Premiere IN THE BELLY OF THE WHALEMarwa Manai
Co-production with the National Theatre of Tunisia as part of the DECONFINING project
What happens when we find ourselves in the belly of something enormous — between worlds, languages, and memories? In the Belly of the Whale takes the audience on a journey of uncertainty, where individual destinies intersect and boundaries blur. Explore human stories in the context of contemporary global movement and shared experience.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
The performance is part of the project DECONFINING — Arts, Culture and Policies in Europe and Africa, funded through the programme EU Creative Europe. The project includes 12 partners from 11 countries: HNK Ivana pl. Zajca Rijeka; ITI-DE, Berlin (Germany); Pro Progressione Kulturalis nonprofit Kozhasznu KFT, Budapest, Hungary; BODO 24, Bodø (Norway); Kulturhauptstadt Bad Ischl – Salzkammergut 2024, Bad Ischl (Austria); National Kaunas Drama Theatre, Kaunas (Lithuania); Art Transparent Contemporary Art Foundation – Wloclav (Poland); Institut Umeni – Divadelni Ustav, Prague (Czech Republic); On the Move.org Aisbl, Brussels (Belgium); Goethe Institut EV, Germany; Institute of Transmedia Design, Ljubljana (Slovenia); Culture Funding Watch, Tunis (Tunisia).
The aim of the project is to develop cooperation between the EU and Africa through sustainable intercontinental cultural exchange that can also be applied to other regions of the world. All artistic partners come from European Capitals of Culture, while the emphasis is placed on participation and on the combination of virtual and physical content – research, new mobility and strategies, as well as the creation and touring of new artistic projects.
Ivan Zajc Croatian National Theatre is responsible for the implementing a work package entitled “Artistic Expression and Capacity Building: Cultural Deconfining Institutions”. Within this WP, an open call for short stories on the theme “Deconfining – Illegal Migration” was announced, and based on the selected and awarded stories (Dorotea Sušak, Iva Papić, Mouna Bel Haj Zekri and Samia Ammami), the process of creating a theatre performance was initiated in co-production with the National Theatre of Tunisia. In the performance, directed by a director from Tunisia, with a dramaturge, costume designer and set designer selected by the Rijeka HNK, Croatian and Tunisian actors will perform together. The performance is planned to tour partner cities Kaunas, Budapest and Bad Ischl.
Funded by the European Union. The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
