ALBA

ALBA by Aljoša Živadinov Zupančič, a theatre director of the younger generation, is a contemporary theatre production that explores female identity as the final point of a lineage, authority as a performative act, and the family as a system underpinning society.

Not only will this be a textual and theatrical adaptation of the eminent play The House of Bernarda Alba, written in 1936 by the iconic Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, which premiered posthumously in 1945 in Argentina, but also an innovative theatrical exploration of his key themes: control, desire, silence, and legacy.

ALBA is designed for two actresses. The first one will portray the powerful, measured figure of the Mother, who embodies control, while the second will shift between the various personalities of the Daughters, each of whom will embody a different form of resistance: sensuality, silence, humour, mysticism, and anger. The performance will involve deep silence and few words, choreographed movement, and live sound loops. It will create a dreamlike atmosphere of a home where strict control is established, yet resistance against it nevertheless grows and multiplies. This will not be a clash between good and evil, but rather between two intertwined forces: the one who builds the house and the ones who must live in it.

ALBA is a structure, not a character. A house, a bloodline, a ritual. A space where women are shaped, broken, and rebuilt—and where they also shape, break, and rebuild one another. Using rituals, generational heritage, and the history of performance, it will develop stories that are embedded in history and in our collective experience.

In terms of content, the production will develop a contemporary perspective on Lorca’s themes of female desire, control, and legacy, while exploring the theatre as a space of physical, ritual, and emotional experience. The form of the production will be characterised by precise and measured transitions between text, acting, and movement, as well as a minimalist set design.

Aljoša Živadinov Zupančič (1996) is a theatre director of the younger generation who, since directing Beautiful Vida (2022), has presented his work in Istanbul, Beijing and New York. He has collaborated with Ivica Buljan, Janusz Kica, Damir Barto Indoš and Zlatko Burić. Early on, he developed a distinctive theatrical language of "choreo-structures" that stems from anti-psychological intermedial theatre. Since 2003, he has been the director of the Delak Institute where he has been developing the logic of post-gravitational art.