Njarabum

Eurokaz / Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb / Focus on Art and Science (EU)

directed by: Anja Maksić Japundžić

NJARABUM, directed by Anja Maksić, one of the most interesting directors of the emerging generation in Croatia, is a part of the international project Focus on Art and Science in the Performing Arts involving partners from five European countries. Funded by the Culture Programme 2007-2013 of the European Commission, Focus supports and documents artistic processes carried forward by a new generation of artists who engage in interdisciplinary forms.

NJARABUM is placed in a kitchen built on stage where the preparation of a spinach quiche triggers off hidden dreams and fantasies of a couple. The kitchen elements transform into a phantasmagoric world where She tries to get around her eating disorders by changing physiological laws of the body. Images of exceptional beauty and power unfold exploring the reasons behind distorted relation towards food and body, exposing anorexia and bulimia as illnesses of perfectionism, an attempt of reaching farfetched ideals (both of the physical and spiritual nature).

The textual material is based on the poetry and plays by Croatian author Radovan Ivšić. Recently deceased Radovan Ivšić took part in the surrealist movement and spent most of his life in Paris. As much as he distorts laws of linguistics and semiotics in his texts, the performance redefines theatrical syntax and imagery. 

Anja Maksić worked with Croatian actors (Leona Paraminski, Marko Makovičić, Ana Kraljević and Petar Cvirn) in a research process which has investigated a thin border between reality and inner states of consciousness.