President Stevo Pendarovski yesterday evening in the Drama Theater in Skopje addressed the ceremonial opening of the 30th International Meetings of the Students of the Academies and Faculties of Dramatic Arts SKOMRAHI 2022, held under the auspices of the President of the Republic of North Macedonia in the period 1 – 5 November.
Dear friends, students, professors, artists,
You know better than I that the theater is the field of the most ancient articulation of every human virtue or flaw, of his deepest emotions, pain, joy or sorrow. The theater stage is the space where each of us faces the truth about ourselves and the world, no matter how much unpleasant it may be.
Since ancient times, the task of the dramatic situation has been to show an attitude and to position itself either towards the social anomalies or towards the weak points of human intimacy. However, the most important function of this specific art is to interpret the world as an open process with numerous nuances in it, as well as to ask the questions in a critical discourse, which the political scene, unlike the scene of the theater, often wants to remain silent on.
That is the essential, emancipating role of the theater – to express views without fear and, through the current aesthetic forms, to be the voice of the marginalized. The masters of dramatic actions in the theater know how to professionally articulate key civilizational themes, because they are constantly searching for the right way to open the issues, which is far more important than to resolve them.
Exactly in this context, the three-decade existence of our SKOMRAHI is extremely important as an international gathering of academies and faculties of dramatic arts. In these times, which are often characterized by unreasonable divisions between us, by the loss of the substrate of what is called an organic, creative community, SKOMRAHI with its concept, in which the different cultures and creative potentials of Europe come together, is necessary.
Dynamic, similar to traveling artists, who centuries ago knew that resistance and mobile nomadic spirit are the key to the survival of the community, our creative zone called SKOMRAHI, will last, I believe, to be a stimulus for the creation of innovative theatrical, dramatic and acting language. A language that will continue to follow the ancient definitions, which indicate that the essence of the dramatic action is confrontation and dialogue through which we climb a step higher in the search for freedom.
The recently deceased theater director, Peter Brook, said: “Being with the mainstream is not very difficult – the tide is powerful and it is easy to let it sweep us along with it. But, going against the tide is very difficult.”
Dear friends,
I wish you days of creative exchange and artistic confrontation, and, of course, sailing against the tide.
Thank you.
