Kis project : « The blade and the balm » by Anne Bérélowitch

As a part of the Novi Sad 2022 program, the French director Anne Bérélowitch shall bring together Serbian, French and Hungarian artists for the first artistic residency within the project KIS, with the intention to adapt for theatre three short stories by Danilo Kis!

The chosen stories (Trip to Paris, taken from Varia; A stateless person; Youri Goletz) all take place in Paris, and Kis explores in them the power and ambivalence of his own relation with this city, the fascination it exercises, on him but also on generations of „Slavic and non-Slavic“ poets. It’s those prolific yet miserable poets, the exiled writers crossed by the nostalgia of their native land, who are the heroes of these short stories which will be adapted for the program “Fortress of Peace” of Novi Sad 2022. In these stories, Kis reflects on a bruised and divided Europe, as it is again today, and celebrates the voice of these cosmopolitan writers, of those who declare, like the central character of The stateless person: „the world is my homeland“.

This show is co-produced by Novi Sad 2022 Foundation and the Young National Theater from France. This residency is supported by Teatroskop Grants 2021.