Тruth Tellers, Word by Word
The fourteenth interview of the FemGems in the Arts series features the theatre director, Neda Sokolovska, and the art manager and critic, Rada Ezekieva
Neda Sokolovska and Rada Ezekieva are always seeking for the truth in Art. In their theatre work they give a voice to the voiceless. They both work for Studio VOX POPULI documentary theater, which is the first theater company in Bulgaria, permanently committed to the production of documentary and political theater. The performances of VOX POPULI are rather simple in their theatrical language. Authenticity, respect for the sources that make up the dramaturgy, and the actors’ sincerity and engagement, are at the center. This theatre works both as an amplifier — because it makes us hear the unheard voices next to us, and as a silenser — because it makes the stories it tells sound intimate, as if shared with the audience in a whisper.
Neda Sokolovska is theatre director and the founder of “Studio for Documentary Theatre VOX POPULI”. In 2012 she brought the “Verbatim” technique in the Bulgarian theatre and since then she has been working on its development. She has directed the plays “Mothers” (nominated for the best theatre play, Asker, 2013), “Yace Forkash” (award for best dramaturgy, Ikar, 2013), “Ale hop” (nominated for masterfully technical achievement, Ikar, 2014), “Ascertained during inquest” and the well-known series “Invisible” which explores the live of marginalized and “invisible”-to-the-society social groups. She has won the Ministry of Culture award for achievements in Bulgarian culture. Since 2016 she has initiated the art platform “VHOD”, in partnership with The Red House Centre for Culture and Debate — Sofia”, which creates an environment for exploring reality through art as a tool.
Rada Ezekieva has more than 7 years of in-depth experience within the area of cultural management, social initiatives, communications and journalism. She writes about theater and film and also has interests in the area of cultural policies, organization of events, literature and script writing. She is coordination manager for the Documentary Theatre Studio VOX POPULI and she is also in charge of the P2P coordination and partner leads. She also had professional involvement in editorial and reporting activities in a daily news outlet, with a focus on culture and TV productions. She has worked at venues such as Sofia International Film Fest, Sofia International Literary Festival, Sofia International Literature Festival for Kids and Young People, International theater in Sofia, NIGHT of the galleries and museums — Plovdiv and many others. She coordinated the project “Hidden Letters” of the Read Sofia Foundation and 100%Plovdiv, as team members of VOX POPULI, in partnership with the German theatrical company, Rimini Protokoll — part of the program of European Capital of Culture Plovdiv 2019. She has taken part in several international projects, financed by Erasmus+, Creative Europe and the European Commission.
What made you pursue a career in the Arts?
Neda: Well, I rather believe that Arts pursue you not vice versa. Once you encounter your inner creative self, it’s really difficult to escape. It was the stormy, misty 90’s, the end of the analog era, when we still believed that Arts are important not just for their cool shape but for their spiritual content. We believed that theatre is made from chosen people — mediums, dwelling on the dangerous border between Reality and Realm of Ideas. It was considered a privilege to be an Artist, and I just followed that call with slightly bigger devotion. That is how my career in Arts began.
Rada: I think that came to me naturally. Myself, I haven’t done any arts in the practical sense — I have never been to piano or drawing lessons for example. But besides that, the whole atmosphere in my home, my parents’ attitude, and especially that of my mother has always stimulated a specific sensibility towards all kinds of artistic activities.
A strong curiosity. Today I find that this is the most distinctive indicator that you at all desire to be near to the cultural processes. Sensitivity, attentiveness, empathy and a certain vulnerability that often puts you in an uncomfortable position to have an irrational and more emotional approach to life. For me this is the way to reside here and now. The deeper, more lasting way.
How has your professional artistic taste developed in time? Who were the important directors and authors who shaped your thinking?
Neda: My artistic taste embraced and destroyed different aesthetics along the way. Starting with Russian psychologism and Soviet decadence, through French absurdism, the British in-yer-face wave, going to postmodernism and the breathless eclecticism of the Millennium — I generally rubbed through everything I liked until I got to the political theater and said to myself — stop.
Rada: One of my favorite poetic books is “The Power of Taste” with works by Zbigniew Herbert. To me, the title of the book is on its own an answer to that question. The cultivation of taste has always been on my mind, it is something that is reflected in everything in a person. Accumulation of cultural knowledge, or the lack of such, is visible whether one wants it or not. When it comes to me, from the beginning of the formation of my conscious taste, the most important influence has come from literature, especially poetry. Language is definitely the territory of the transcendental.
Later on came the desire to learn about imagery through the art of cinema and photography. Michel Houellebecq, Nick Cave, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Andrey Zvyagintsev and Jernej Lorenci are some of the contemporary artists that I feel grateful everyday for the time we have spent together. The strongest influence is still the one from the people around me. In that sense I am beyond happy that two of the most talented artists I have ever met are also two of the most significant people in my life - Marica Kolcheva and Vasil Balev. I can always rely on their opinions, points of view and taste.
