Borisav Matić: 25th Mladi Levi Festival starts in Ljubljana

August 19, 2022
SEE stage magazine

 

25th Mladi Levi Festival opens in Ljubljana

article by Borisav Matić

The 25th edition of the international Mladi Levi (Young Lions) festival will take place in Ljubljana from 19th to 27th August, showcasing performing arts that often cross disciplinary boundaries and delve into the intersection with music, visual arts, lectures and discursive programs.

Mladi levi is organized by Bunker, a Slovenian non-profit organization that produces and presents contemporary theatre and dance performances, but also organizes different educational and discursive programs. Bunker works both in Slovenia and internationally to create artistic programs that deal with important social, ecological, political and cultural issues.

Mladi levi has functioned as a hub – organized at the end of August every year since 1998 – where artists from different parts of the world could meet, present their work, cooperate and create at least a temporary community. This year’s festival will see works from artists that come from Thailand (Wichaya Artamat), Chile (Ébana Garín, Luis Guenel), Mexico (Daniel Alberto Victoria), Serbia (Škart, Bojana Robinson), Croatia (Siniša Labrović), Italy (Alessandro Sciarroni) , Germany (Julian Hetzel), Belgium (Dag Taeldeman & Andrew Van Ostade, Silke Huysmans & Hannes Dereere) and Slovenia (Katja Legin, Neja Tomšič, Tanja Radež & Nada Žgank, Petra Varl, Jaka Železnikar).

Besides the performances that occupy a central place at the festival, a special focus will be given to the presentation of a Bunker-led pan-European project Create to Connect -> Create to Impact. As the website of the project notes, CtC -> CtI is “a joint effort of sixteen European cultural and research organizations to create impact in the society in terms of change, innovation, empowerment and emancipation through building powerful and long-lasting connections of artists, cultural operators, researchers and audience.” The project lasted from 2018 and will end at the end of August 2022. Thus, the presentation event at the Mlade levi festival on 25th August is organized as a closing event of the project. Among other activities, the new publication Social impact in art and culture: the diverse lives of a concept, edited by Iva Kosmos and Martin Pogačar, will be presented as part of the closing event.

The majority of the festival’s program will be presented at the Old Power Station in Ljubljana, a late-19th-century building and a hallmark of industrial architecture. The building is used for artistic purposes since the 1990s.

The symbolic price of tickets for performances and events is 1 Euro.

For more information of the programme, visit the Bunker’s website.

Original article was published in SEEstage magazine.