To each their own sweet poison

xx SIMONA SEMENIČ SEASON

Slovenia / 180'
Amfiteater Symposium

Simona Semenič, an overall theatre creator, is this year’s Prešeren Foundation Award winner for her work over the past two years. Finally, this playwright, performer, producer, pedagogue, writer, dramaturge and director conquered the main stages of Slovenian theatre production, her work convincing both the national committee for literature and the committee for performing arts. “Simona Semenič is one of the most important persons of modern Slovenian theatre,” wrote Petra Vidali in the Award press release. This year, the scientific symposium is therefore dedicated to Simona Semenič and all of her roles.

As a playwright and writer, Simona Semenič published two books in 2017, do you hear me? and Three plays, won three Slavko Grum Awards for best Slovenian play, and has been experiencing a respectable number of performances based on her texts at home and abroad. Petra Vidali defines the “main topics of her dramatics: discovering systematic, legal and tolerated violence, be it political, military, financial, or sexual that keeps repeating over and over again, in all eras and social strata; dissecting positions of power and subordination; giving voice to all that is supressed, withheld, or marginalised.” In her latest texts, Simona Semenič has been predominately developing an erotic vocabulary and tackling (female, yet we could also write contemporary) sexuality in a way that has never been seen in Slovenian dramatics before.

Head of the symposium: Maja Šorli

Free entrance.

Organising symposium committee: Mojca Jan Zoran, Blaž Lukan, Mateja Pezdirc Bartol, Gašper Troha

Organization: Academy of theatre, radio, film and television of the University of Ljubljana, Slovenian Theatre Institute, Amfiteater journal in co-operation with the International Festival of Contemporary Arts City of Women and the Department for Slovenian Studies at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana.