Ecocide is Everywhere in Serbia, but Eco-Theatre Still Exists on the Fringes

Tree as a Symbol of Resilience

The Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus Longaeva) is the oldest tree in existence known to
humankind. It can reach an age of over 5000 years and it is one of the most resilient plants on
Earth, resistant to insects, fungi, rot and erosion. The harsh conditions of its environment – the
cold and windy mountains of the American West – are the reason for the Pine's slow growth,
but also the dense and strong wood.

But different magnificent trees are present all over the world. The oldest known tree in the
Balkans is an oak in the village Divljana, near Bela Palanka in Serbia, and it is said that it was
planted in 1023 AD. It has an enormous diameter of 3 meters. Some of these trees can also be
found in cities, although rarely because the average age of a tree in urban areas before it is cut
down is only 50 years, as pointed out in DAH Teatre's dance performance Dancing Trees.

In March 2019, the City of Belgrade cut down dozens of trees in Ušće park and, on the other
bank of the river Sava, in the park of the Kalemegdan Fortress which is the candidate for the
UNESCO World Heritage Site. The ultimate aim was to cut down 155 trees and build a cable
car connecting the two parks. UNESCO was quick to underline that the fulfillment of the
project would mean that Kalemegdan would lose its candidacy and revolted citizens
organized a mass petition and guarded the areas against further lumbering.

Although the cable car project hasn't advanced further from that point, it's part of a wider
practice of stripping cities of green spaces, so that investors and local governments can
implement their gentrifying projects. Summers in Serbian cities are blazing hot, streets that
once bustled with green life during Yugoslavia are now mostly left with concrete, and the air
is becoming increasingly toxic.

Only recently has the theatre scene started to reflect on this problem, but still shyly. The most
notable example is the dance performance Dancing Trees by DAH Theatre in collaboration
with the Belgrade Dance Institute. The performance, directed by Jadranka Anđelić and Dijana
Milošević, is site-specific and was performed in Students Park in the center of Belgrade. Its
main aim is to fuel the resistance to excessive tree felling and raise awareness of the

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importance of trees not only in providing oxygen, but also in fighting climate change and
enhancing people's physical and spiritual health.

Although it was so far performed only twice at the end of October 2021, it was also filmed by
Strahinja Madžarević, so the visitors of DAH Theatre's recent 'Arts and Human Rights'
Festival had a chance to watch the premiere. An insert from the film was also presented at
COP26 in Glasgow in November 2021. Shifting their focus to ecological issues – evident as
well by round tables and webinars on the intersection of arts and ecology – DAH Theatre
continues to deal with the most burning questions of the current historical moment. In the
1990s when the theatre was founded, they focused a big part of their work on the anti-war
resistance to the Milošević regime, but it's obvious that climate change and other
environmental issues are priorities of today.

Our Dystopian Reality

The idea that art can help us fight ecocide and preserve our humanity in times of climate crisis
is also rooted in the work of another dance and theatre artist, Sanja Krsmanović Tasić. Her
performance 2100: A Tale of Aska at Youth Theatre PATOS in Smederevo is set in a
dystopian reality in 2100 when clear air is a distant memory, productivity is the ultimate value
in society and art is banned. But a group of young people creates an underground community
where they share and perform stories such as Aska and the Wolf, a story of resistance through
art by the Yugoslav Nobel laureate Ivo Andrić.

As Darko Suvin, one of the most important scholars of SF and utopian/dystopian narratives
says, the genre of dystopia has a function of projecting where the current negative social and
political practices are leading and exposing them in their darkest forms. 2100: A Tale of
Aska has done exactly that, showing us where the current practices of ecocide and industrial
air pollution are leading, though this is evidently not the only theme the performance focuses
on. It is also true that our reality has in recent years inched closer to fictional dystopias. To
avoid the overlap, creators of dystopias are making them darker, but the reality nonetheless
follows.

During the last several years, Serbia has often been assigned the label of the most polluted
country in Europe. According to OBC Transeuropa's research, the Serbian political elite is

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unwilling to spend funds received from international agencies on environmental protection.
The quality of air in big cities is regularly hazardous and Belgrade is periodically every winter
the worst city on the globe regarding air quality, overtaking even capitals like Beijing and
New Delhi. When the cold air and fog come down, the toxic air can literally be seen while
every breath becomes harder. The Kostolac B thermal power plant, for example, emits 14
times more toxic substances than legally allowed. Another comparison – the same power
plant emits more sulfur dioxide per year than all thermal power plants in Germany combined.

One could ask how the issue of the environment was not central to the discussion in Serbia for
so many years. The reasons are complex, but they have to do with the society where climate
change and environmental problems are not denied, but ignored; citizens at least sometimes
see the negative effects on their lives, but they're told that a country so small and on the
periphery of capitalism cannot achieve any meaningful change in its immediate surrounding,
let alone try to change the course on global warming. And as president Aleksandar Vučić
would cynically say, the air pollution is worse because of economic prosperity and higher
standard of living.

A Glimmer of Resistance

But resistance to the state-supported ecocide has been rising for years and it finally
culminated in 2021 and 2022 in perhaps the most massive protests the country has seen in the
last 20 years. The protests demanded action on wider ecological problem, but they were
specifically focused on the lithium mining project of the Anglo-Australian company Rio Tinto
that would devastate soil, water and air in western Serbia, and on the proposed expropriation
law that would give the government power to seize private land and give it to investors. After
intense blockades of roads in almost every bigger city in the country, the government
conceded, withdrew the law and at least for now halted the Rio Tinto project. Public
discussions on ecological issues continue and they have found their way into the April 2022
general and presidential elections campaign, even though the government has a grip on media
and the legitimacy of the last several elections has been widely disputed.

The question arises where is the role of mainstream i.g. institutional theatres in all this?
Hardly any shows with ecological themes have been staged, but the 2022 edition of BITEF,
one of the most significant international theatre festivals in Sout-East Europe, dedicated a

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large part of its program to eco-theatre. In practice, this means that since Serbian theatre is
mostly ignoring eco-concerns, a festival must "import" international performances in order to
be engaged in this field.

Thematically most directly connected to the subjects of the protests was the performance from
the main program Climactic Dances by the Chilean-Mexican choreographer Amanda Piña.
The performance starts with the author's fierce monologue on how the mining company
Anglo-American is exploiting the lands on the Andes in Chile, where her grandmother lives.
The result is the sacrifice of nature and the dehumanization of miners' lives. But Piña doesn't
stop at this particular case, she explicitly condemns many other multinational mining
companies, one of them being Rio Tinto. The rest of the show is a combination of video
installation and a minimalist abstract dance of multiple performers that can be metaphorically
linked to the slow, monumental evolution of the mountains.

The festival showcased several more prominent examples of eco-theatre, including the dance
performance Traces by a world-renowned choreographer Wim Vandekeybus. But perhaps the
most thought-provoking piece was Philippe Quesne's Farm Fatale, an absurdist, grotesque
and paradoxically both estranging and empathetic performance about a group of scarecrows
that lost their jobs due to multinational corporations and now are running an alternative farm
where they endorse green politics, hippy-style. The show makes an ironic critique of naive
and passive-disguised-as-pacifist green movements, even though we learn to identify with
scarecrows because they are essentially human. But no matter how poignant this critique is to
most global green movements, only several months later Serbian protests against Rio Tinto
and the expropriation law proved that ecological actions can be radical, effective, and
peaceful.

In Harmony with Nature

It is no secret that institutional theatres are inert when it comes to important social questions
and new artistic approaches. For example, the first performance in Belgrade after the start of
the refugee crisis in 2015 to deal with this subject was only in 2018 – Stvaranje
čoveka (eng. The Creation of Man) at Atelje 212. Similarly, BITEF has been showcasing
avant-garde and innovative works for decades, only for those approaches to be implemented
in domestic theatres gradually, slowly and with a delay. One can hope that the recent

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ecological uprising and the last year's BITEF selection will leave a mark on the programs of
institutional theatres, but until then parts of the independent scene will be places where the
education on ecology will continue to play out.

Two eco-theatre festivals for children and young adults are the best examples of these artistic-
educational practices. One is the "Mater Terra" festival in Belgrade, organized every
November by CEDEUM (Center for Drama in Education and Art) and partner organizations,
and the other one is the Festival of Ecological Theatre for Children and Youth – FEP, held
every August in Bačka Palanka, near Novi Sad.

The two festivals share the same aims of encouraging ecological practices, but they are also
good examples of different approaches to eco-theatre. While the "Mater Terra" festival
presents shows performed by children and young adults and created at school drama sections
or youth theatres, FEP is a festival of professional theatres aimed at young audiences. "Mater
Terra" is a non-competitive festival that emphasizes discussions and exchanges of thoughts
regarding the presented shows, while FEP has two juries, one professional and the other
composed of children 4-14 years old.

"Mater Terra" is not only a festival of ecology, but also of the "ecology of the soul", meaning
that it promotes healthy relationships between children, youth and their surroundings. Because
of this conception, the 2021 edition of "Mater Terra" showed that young people and their
mentors are perhaps more interested in these themes of healthy human relations since none of
the shows from the program (although there was a smaller number of shows due to Covid)
dealt explicitly with the issue of the environment. On the other hand, FEP is conceptualized so
that all shows in the program must deal with themes of ecology.

Regardless of the differences, both festivals show a humane and responsible approach to the
environment. During the post-show discussions on "Mater Terra", Sanja Krsmanović Tasić
who is also the artistic director of the festival, asks everyone present to sit in a circle so they
can be equal. She also places a plant in the center, so it can absorb the human energy, but also
to remind everyone of the importance of these beautiful green beings that make our lives
possible. FEP is, on the other hand, a very peculiar festival since it's held in Bačka Palanka
that doesn't have only a theatre house, but also no cinema or museum. But the town does have
nature reserves, parks, the River Danube, lakes and other natural wonders and it organizes all
its activities in these natural, healthy environments.

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A Call for Radical Change

While institutional theatres, as representatives of the dominant part of our society, are still
stuck with the delusion that the human culture is above nature and that environmental
concerns have no place in art, parts of the independent cultural scene have not only started to
thematize eco-problems, but created practices that benefit both nature and humans. But the
clock is ticking and the approaching avalanche of climate disasters won't wait for us slowly
make up our minds that the well-being of Earth is more important than our economic profit. A
much wider theatre scene must look up to the massive protests that elicited some positive
change in Serbia, but the eco-movements must also engage in even more radical actions.
Climate justice won't be given to us by our elites, only we can fight for it while the window is
still (barely) open.