Dajana Josipović: “The time of the starving artist is over”

Theatre director Dajana Josipović talks to Mina Milošević about her recent production of Dennis Kelly’s Orphans, ways of engaging with audiences and Otherness in Balkan theatre.

Dajana Josipović, a young director based in Belgrade, but originally from Bosnia and Herzegovina, for herself says that she’s the post-Dayton generation – the generation born after war – not responsible for it, but destined to make peace with the conflicted sides.

In her approach to theatre, you can see the attempt to speak clearly and carefully about the conflicting topics, so that the audience could really engage and that the didactic role of theatre could be fulfilled. She shows interest in socially engaged themes such as generational heritage of violence and nationalism as politics of hatred toward the Other.

She directed the play “Burial Pits” (“Rake”) by Sofija Dimitrijević in Belgrade Drama Theatre and has worked as a director’s assistant in 1984 and The Elephant Man, both in Belgrade Drama Theatre and both using expressionism as their style. She says she wants to explore different styles so that she could find the best way to present the truth clearly to the audience. In her latest show, The Orphans based on the text by Dennis Kelly, Dajana decided to use symbolic realism, but she says she wants to go to the next level of getting closer to reality and to explore documentary theatre.

We talked with her about her production of Dennis Kelly’s psychological thriller, Orphans – about a couple whose marriage is falling apart because the wife is manipulating her husband in order to protect her brother who stabbed a migrant in the street – which premiered at Teatar Vuk this April, and about the political subjects that this play brings, in the Balkan context, as well about her vision of engaged theatre and about her experience of being a young female director, from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Mina Milošević What made you want to direct this play?

Dajana Josipović: I chose Dennis Kelly’s Orphans because I was specifically interested in examining the position of classical dramaturgy in theatre, which is increasingly lacking, from a formal perspective. Regarding the themes it explores, what intrigued me deeply was the question of whether it is possible to remain humanistic towards the ideological differences of others when there is less and less possibility to separate your personal life from the context of the society in which it unfolds. We are witnessing great divides influenced by media manipulation. If communication was not healthy in families, and if political awareness was not sufficiently developed, today we have very polarized positions.

MM: How does this society raise children, and what can we say about it?

DJ: We live in a society at a moment of extreme apathy. On one hand, extreme apathy, and the other, extreme cultivation of narcissism and individualism. We too easily give up on others. And when everyone follows their logic under the guise of the right to freedom of thought, of course, under the guise of the right to authentic thought, you have people who cannot unite on anything.

MM: You said that we too easily give up on people, but is there a limit? Is there a point when we should give up?

DJ: I think what’s very interesting about staying is that you see the struggle to find a common point where you can satisfy your moral principles, but without disrupting the community. I think the moment when one should leave is the moment when they realize that staying means nullifying their personality.

MM: Do you think that xenophobia is a current problem in our region?

I think xenophobia, this fear of the stranger, the fear of the different, the fear of the Other with a big “O,” is very present in our society. After all, we always return to this context, we cannot escape it, no matter how much we would like to. It’s the war, the damned war of the 90s, in which people who grew up together clashed.

I think this space is generally fixed by fear. Fear of the influence of great powers that have always threatened this region. Fear of a neighbour who thinks differently. It’s fundamentally the fear of an inferior position against which you cannot do anything. The fear of the stranger is the fear of a lack of empathy towards you. The fear of the stranger is the fear that you won’t be visible. Because we are on the map of the world, this space, the former Yugoslavia, has adopted a character of inferiority.

And then this inferior position is transmitted even to the most delicate relationships in the microcosm and family. That’s why patriarchy is still so strong here. The need for respect that will not be questioned. Fundamentally, this is how we arrive at a society that is not free and will always nurture misogyny and homophobia. Because we are afraid of the influence of the different on what is, so to speak, ours, and thus, attacked. The question arises whether we can live not just multiculturally, i.e., side by side, but whether it’s possible to live transculturally, with each other.

MM: How does symbolic realism and classical dramatic text work in terms of engagement? Could you maybe compare it with other approaches closer to post-dramatic theatre?

DJ: I decided to work with the classical text in symbolic realism only for one reason: to win over the audience to listen to the theatre. Because I think what we are missing right now is the ability to listen.

Engagement is not just, in my opinion, something that we colloquially say—poking the audience in the eye. I think our Serbian audience, the audience of this space, specifically in Belgrade, but also throughout the region, is quite aware of the society we live in, a society that points a finger at them every day. You can see transparent tragicomedies and parodies in the parliaments of all the former Yugoslav republics. How can there be a greater theater than the National Assembly of Serbia or the National Assembly of the Republic of Srpska, or the parliament of Bosnia and Croatia?

Therefore, if we put on stage another situation of noise and shouting, with microphones that are primarily associated with the definition of engagement, as in “I’m telling you something,” we would gain nothing. It could be interesting in a society that is not brave and lacks a culture of dialogue.

