GRAND HOTEL

Dance performance choreographed by Aleksandar Ilic and directed by Aleksandar Nikolic

Premiere – Sunday, 28 March 2021 at 19:00 h
Revival – Thursday, 1 April 2021 at 19:00 h

The contemporary dance performance, titled The Grand Hotel, is being prepared at the Opera & Theatre Madlenianum and it will be premiered on the Large Stage on Sunday, 28 March 2021 at 19h, with the first revival on 1 April. This unusual performance, choreographed by Aleksandar Ilic and directed by Aleksandar Nikolic, does not illustratively follow the same named film, but deals with time, reappraisal of the characters closed in the hotel remises. The very situation we have experienced during days of isolation. What would happen if time and space could go backwards? If we missed an encounter and never met our best friend, father, mistress?  – wonders the play director, Aleksandar Nikolic. The music of the play is composed by Ana Krstajic, scenography by Zorz Drausnik and costumes by Aleksandra Karovic.  The cast are Mojca Majcen, Branko Mitrovic, Jaksa Filipovac and Ognjen Vucinic.

Time is elusive, irreversible, sometimes cruel, confusing, true and false. In the Grand Hotel, time is stopped in the beauty, seduction and eroticism of the characters.

A great contribution was made by the ballet dancers who we have managed to gather in Belgrade, despite all the obstacles of the current pandemic. I would certainly add the original antique scenography, which is also the performer of this contemporary dance production. In this project as well, I continue the cooperation with Mojca, Branko and Jaksa, which has always resulted in successful performances so far, both in our country and in the region. Each time we brought a new challenging stylized choreographic solution. A different, provocative dance theatre. We have matured together and created a special relationship, which is very difficult to build nowadays. I think that they have matured and positioned themselves as very high quality artists, as proved by their independent projects. I am deeply honoured that the exceptional ballet dancer, pedagogue and choreographer Ognjen Vucinic from Croatia joined us in the Grand Hotel. Their courage and at the same time confidence in me will make the audience laugh, provoke them and finally ask them to consider their own feelings. Each of them will contribute to the composition of this work with their sense of time and space. - says the choreographer, Aleksandar Ilic.

Besides great players in this new, daring, seductive performance, the random guests of the Grand Hotel are also a group of extras representing our subconscious or time. We can present the existence as a coordinate system: one infinite line is time, the other infinite line is place. Our life is one and only point where these two endless lines meet. We exist only now and here, we are here only temporarily, as guests of a large hotel. The entire human species for us are solely our brother, our friend, mother, lover, enemy, acquaintance – actually, just those few dozen people who are at the same time accidentally guests of the same Grand Hotel which is life itself - says the director of the play, Aleksandar Nikolic.

The project is a co-production of the Opera & Theatre Madlenianum and the Association of Professional Ballet Dancers, Choreographers and Ballet Pedagogues of Serbia, supported by the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia, the Ministry of Culture of Slovenia, the Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia in Belgrade, Festival Velenje, Municipality of Celje, the Republic of Slovenia Public Fund for Cultural Activities and the Institute for Artistic Dance.