Emiliia Dementsova: ‘Theatre today has a humanitarian function.’
5 июня, 2023 Театр

Emiliia Dementsova is critic who is currently living in Israel, shared her experiences of her time in Hungary for the Theatre Olympics, as well as her essential thoughts on the role of theatre today. The critic said she was impressed by her time in Budapest and promised herself that she would return to Hungary to see attend performances in the future.
– How was your time in Hungary? What were the first impressions of the 10th Theatre Olympics?
– Hungary welcomed me with torrential rain, which is a good sign. But the next day the elements of bad weather were replaced by the elements of theatre. The Theatre Olympics started as a real celebration, mixing many things that seemed incompatible: historical reconstruction and “new forms”, theatre and circus, official speeches and informal atmosphere, street theatre, equestrian procession, huge puppets, and the “figure of a man walking on a rope”. For me, this image performed by László Simet Jr. became the main symbol of the Theatre Olympics. I know that the message of this performance was to symbolically transmit the baton of cultural values and traditions to the “other shore,” to the other generation, but, as is often the case in art, the artist’s work embraced meanings that he did not try to put into it. I took this crossing of the Danube as a river of life as a metaphor for what the world is experiencing today, balancing over an abyss. It is the same balance, which can be achieved largely through art, that prevents one from falling into the abyss. That is why theatres continue to operate today even in places where shells are exploding and houses are collapsing. In spite of and in defiance of. The Theatre Olympics are a statement of victory of life over death, peace over war, hope over despair. It is also important that the first impressions, the very expectation of a happy event, which is usually better than the event itself, coincided with the final impressions. And it does not happen very often.
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