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LA MAMA SPOLETO OPEN 2014
"... A poetic evocation of daily life in a totalitarian regime, which to sometimes evokes moments of astonishing beauty and transcendence ...
Far from being humorless, the actors' performance to times injects a sense of comedy and irony into the tragic development...
Discover Love leaves a strong desire to learn more ..."
David Ng, LA Times
"... Should be seen from all those who want confirmation of the relevance and vitality of theater as an art form ...
The darkness is always more intense when the sun has been glimpsed."
Ben Brantley, The New York Times
Discover Love is a love story based on real events in the life of Irina Krasovskaya, whose husband Anatoly was kidnapped and killed for participating in Belarus' democracy movement. It took nine years to gather the materials used for Discover Love.
Irina Krasovskava's personal story is intertwined with similar ones of women in Asia, South America and Latin America who have had their husbands, wives, mothers or sisters taken away, killed or arrested for political reasons.
Special event dedicated to the memory of Vincenzo Cerami
Company winner of the Total Impact Prize, awarded by the Italian Cultural Institute, during the 2013 Edinburgh Festival
written from Nicolai Khalezin
with the collaboration of** Natalia Kaliada**
directed by Nicolai Khalezin
choreography by Olga Skvortsova
intro by MC Coppa
Starring from Maryna Yurevich, Aleh Sidorchyk/Denis Tarasenko, Pavel Radak-Haradnitski
musical fusion DJ Laurel (Laur Biarzhanin)
assistant director Svetlana Sugako
stage director Viktoryia Biran
producers Natalia Kaliada, Nicolai Khalezin
Belarus Free Theatre is undoubtedly one of the most interesting and committed theater groups on the European artistic scene, winner of numerous awards and prizes, including the Total Impact Prize, awarded by the Italian Cultural Institute, during the 2014 Edinburgh Festival, in memory of Vincenzo Cerami. The political commitment of their theater making is accompanied from an extraordinary technical and artistic ability and from a strong poetry that has moved audiences all over the world: a voice of dissent, out of the chorus, a voice fighting for democracy and art, fighting among a thousand difficulties and risks.
Founded to Minsk in 2005 at the behest of playwright and journalist Nikolai Khalezin and playwright Natalia Kolyada, who from then direct it together with director Vladimir Shcherban. The company has been forced to operate in clandestine conditions (it is the only cultural institution in the world to have received the French Republic's Human Rights Award) and since late 2010, following the unrest that broke out across the country after the re-election of dictator Aliaksandr Lucashenko, some of its members have been forced to flee and are currently living in Britain as political refugees. The group's remaining members in Belarus are still controlled by the police. With no fixed location, rehearsals and performances are held in total hiding, with training and performances directed via skype from London by director Vladimir Shcherban, in private apartments or in the countryside, where audiences are summoned by secret word of mouth.
The company has received support from leading figures in theater and international public life such as Vaclav Havel, Hillary Clinton, Mick Jagger, Ariane Mnouchkine, Mark Ravenhill, Jude Law, and Kevin Spacey. Of them Tom Stoppard said, "Compared to my theater, what I have seen is much closer to real theater, to its origins, to its purpose," and Harold Pinter, "Belarus Free Theatre gives us back the essence of theater."
"They bring back the fundamental meaning of theater."
Harold Pinter
"The work of the Free Theater is of an exceptionally high standard."
Mark Ravenhill