Exodos Festival Opened with "Busker's Opera"

Ljubljana, 5 May

One of the most inventive theatre and film directors of our time, Canadian Robert Lepage opened the 11th annual Exodos festival of performing arts in Ljubljana on Thursday with "The Busker's Opera", a show adapted from "The Beggar's Opera" by John Gay.

The "show opera" was co-produced by Cankarjev dom, Slovenia's major arts centre, where this as well as most of the other events featured at Exodos will be held. The show offers a mixture of baroque, blues, cajun, zydeco, jazz, rock, and more.
Apart from Lepage, this year's festival will feature stars such as Forced Entertainment and Lydia Lunch over the next two weeks, offering a programme varying from theoretic discourse and workshops to hip hop and breakdance.
All-around artist Lydia Lunch will present her latest album "Smoke in the Shadows" on 14 May, while Mark Tompkins will put on a dance monologue "Song and Dance" on 22 May. Choreographer Gilles Jobin of Switzerland will showcase "Steak House", a dance show in which performers create unusual combinations in a square room crammed with furniture and other objects.
Jobin's Canadian peer Daniel Leveille will show something quite different. "Amour, acide et noix" (Love, Acid and Nuts) is a daring and provocative show in which four nude dancers take to the stage in a searing performance set to a diverse music score that includes Vivaldi, Led Zeppelin and Rammstein. The show will draw the curtain on Exodos on 23 May.
Slovenia's off-theatre production will be represented by the trilogy of director Ivica Buljan of the Ljubljana-based Mini teater: "Schneewittchen After Party", "Medea Material" and "The Day of Murders in the Story of Hamlet".
The dance part of the festival will open with "Bad Moves" by acclaimed French hip hop and breakdance group Wanted Posse. In the preface of the last of their two appearances on 16 May, the world youth breakdance champions New Born Crew will challenge All Stars Adults.
The theoretical part of the festival will run under the theme "Art and Freedom", discussing the role of art in contemporary society, its freedom and relations to politics and the economy.
As part of this section, the festival will also showcase "Looking for a Missing Employee", a show by Lebanese director Rabih Mroue, a six-hour show Quizoola! by Forced Entertainment of the UK, and "Stars High in Amnesia's Sky", a collection of memories of the Communist past by Romanian director Mihai Mihalcea.
Exodos will also provide an opportunity to professional dancers to take part in a workshop by the group Ultima vez and its leader Wim Vandekeybus or try their luck in a D.A.N.C.E. audition.

Exodos Festival Opened with "Busker's Opera"

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