BABYLON Europe 2013

Babylon 2013

Borut Šeparovic: Biography

Borut Šeparovic was born in Zagreb in Croatia in 1967. He graduated in Philosophy and Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Zagreb, and from the graduate school at Das Arts (Advanced Studies in Performance Arts) in Amsterdam. His artistic biography as a founder, artistic leader, director and choreographer equates with Montažstroj's biography. Under his artistic leadership, the group Montažstroj, since its founding in 1989, became a trademark of a new and different theater in Croatia and abroad, retaining that status until today.

He headed a large number of art-exploration workshops in different countries (Croatia, Germany, the Netherlands, Serbia and Montenegro and others) and acted as a pedagogue at the St. Joost Academy in the Netherlands. He has established his pedagogy and methodology for 20 years equally successfully in his work with professional performers (dancers, actors), young artists and persons with no theater or artistic experience.

From the very beginning of his work, Borut Šeparovic's work achieved international acclaim, proven by numerous international awards (Montenegro, Serbia, France, Croatia) and the interest of leading world media agencies and houses (MTV, CNN, Reuters, France Press). He was a guest at the most prestigious international festivals in 20 odd countries with most of his plays.

From 1997 to 2002 he is active in Western Europe, founding the troupe Performingunit in the Netherlands.

In the last several years he created a number of interdisciplinary and interactive projects (»Tformance «, »The theatre you deserve«, »T-faktor«) whose final shape and content is determined by the audience itself. Each new project is an experimentation which surpasses the framework of traditional theater practice. He considers the play »Timbuktu« to be his unsurpassable theatric accomplishment, with abandoned dogs and homeless persons as its main protagonists. In the documentary project »My heart beats for her« (in coproduction with the Tala Dance Center), the protagonists are unemployed women who opposed their heart-wrenching working biographies to the national football mythomania. Out of his last few projects, »Fire-technics 2.0« stands out, with its accompanying artistic actions »Achtung Alarm! 2.0«, »Fire starter« and »B.D.L.2.0.«, which marked the twentieth anniversary of Montažstroj's work.

He directed, choreographed and led over 50 projects, plays and performances whose production was signed by Montažstroj. He achieved significant success by directing projects at various institutional theaters such as »Generation 91-95« and »Mauser« (Zagreb Youth Theater), »Crave« (Croatian National Theater in Zagreb), »Class Enemy« (Slovenian Youth Theater in Ljubljana). He participated dramaturgically in plays »Turbofolk«, »Damned be the traitor of his homeland«, »No one is innocent«, produced by institutional theaters. He is the winner of Vjesnik's award Dubravko Dujšin in 2009 for exceptional contribution to theater art for leading the Montažstroj troupe for 20 years, and for directing the play »Generation 91-95«.

In 2012 he started directing in the audiovisual media with documentary »Consumed« He is permanently interested in creating engaged theater and art that, far from the explicit daily political discourse, always questions anew the society they are created in.

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