Directed By Jernej Potocan
A tale about the splendor and misery of Slovenian reality
Baptismal staging
Previews 19. September, premiere 20. September 2025, Majolka (entrance main square 1, Celje)
Cankar's ancient tale Kurent (1909) represents a turning point in his creative path. This turning point was already indicated by The Wanderer mark and King Matjaz (1905), where Cankar in his writing practice deconstructed the contrast between aesthetic foreignness and national authenticity. He deliberately turned to Slovenian folk tradition because he was attacked for cosmopolitanism, decadence and betrayal of Slovenian national values. In Kurent, a folk hero, a nomad, an artist-musician, who faces the tragic fate of the Slovenian nation on his transformational pilgrimage. On the one hand, the tale is a continuation of the already begun artistic restoration in Cankar's development, and on the other, the top of the new archaic-material poetics. An artistic nomad, the musician moves between civilization and nature, fleeing from the familiar village, then also the urban middle, to the heights and forests – from representations of historical time to the timeless experience of mythological. In narrative discourse, there is an alternation of correct and irregular rhythm, unexpected events with expected ones, frequent parallelisms, present and past events in cyclical and non-cyclical alternation, in rhapsodic causality and simultaneity. Such a depiction of events arises from the Universal dominance of the mythological and mythical. The fiction of Cankarjev Kurent roots in the deep collective consciousness of Slavism and slovenism and refers to this consciousness. The first sentence of the text speaks of this: "you all know how this story began.«
We look at The Star project so as not to see the world of Cankar's Kurent attack with procedural reflections and author's materials. The starting point for reflection is Kurent's world just before a social catastrophe. He wonders what place the unbearable image and the opposite cynicism have before the face of disaster. Countless crowds of people are disappointed, forgotten, oppressed ... so Kurent-the artist makes the decision to look the disaster straight in the eye, and counter the threat – with a blind eye. His artistic program does not strive to change the world, but to change the prism of the view of the individual. It establishes toxic positivism, which postpones any social change to the individual in the form of work on oneself, and this transfer of the field of struggle perpetuates stagnation.
In Cankar's story, Kurent appears in two forms: the one before selling his soul to the devil and they after. With his art in both, he operates on the emotional field of his viewers. What is the point of crying and happiness? By playing sad songs at the beginning of the story, Kurent challenges dispensz and opens the door to disagreement with the reality he lives. Such a subversive process somehow further poisons the sick society and, in its appropriation of reality, makes it impossible to continue the existence of the same way of being. By selling his soul to the devil, however, Kurent loses all his (historical and mythical) memory and begins to offer people instant joy, a short-lived escape. The figure of two Kurents-artists - in the context of the cultural industry, as described by Theodor / Adorno and Ma / Horkheimer – offers itself as a concept, and the splendor and misery of Slovenian reality, as he sees them on his pilgrimage, is a model of our social everyday life.
"The accordion is not a language, not in the case of hypocrisy; the song is not a word, it does not lie!"(Kurent
Režiser Jernej Potočan
Pripovedka o blišču in bedi slovenske stvarnosti
Krstna uprizoritev
Cankarjeva starodavna pripovedka Kurent (1909) predstavlja prelomnico na njegovi ustvarjalni poti. Ta prelomnica je bila nakazana že s Potepuhom Markom in kraljem Matjažem (1905), kjer je Cankar v svoji pisateljski praksi razgradil nasprotje med estetsko tujostjo in narodno avtentičnostjo. Namenoma se je obrnil k slovenski ljudski tradiciji, ker so ga napadali zaradi svetovljanstva, dekadence in izdaje slovenskih nacionalnih vrednot. V Kurentu je v ospredju ljudski junak, nomad, umetnik-glasbenik, ki se na svoji transformacijski romarski poti sooča s tragično usodo slovenskega naroda. Pripovedka je po eni strani nadaljevanje že začete umetniške obnove v Cankarjevem razvoju, po drugi pa vrh nove arhaično-materialne poetike. Artistični nomad, glasbenik se giblje med civilizacijo in naravo, beži iz familiarne vaške, potem tudi urbane sredine v višave in gozdove – iz reprezentacij zgodovinskega časa v brezčasno doživljanje mitološkega. V pripovedovalnem diskurzu se izmenjujeta pravilen in nepravilen ritem, nepričakovani dogodki s pričakovanimi, pogosti paralelizmi, sedanji in pretekli dogodki v ciklični in neciklični izmenjavi, v rapsodični vzročnosti in hkratnosti. Tak prikaz dogodkov izhaja iz univerzalne prevlade mitološkega in mitskega. Fikcija Cankarjevega Kurenta korenini v globoki kolektivni zavesti slovanstva in slovenstva ter se na to zavest tudi sklicuje. O tem govori že prvi stavek besedila: »Saj veste vsi, kako se je ta zgodba začela.«
Projekt Zvezde gledamo, da ne bi videli sveta Cankarjevega Kurenta napada s procesnimi razmisleki in avtorskimi materiali. Izhodišče za razmislek je Kurentov svet tik pred družbeno katastrofo. Sprašuje se, kakšno mesto imata pred obrazom katastrofe neznosna podoba in nasprotni cinizem. Nepreštevne množice ljudi so razočarane, pozabljene, zatirane …, zato Kurent-umetnik sprejme odločitev, da bo katastrofi pogledal naravnost v oči, in se grožnji zoperstavi – s slepilom. Njegov umetniški program ne teži k spremembi sveta, temveč k spremembi prizme pogleda posameznika. Vzpostavlja toksični pozitivizem, ki vsakršno družbeno spremembo preloži na posameznika v obliki dela na sebi, ta prenos polja boja pa perpetuira stagnacijo.
V Cankarjevi zgodbi nastopi Kurent v dveh pojavnih oblikah: tisti pred prodajo duše hudiču in oni potem. S svojo umetnostjo v obeh operira na čustvenem polju svojih gledalcev. Kaj pa sploh je politični smisel joka in sreče? S tem ko Kurent na začetku zgodbe igra žalostne pesmi, izziva dispenz in odpira vrata nestrinjanju z resničnostjo, ki jo živi. Tak subverziven postopek bolno družbo nekako dodatno zastruplja in v svoji prisvojitvi stvarnosti onemogoča nadaljnji obstoj enakega načina bivanja. S prodajo duše hudiču pa Kurent izgubi ves svoj (historični in mitični) spomin in začne ljudem ponujati instantno veselje, kratkotrajni pobeg. Lik dveh Kurentov-umetnikov – v okviru kulturne industrije, kot jo opisujeta Theodor W. Adorno in Max Horkheimer – se kar sam ponuja kot koncept, blišč in beda slovenske stvarnosti, kot ju uvidi na svojem romanju, pa model našega družbenega vsakdana.
»Harmonika ni jezik, ne vé za hinavščino; pesem ni beseda, ne laže!« ( Kurent )