Opening Ceremony / Zeniteum :: 2022
As the Zenith is the highest point that can be reached, so is the Zeniteum :: 2022 play, celebration and culmination of the double opening of the European Capital of Culture in Novi Sad and the culmination of the ‘Doček’ programme in which time and energy intersect to free up space of accumulated potential, a space of long anticipation, in which the power of diversity will spark Arc Voltage, creative lightning, which will illuminate the entire 2022 and all the programmes of the European Capital of Culture under the 4 New Bridges motto.
Zeniteum :: 2022, the most complex production art project that has been implemented in Serbia in recent years, will be presented as a secular ceremony with selected content of the highest spiritual value of the Republic of Serbia. It will represent all its citizens with a special focus on the citizens of Novi Sad.
The title of the opening ceremony comes from the transnational art movement Zenitism, which was established by Ljubomir Micić (1895 – 1971), the artist and editor of the ‘Zenit’ magazine. He shaped modernist art between the two world wars in this international magazine, and the echoes of his work were felt in Belgrade, Zagreb, Paris, Berlin, Milan and Moscow.
Zeniteum :: 2022, whose author is one of the most significant figures of the Slovenian and regional art scene, renowned European director and post-gravity artist Dragan Živadinov, chose mathematicians Mileva Marić Einstein (1875 – 1948) and Milutin Milanković as protagonists of the optimal projection (1879 – 1958). Mathematics is the central theme of the Zeniteum :: 2022 scenario, mathematics as a tool and language that allows a person to describe their spiritual achievement. At the ceremony, we will sing the glory of science and art in the name of culture!
The main protagonist, mathematician Mileva Marić Einstein, actively participated in the formulation of the theory of relativity. She was born in Titel near Novi Sad, and attended high school in Novi Sad. Mathematician Milutin Milanković, the father of climate astronomy, was born in Dalj along the Danube near Novi Sad. The first edition of his book Kroz vasionu i vekove (Through Distant Worlds and Times), was printed in Novi Sad, in Matica Srpska.
Micić’s Zeniteum places man at the centre of the universe, while art and science, as his two circles of knowledge, reach the highest degree of poetic consciousness. Just as Micić’s Zeniteum was the spirit of the time of Europe after the World War I, after the great crisis, the Novi Sad Zeniteum :: 2022 will be the first celebration of Europe in the time after the Great World Viral Crisis. It will be full of scientific caution and artistic hope.
The third, aesthetic protagonist will be Ljubomir Micić with his idea of modernizing the Balkans, with 43 issues of the ‘Zenith’ magazine (László Moholy-Nagy, Tatlin, Gropius, Kandinsky, and Malevich) with special emphasis on the double Russian edition. The scenography (aesthetics) will be based on a post-gravitational reinterpretation of Constructivism and Suprematism.
At the very beginning of the opening ceremony play, a well-known art duo Synspecies, made of Elías Merino and Tadej Droljc, will present us with their audio-visual performance Crevasse. This work presents a creation myth where the world is born out of a gap – a gap of existential nonsense that we daily fill with our imagination and desires and call reality. Alongside them, a DJ duo consisting of Miloš Martinov Lag and Dejan Ilić will also be present on the stage.
Director and Librettist:
Dragan Živadinov
Set and Costume Design:
Dunja Zupančič
Composer:
Dragana Jovanović
Dramaturg:
Svetislav Jovanov
Starring:
Mileva Marić Ajnštajn:
Anita Mančić
Milutin Milanković:
Boris Isaković
Host:
Lazar Jovanov