New Date: Saturday 10 December, 2022 at 21:30.
Location: De Singel, Antwerp

A performance by visual artist and filmmaker Jelena Jureša.

With Ivana Jozić and music by Alen and Nenad Sinkauz

APHASIA is developed at the intersection of music, film, storytelling and dance. Together with musicians Alen and Nenad Sinkauz and performers Ivana Jozić, visual artist and filmmaker Jelena Jureša questions the dynamics of polarisation, compliance with authority and the lure of group violence.

In medical terms ‘aphasia’ refers to a condition that robs you of the ability to speak or to find the words to form a complete sentence. Going against the documentary fashion of narrating history, the creation unfolds at the intersection of music, film, storytelling, and dance.Immersed in the atmosphere of a nightclub, in a post-war region, the audience participates in an intimate investigation of violence, the world of perpetrators, bystanders, and individual responsibility. What does it mean to be a witness? To participate tacitly in violence?

The audience’s attention gradually shifts from an archival film, to a DJ set, to a dance solo, to an integrated concert, intersected by the interventions of the female narrator who ponders about the “monsters and us”. The point of departure is an anecdote about DJ Max. A pioneer of electronic music in Belgrade, and protagonist in one of the most infamous photos of the war in Bosnia – where he is seen kicking in the head a dead Muslim woman previously killed by Serbian paramilitary forces.

Jelena Jureša brings us face-to-face with the ambigïty of the collective silence that so often surrounds crime. Whispers, rumours on perpetration and standing by, complicity and violence; every revolution, every genocide, has its soundtrack.

CONCEPT & DIRECTION Jelena Jureša | PERFORMED Ivana Jozić, Alen Sinkauz, Nenad Sinkauz | MUSIC Alen en Nenad Sinkauz | CHOREOGRAPHY Ivana Jozić & Quan Bui Ngoc | DRAMATURGICAL ADVICE Thomas Bellinck & Sara Oklobdžija | TEXT ADAPTATION Asa Mendelsohn, gebaseerd op een monoloog van Barbara Matejčić (Aphasia film en filminstallatie, 2019) | VIDEO CONCEPT & EDITING Jelena Jureša | VISUAL EFFECTS Dejan Šolajić | FILM ARCHIVE Royal Belgian Film Archive (CINEMATEK), Filmarchiv Austria, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Österreichische Mediathek, ZDF archive Berlin | SCIENTIFIC ADVICE Christophe Busch | Sound design Hrvoje Pelicarić | STAGE DESIGN Stef Stessel | LIGHT DESIGN Stef Stessel, Simon Neels | Costume design Anne-Catherine Kunz | Realisation costumes Salvatore Pascapè | TECHNICAL DIRECTOR Simon Neels | TECHNICAL SUPPORT Maxim Maes | PROJECT COORDINATORS Sandra Raes Oklobdžija (ROBIN) & Rolf Quaghebeur (KAAP) | PRODUCTION SUPPORT Kaat Balfoort, Jachym Vandenabeele | Surtitles and translations Babel Subtitling | Production KAAP in collaboration with ROBIN | Co-production Kunstenfestivaldesarts, ROBIN, DE SINGEL, Workspacebrussels, Hannah Arendt Institute | Residency Co-laBo | Met de steun van Vlaamse Overheid | MOUSSEM – Nomadic Art Centre I Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK), School of Arts of University College Ghent

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Christophe Busch will give an introduction to the performance APHASIA. Busch studied criminology at UGent, Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Amsterdam. He worked for twelve years in forensic psychiatry (research and treatment of interned offenders) and was director of Kazerne Dossin in Mechelen for eight years. Since 2020 he has been director of the Hannah Arendt Institute. We meet at KORF on Saturday 1 October at 18.30h – this talk is free.

More info and tickets: https://desingel.be/en/programme/performance/jelena-jurea-aphasia

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/687712700

Website: https://aphasia.be/

Previous performances were held at Biekorf Theaterzaal, Bruges