Đorđev MA

School duration: 10-28 September 2008
Location: Magacin u Kraljevića Marka (regular daily work), Bitef – Festival Centre and performance venues (live reviews)
Working languages: Serbian (reviews, tutoring, lectures), English (lectures, workshop)

The Walking Critique School is an intensive three-week programme intended to: contribute to the development of the local critical discourse in the categories of international contemporary criticism and art theory; support the emergence of new, contemporary critics of the performing arts and provide space for their work; raise the quality of reception of programmes seen at Bitefand contemporary performing practices in general in the local context.

With these aims in mind, the school will bring together competent participants with some background in the theory and practice of contemporary performing arts without, however, too much room and opportunity to develop and work. They will be offered a free, high-level professional programme and help with their professional work and publication, and in return, we shall get their critical reflections and a generally more relevant discourse around Bitef.

The programme of the school will include a series of lectures, presentations and discussions with local and foreign experts in the field of the theory and critique of contemporary performing arts, a week-long workshop on review-writing, as well as intensive practice in the writing and publication of reviews.

Reviews generated in this manner are supposed to be truly the Walking Critique: self-reflexive critique taken out of the usual context to appear and be accessible everywhere and to everybody, moving from place to place, medium to medium, intercepting the audiences and the readers and surprising them with the places and ways of its appearance: from internet blogs and daily newspapers to live reviews and professional online chats at the sites of performances; interviews and various ad hoc contributions to the Bitef bulletin and TV chronicles, to the publication of an annual professional portfolio of the contemporary local scene. In line with this, all texts, lectures, interviews and other material generated in the school shall be copylefted and thus made accessible for further distribution and use.

The Walking Critique School follows up on Bitef Seminar of critique in 2007, as a part of a long-term theoretical-critical-educational programme of TkH – Forum for Contemporary Criticism. The Forum will endeavour to change the situation in local criticism through the school and similar initiatives and regular round tables in 2008-2009, and to create a critical mass for an adequate reflection of the contemporary performing arts practice. The programme addresses primarily the local context of reviews and critics as well as the practice and authors in the performing arts.

TkH platform for performing arts theory and practice: www.tkh-generator.net

Instituto Cervantes  in Belgrade at 42^nd Bitef 08

Since the workshop leader is Isabel de Naverán, who will share with Belgrade participants the experience of Spanish theatre criticism and current theoretical discourse, as well as a wider cultural milieu of her country, the Cervantes Institute joined Bitef in realization of the project The Walking Critique. 

Instituto Cervantes  in Belgrade began to work in February 2004, with a goal to integrate into the cultural life of the capital of what was then Serbia and Montenegro and in that way to promote Spanish language and Hispanic culture. This Centre, with headquarters in one of the most significant and most beautiful buildings in Belgrade pedestrian zone, serves as a reference for Spanish and Hispanic American culture in Belgrade and Serbia.