future epics (2018-2020)
How much do we know about our heritage? What will be the stories of tomorrow?
In 2018 four cultural organizations launched a platform and project Future Epics. The project deals with different historical periods and unfairly neglected and overlooked historical narratives; it promotes the rich culture and history of the past centuries in the countries participating in the project and places the focus on interesting traditions, places, people and stories not found in history textbooks.
The project is the result of a fruitful collaboration between four very different organizations – one devoted to independent/socially engaged theatre (Heartefact, Serbia – the lead partner of the project), one being a public institution/festival (Dubrovnik Summer Festival, Croatia), one being an performing arts residency centre (Vitlycke-CPA, Sweden) and one being a socio-cultural activist organisation (Tasca, Spain).
The Future Epics Project proposal was submitted on 22 November 2017, under the Call European Cooperation Projects 2018 – Cooperation Projects Related To The European Year Of Cultural Heritage 2018, which was launched as part of the programme Creative Europe – Culture Sub-programme with the aim of encouraging discovering and exploring European cultural heritage and strengthening the sense of belonging to the European family.
The goal of the project is to develop new ways to approach cultural heritage. This includes deconstruction of existing narratives pertaining to certain historical periods and their reinterpretation through contemporary performing arts. The project activities started in September 2018. Beside intensive work on platform development and productions, the project also included organising creative labs, explorations, residencies, public discussions, workshops, and symposia.
Future Epics spotlights European heritage, going beyond the mainstream historical narratives, unleashing the forgotten parts of the material and immaterial cultural memory. The idea is to build a bridge between the heritage narratives and the new audiences. The project particularly strives for socially responsible and edgy artistic forms relying on inter-cultural exchange.
The project is especially open to ideas that are somehow considered controversial, for narratives that are ignored or oppressed. We are collecting stories that have market past times in history, but also ones that are to leave marks in European future – epics of tomorrow.
Future Epics aims to be the connection between the young and emerging artists (playwrights, directors, actors, set designers, choreographers, dancers, sound artists, visual artists, as well as theorists) who need space for their ideas, and the new audiences who crave for relevant and atypical artistic contents.
We are creating platform to promote different perspectives on past and present cultural heritage. We want to collect stories that will serve as an inspiration for contemporary artists in different fields of performance. We want to educate young artists, connect them and produce contemporary performances that will show new perspectives on the epics of tomorrow.
Check out the online platform created as a virtual space that could enable exploring European cultural heritage: https://futurepics.org
Embrace
Three productions were created by partner organizations and they were premiered at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival 2020. The productions addressed neglected, forgotten and ignored historical narratives.
Vitlycke – CPA’s production Embrace was created by choreographers Meleat Fredriksson, Adam Sei Tahir and Lydia Östberg Diakité.
Embrace is a performance working with the intimacy of getting your being woven into a spectacular mess of softness and care. And we said, we are all that and a little more, and a little more, and a little more more and a little more. Meleat, Adam and Lydia will bring the audience on a journey where they are embracing all of that which a society in a scandinavian landscape have been pushing them to let go off. Come lay with us. Take a nap on our chests. Hear the sound of generations of hard work and hard love. Hear the contradictions of belonging, hear the shade. Hear the scream from our inner peace. Hear cries and screams of joy.