45 Years of the Borštnik Festival (1966 – 2010)

Slovenian Theatre Museum and the Maribor Theatre Festival
15 October 2010, at 6.00pm // SNG HALL

Glimpses of the Past

Slovenian Theatre Museum and the Maribor Theatre Festival15. 10. 2010, 18.00avla SNG / SNG hallIf theatre, being the most vivid and immediate form of artand a paramount form of artistic expression, is indeed transient, then the selected exhibits cannot be but fleeting bits of memory, remnants of narratives scattered across the long years of this traditional event celebrating the art of theatre. The event originated in 1966 and started with a wish: "May the seed of the Week of Slovenian Theatre flower.' It is also an event that is all about people, those who shape the world of Slovenian theatre and culture: artists, playwrights, theatre and literary theorists, critics and scholars. Their deeds tell more about them than photos and written records: bold program conceptualizations, creative staging and performing, works of art honoured with Borštnik awards and Borštnik rings. This bounty of graphic and written records offers a glimpse into the forty-five years of the event originally called the Week of Slovenian Theatre (1966-1969) and then renamed the Borštnik Theatre Festival (1970-2010); since this year Maribor Theatre Festival. The vignettes and images of people who created it year after year amount to a portrait, even if only a fragmentary one, of this traditional event.The festival has always presented a fine opportunity forsocializing as well. The Slovenian theatre artists and the audience celebrating the art of theatre! And it has invariably been avant-garde, committed to experiment, study, research, and to challenging confrontations, fully meriting the unique status and meaning it has acquired over time.

Mojca Kreft
Dramaturge and museum consultant