Rada has a degree in film studies and Neda has studied acting. How did you decide to jump into documentary theatre?
Neda: In a world where things tend to collide, and in a society as controversial and unique as ours, I find it boring and useless to make Theatre that is purely inspired by my ambition or my limited imagination, and not by this astonishing reality we live in.
Rada: I have been keeping up with Neda’s work and VOX POPULI for years before I met her. Meanwhile, probably on an unconscious level, I have been preparing for that get together and for our partnership and with my ever growing interest in the social themes and how to put them on the stage.
Without realizing I have already chosen theater over the cinema, the process of rehearsing has a lot to do with that; it continues to be one of the most intriguing aspects of creating art. The moment of soul preparation, before the dawn.
What’s your personal definition of Verbatim theatre?
Neda: Theatre that repeats reality, adding a subtext and reducing the extra noise.
Rada: I would not commit to giving a better or especially more effective definition from the one there is, and namely — verbatim. I hope that because of this exact specific feature it is becoming more and more recognizable for the audience.
How did you start working together? How do you complement each other and which are the qualities that you admire most in the other person?
Neda: We started working together… was it 5 years ago? VOX POPULI was growing bigger and we needed a project manager, aka someone who likes to answer mails and make phone calls. Someone more organized and socially pleasant than me. We made an audition and that’s how I first met Rada. She struck me as someone as determined as me, but much nicer. We are very different: we approach goals from different angles and that is exactly the key to our successful partnership.
Rada: Neda and I met in the summer of 2016. By chance I learned that VOX POPULI was looking for a person to manage the project ENTRANCE, which had been financed that same year by the America for Bulgaria Foundation. I sent out my résumé. I met Neda and Vasiliya Drebova (an actress in the studio) for the first time at the job interview. Soon after that we started working together. It has been a few years now that we have been communicating daily. Continuously sharing work, impressions, journeys, etc. Our ideas thrive in a friendly atmosphere and in laughter. Our innate sense of humor, a way to see people and situations, is something I am addicted to. I think we see eye-to-eye also because we are so different- almost diametrically opposite. Neda is an extremely capable person in many aspects, she has persistence and will that I admire. She is extremely strong with a pragmatic approach towards life that I can only learn from. I feel her close to my heart.
How did you create VOX POPULI Studio? How do you choose people to work with?
Neda: Documentary Theatre Studio VOX POPULI started as an experiment andexperiment and it took longer than the average time to prove itself. From the very beginning it was important that the theatre we make stays “raw”, authentic, off the failure-success scale, or rather all over the failure-success scale.
The only principle we followed was to represent humanity as faithfully as we can. It requires special senses — a sense of empathy most of all. And that is exactly how the VOX POPULI collective gathered — united by the strong sense of empathy and even stronger need to express it.
What’s important for you in Art? What are the things that you demand from yourself in your work?
Neda: Honesty, Simplicity, Humor. I like humble art and that is what I try to demand from myself — to be more humble as an аrtist. Really hard though. It’s such an ego trip after all.
Rada: I believe that in life as in art what’s important is purity in one’s relations, openness, tastefulness, tenderness and delicacy. I do not like violence, nor insolence. I’d rather work on projects that try as much as possible to offer a different way of communication and interconnection between people.
What I demand from myself is being more diligent when it comes to deadlines. As well as the willingness to decline a certain project when you know that there is no way to get it done on time. I still have much to learn in this respect.
What does it take to create a work that speaks with a strong and unique voice?
Neda: You need to be brave and kind of blunt to follow your ideas without hesitation. The strong voice is the voice of a deaf person — metaphorically you have a strong voice in Arts if you are deaf to public opinion. Just keep going — be brave and blunt.
Rada: Honesty! Emotional intelligence.
How do you usually start your creative process: with a basic idea of the subject or the plot, with a vision of a specific character, with a strong visual reference or with a particular feeling that should be present in the theatrical show?
Neda: There isn’t a strict formula. Sometimes it is a concrete story, or an interesting person, something occurring in the news, or someone’s voice that needs to be heard. The crossing point is the paradox or the social collision they involve.
Rada: If we speak about the artistic process broadly — at the very beginning it is a matter of premonition about someone or something, which afterwards transforms into a piece of work. As Harold Pinter says: “There are some things one remembers even though they may never have happened.” In that sense the root cause might be a feeling or a dream whose truthfulness we may doubt but we want to explore. In our work with VOX POPULI we start with a theme, a problem, a social situation that deserves more public attention.
Your work has a lot to do with sociology, anthropology and cultural sciences. Tell us more about your approach towards the objects that you examine.