That’s why realism and a certain intimacy, the chamber-like quality we explored, very cleverly captured a spark of the soul, calming the audience, drawing them into that apartment, that house, that space where serious things are discussed.

Of course, the move to symbolic realism is a move that enters the subconscious. For example, when it comes to the aesthetics of the play, the colours of the set, the costumes, etc., this creates a slight distance from reality, meaning if the content triggers something in me, the aesthetics just slightly distance me, creating a space for something new.

MM: What kind of engagement should happen behind the scenes?

The answer to this question is considered repertory thinking. I believe that it is the duty and responsibility of all the heads of theatre houses to think about the theatrical purpose and to make decisions about which play to stage, and why this director and this play or writer at this moment. We cannot just do whatever interests us; we cannot only do what seems right for us for different reasons. Most of our theatres are funded by the budget. Therefore, we, as theatre people, have a huge responsibility toward the people. If we only do something because it’s interesting to us, and if we assume that one audience will understand it while another won’t, and that those who don’t understand it don’t belong in the audience, then we have a problem. Theatre as a medium must be accessible.

MM: Regarding our labour rights and cultural workers…

DJ: Labour rights – what are those?

(Laughter)

The time of the starving artist is over. In today’s world, you need to be at peace with yourself and somehow come to terms with the fact that you can devote time to art. What’s the problem with this society, in the context of neoliberal capitalism? You have the right to exist only if the product you give has a higher monetary value than the value the state invests in you. That’s the rule. That’s why artists will always be on the edge of existence, cultural workers, professors, because the result of teaching may be visible only after 20 years, with a student who might have caught onto a humanitarian idea.

But since consumer society demands instant reactions, we have a problem with supporting people whose results we won’t see. Just like when you write, you might write for months, years, but you don’t see it. I only see the result of the performance.

MM: As a young director, have you had to fight against your own internalized patriarchy? And also with an external one?  What were the boundaries you had to break?

DM: Interesting question. I’m from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Internalized patriarchy, therefore internalized misogyny, is very present. It’s the inhibition of one’s emotions. I often remember that I realized very early that emotion was a sign of weakness.

Of course, this comes from upbringing, the social context, and ultimately the system of values. Being equal and worthy of fighting for my rights, fighting for equality, meant I had to be like a man. Rarely does a woman manage to be equally influential without embodying the archetypal male way of relating, speaking, communicating, and the energy of her approach and performance.

And then you see the examples of all the women who are either in politics (they are still not numerous, but let’s say they are), or in our profession, female directors necessarily operate in the so-called masculine principle. This means that I cannot risk that a feminine principle by itself would be equally influential, i.e., powerful. Maybe it could, but women don’t dare to go that route. Because the risk is too great. And so, it’s better to approach aggressively, to be assertive. Because we grew up under this myth of pounding your fist on the table. What does that mean? It means to scare, it means to pin something down, it means to shake things up, it means that every little thing on the table will be lifted, it will resonate if you hit the table with your fist, and there are cups there.

So, I remember being one of those girls who only hung out with boys, didn’t have time for topics like nail polish, who thought talking about things that aren’t considered “serious” was a waste of time. No, we should talk about politics, we should talk about more important things. What are those important things? Emotions were never considered important things.

Especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Emotion just wastes time. That space is incredible because you are born under the idea that you’ve already wasted time. You’re supposed to be a doctor or a lawyer, and that’s it. That’s the sure path to some sort of social position. If you dare to think about your dreams and pursue those dreams, you are gambling with your life. The price is… internal disharmony. The price is the constant position of a fighter. The price is constant re-evaluation. That’s where we have a problem. Without questioning the essential differences, the essential divisions, while we eagerly argue and clash over these divisions, we’ve been talking about. But we never question what made us this way.

Because we have to somehow survive. So, those who go down the personal path, who take the brave, crazy route to become something that society doesn’t expect from them, have a problem, and the price is being alone because, of course, you challenge and bear responsibility. You open your eyes, you strip away those veils that question something that shouldn’t be questioned.

And then you realize. There you are, you survive. Nothing happened, my hand didn’t fall off, I didn’t die, nothing happened. You just emit a different system of values. And now the goal is actually to strive to be aware of that and to be emotionally strong, not to let that kind of exclusion disturb you, and not to give in to the fear of loneliness in an extremely communicative society.

It’s strange to feel lonely in a culture that is very direct, sociable. We are that kind of culture. We love the café, we love to sit together, to talk, to laugh, etc. Then, when you feel a little lonely in that, it becomes a problem. But you shouldn’t be afraid of that. You should just look for people with whom you won’t hesitate to speak openly and live boldly, carrying what we call “different.” That’s the only difference, the second that we need to adapt to. And what belongs to us in the categorical notion of xenophobia as something foreign and different, that should be abolished. But what is truly different isn’t necessarily bad; it’s authentic. But our focus is on the “other,” the visible. That’s the problem. It’s the other skin colour, the other nationality, the other religion. The other gender. The other sex.

And as for us entering that “other” within ourselves, that’s something we won’t do.