"Last year's Contemporary Drama Festival I attended as a participant of a workshop with Ian Herbert. We would meet together with other young critics every morning to discuss pros and cons of being a critic, writing for different media and talk about performances we saw the day before. Under Ian's leadership we underwent a lot of interesting discussions about the shows and we managed to share opinions, experience and even some personal information and contacts, as a part of our night life in clubs.
It is hard to pick one performance that was really memorable for me, because all of them were unique in their own way. I was quiet impressed by Jelizaveta Bam (The Bladder Circus Company), by their theatrical and metaphorical language, which was still able to communicate with audience.
As work in progress we saw Council House Stories 0.1 (Sputnik Shipping Company) which was nice and inspiring, although we all found many problems in the show. Another good idea were Curators – first of all the choice of a venue (it was performed in an old school building), system of work with the audience, the dramaturgy of the stories.
Generally, Contemporary Drama Festival was a great experience, including all the shows, midnight talks and last, but not least – conferences about current problems in theatre and criticism."
