Fetishizing Violence on Stage: Performing, Narrating and “Aestheticizing” the Balkan Wars

Narrating war in semi-documentary performances enables making sense of complicated and chaotic war development, but at its downside, power relations, stereotypes and mystification of survivors\u27 positions have been easily manipulated by different sides. The proposed article aims to reveal narrations in four performances: Letter from 1920 (by Oliver Frljić), The bridge over the blood (by Damir Avdić) and Turbo Paradiso (by Andras Urban) and Crossing the line (by Dijana Milošević) in order to tackle and suppress potential stereotypes, partial representations and interpretations of the Balkan war. It investigates the intentions and approaches of interpreting war in theatre, and how those narrations contribute to remembering and social judgement toward or against war crimes during the war in Balkans in 90s. The fact that narratives are not neutral requires questioning their subjections and the position of the individual or the group who creates and disseminates them. The specific set of theatre images of victims/survivors and perpetrators in the proposed performances will be analyzed in order to outline the prevailing discourse and duties it serves, using it documentary or even testifying components, transforming them into performative art