Neda: Examining through listening, collecting and juxtaposing. This is pretty much how our creative process is structured — collecting voices, documents, stories and then juxtaposing them one to another until a collision occurs.
Rada: During our research for all our projects we work with people who represent the communities at the focal point of the idea which we are exploring. Very often it is minority groups and for me, with the approach we have adopted, it is very important to make them feel comfortable to speak out at all. We audio interview them but before any of that we need to gain their trust and that happens when you manage to make one believe that he/ she is safe with you. When you learn to listen and understand, to take care.
How important is improvisation in your approach?
Neda: It’s not important. It is inevitable. Improvisation is our usual way to make the show happen. We do not have a script, our projects start from a blank page and we fill the plot word-by-word, action-by-action. It all comes out of life — and what is life if not endless improvisation?
Rada: Very important. Of course not at any cost, without it being self-serving. Only when you’ve marked your limits of tolerance that is when freedom and improvisation come.
Is it difficult to create vivid metaphors out of everyday life’s pieces?
Rada: I am not sure whether we need to use bright metaphors or even try to alter anything from the way it is. After all, that is why we call it documentary art. There are no filters or censorship. It seems to me it all depends on the foreshortening of one’s point of view.
What are you trying to provoke in your audience with your work? Is it possible to start a social debate with a theatrical show?
Neda: I believe it is possible to start a social/political debate with a theatrical show, not in Bulgaria though. The culture is so marginalized here that nobody takes theatre seriously. While in Great Britain theatre is a tribune for public debate and politics, in our Republic theatre is used only for entertainment.
Rada: All of us are provoked on а daily basis about a certain reaction or the occurrence of something. Constantly someone is trying to steal the attention, our time, our likes and so on. I suppose that the art audience is tired of projects that are too provocative. Probably modernity is bound to be attracted with purer, simpler and straighter messages. In that sense social debates after our plays are a natural necessity for the viewer, because one knows he/she will be heard.
What kind of difficulties do you usually face in your work and how do you cope with them? Is it hard to finance your type of theatre?
Neda: It’s very hard to finance independent art. Not only in Bulgaria but everywhere. Theatre is in a low spot for the past couple of decades, shadowed by the much more attractive screen entertainments — from TV series to YouTube channels — it is so much more convenient than making an effort to visit the theatre hall and watch something you haven’t seen a teaser for. Theatre is so retro that it’s fun to check it out but you can’t consume it on regular basis. The greatest challenge to me, as a theatre maker, is how to make theatre that is both attractive and sustainable in a digital world.
Rada: It is hard. That is undeniably a big challenge — to be given the opportunity for a stable earning from your work, be it as a freelance artist or manager. On the other hand there comes the question if you were to receive that, would your sensitivity for innovation and experiment change?
How are you dealing with hesitations, insecurity and fears?
Neda: By denying them, of course.
Rada: By giving them the opportunity to flourish. Human psychology has always interested me, and I slowly came to realize that each feeling has its place if we are to speak about emotional intelligence. The three states mentioned in the question are ones that I see not only in myself but in the people surrounding me as well. It seems like this is a natural reaction to our modern day and age — time of decay, loss of purpose, mortality. And yet the opposite of everything already mentioned is love and true relationships, which are more and more avoided in the name of fear and uncertainty.
Which of your theatrical shows is the dearest to your heart? Why?
Neda: The first is the dearest. Invisibles #1 — our first production, released 2012. It was a piece about people in wheelchairs. Heavy shit, one might say, and yet it was the most optimistic and touching work. We met exceptional people who, despite being confined to a wheelchair, did not stop believing that life was good to them. Witnessing such strength and optimism I gave myself to documentary theatre, hoping to transmit a piece of them to the audience, to the world.
Rada: Without a doubt my heart belongs to the project 100%Plovdiv that we created together with Neda. We worked on it last year by invitation of The Plovdiv 2019 Foundation — Victor Yankov in particular, as well as The Rimini Protokoll company who are behind the whole idea. I cannot compare our adventure with anything else I have ever done — such a large-scale and difficult act. The casting of 100 Plovdiv representatives — people from all ages, social and educational groups, that we convinced to take part and for four consecutives nights be on the stage of Plovdiv Drama Theater, telling their stories in front of an audience in a theater!
What is your bravest professional dream?
Neda: To run a venue with big old-fashioned neon sign that says VOX POPULI.
Rada: As far as VOX POPULI is concerned, my bravest dream is to have a lasting collaboration with international colleagues. I’d like to help shape the development of a web of independent theatrical companies. When it comes to my own professional road my bravest dreams are in the fields of literature, artistic texts and movie scripts.
This portrait is the 14th one of the FemGems in the Arts series, proudly part of FemGems, a labor of love boosting female entrepreneurship.
FemGems features rising female entrepreneurs from all over the world.
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