Photo: PromoIn just three years, 90 programs were implemented in the Markovac Rural Cultural Center. The barn became a theater, and the wine cellar became a library with 4000 books and an electronic catalog. A world is being created in which everyone can and wants to participate
Markovac, a large rural settlement, 3000 inhabitants.
I was welcomed by the theater director and member of parliament Anđelka Nikolić in the household that once belonged to Nada Babić, which, in agreement with the heirs of Anđelka, decided to turn into something more.
"There, under the basket, there will be a theater" (under the barn, but local people say it's a basket), "and here we might build a reading room", she pointed to the old wine cellar, which did not promise much as a place for literary works, but I, however, remained restrained.
The wooden benches for the auditorium were painted, practicals were made from pallets, rustic trinkets were turned into pieces of decor, old reflectors, the heaviest in the world, were brought from our city fund, and blinds were tailored for that basket to close the space in case of rain or strong wind. .
That's right, in the summer of 2019, under the influence of Hop.La! Enthusiasm (art group from Belgrade) launched the ambient theater program for young people "Pozorište na selu". Together with a couple of collaborators, Anđelka led workshops, gathered several groups of children, got to know their parents, organized visits from Belgrade and Kragujevac, and made an important performance for children and adults, when the whole village gathered to see what happened in that basket during the summer. .
The state of emergency brought bans, but the actions continued. Cultural delivery was launched, performances traveled from plot to plot, which enabled the involvement of whole families, not only children.
Anđelka relies on the techniques of the Japanese kamishibai theater: with the help of pictures, common stories are told and cut on a small wooden stage. In cooperation with Petar Lukić, she also directed several plays What is kamibishibai?, Dr. Lee, Elmer na stilts, Rapatochki, Way of the wind, Rain cloud. One of them The frog and the stranger, based on the book by Max Veltheis, participated in the Festival of Ecological Theater for Children in Bačka Palanka, as well as in the Festival of the Asitež Center in Belgrade.
In the middle of summer 2020, the "Ekatarina Pavlović" Reading Room was opened, named after the first literate resident of Markovac. Recommendations for the selection of books are made by people who love and know how to read. At the same time, they take care that the book collection includes titles in which stereotypes about gender roles are avoided, there are no books that propagate inequality, but there are those that oppose the colonial discourse in all its forms.
Today, the library has 298 members and almost 4000 titles, an electronic catalog has been created, as well as several reading shelters around the barn, in the renovated wine cellar, in the surrounding trees and meadows. The waiting room at the Markovac Health Center also becomes a new place for reading, because books are available at every visit to the doctor.
In the center of the village is the abandoned House of Culture. The campaign "Inner courtyard" was launched to revive it, which includes a mob to clear the space for the winter branch of the reading room. The locals are collecting funds to fix the toilets so that you can stay longer if you happen to read a little.
All this is now the Village Cultural Center Markovac (www.skcmarkovac.rs). Psychologist Aleksandra Miladinović is its first president.
There are also obstacles. Individuals are tearing up movie posters, spilling red blood-like stains on them, making threats... From neighbors passing by, you can hear the occasional remark: "They know who you are and what you are up to." It's getting tense. I remember Krležin Wolf, I think how the village can "snarl". I know that Anđelka will not retire, but the local women might. However, no one gives up, there are no program cancellations, there is fighting spirit. And more and more people are looking for new occupations and ways to get involved.
Of all the programs that were performed in Markovac over the course of three years, and there were 90 of them, I will list the most favorite ones: Not avoiding life - an exhibition about brave women from different environments and periods, Petson is camping camping workshop, opening of the Children's Club, Culture therapy with discussions about the books of Virginia Woolf in the pastry shop "At Grandma Gina's", and dialogues in the cinema after the films of Ken Loach and the Darden brothers, plays 17 excuses for being late to school i Elucidation of the case of a series of murders by poisoning in the Ćuprija district in the seventies of the nineteenth century.
Every time I visit Markovac, I am left breathless, amazed, not only because of the number of programs and the will generated by the actions, but also because of the new flow-state-order that is being created there. Under the basket, a world is created in which everyone can and wants to participate. And that world is expanding rapidly. Faster than we could believe.
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