The seventh International festival of high school theatre was opened tonight at the Sarajevo Youth Theatre with an opening ceremony and the play “Romeo and Juliet” by the Youth Theatre DADOV from Belgrade.
Juventafest will host more than 120 participants from Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina who will introduce themselves to the audience, but also through socializing and work, meet various theatre models and attend workshops in dancing, mask, puppetry and music. From this year Juventafest is proud to announce the cooperation with the Association “Living with Down Syndrome”, thereby becoming part of the movement for inclusion of young people with developmental difficulties, who will also participate in the workshops during the Festival.
After the speech by Jasna Diklić, Juventafest director, a letter of appreciation was presented to Asja Krsmanović, a longtime programme selector, who entrusted the responsibility to young and promising dramatist Emina Omerović.
- Dramatic arts give unlimited freedom of personality. Artist feels the need to prevent any arbitrariness and reject any coincidence. Acting is a complex unity of the role’s and actor’s personality. Propose your ideas through your attitudes and your thoughts, and express your problems and your vision of the world in theatre. Be brave and don’t give up – said Diklić and announced the appearance on stage of the young talented people from Serbia.
The play “Romeo and Juliet” directed by Vladan Đurković, based on the text of William Shakespeare, was rewarded with thunderous applause, proving that it justified all expectations of the audience at the Sarajevo Youth Theatre, but also gave a great task to other festival plays. With the other five plays, until the closing of the Festival on September 9, “Romeo and Juliet” is in the race for the Grand Prix and Special Jury Award of this year’s Juventafest, with the jury consisting of dramatist and drama pedagogue Minja Bogavac, actress Maja Izetbegović and producer and drama pedagogue Oliver Jović.
It is worth pointing out that the entrance to all the plays is free and that an exhibition of poster proposals for this year’s Juventafest was set up in the foyer of the Sarajevo Youth Theatre, whose authors are the students of the second year of the the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo, Department of Graphic Design.
On the second day of the Festival, September 6, two plays will be performed: “Iphigenia” on the stage of the Center for Culture and Youth in Municipality Center Sarajevo, OU Jelićeva, at 5pm, and the play “Things I Want to Say But Never Will”, at the Sarajevo Youth Theatre, starting at 8pm.
