Festival team
The people behind Teen Theatre Fest – the organizing team and dramaturgical council
The position of executive director encompasses several levels – building, developing and strengthening cooperation with partners at local, regional and national level. It requires a lot of meetings, the ability to listen and find solutions for both parties. During the festival, I cycle from one place to another, so in those few festival days I will get into the shape of a racehorse, be tanned, smiling and full of endorphins. For me, it is actually always about movement. Since childhood, I have been dancing, moving, learning new things and teaching. I got into theatre at the Puppet Theatre in Žilina not only as a spectator, but also as a teenager with friends from the Makovice ensemble, which operated by our “puppet house” and where “my” Alternative Dance Theatre still operates. I got hooked to the dancefloor and my fascination with the floor, surface and touch has not left me.
I hold the position of artistic director, but I'm still not sure whether I direct the art or the art directs me. My work sometimes looks like my first acting experience from childhood – I performed in the school play The Story of the Pencil Case as the character of a rag doll who had to save the day by soaking up ink blots to make all the words beautiful and understandable. Back when I was still considered a teenager, I founded the Jednosmerka ensemble with my friends, and although we eventually went our separate ways, I think that theatre was the guiding line for all of us.
They call me Big Baška (diminutive for Barbora). Not because I have an ego as big as a theater hall, but because there are two Baškas in the team and we had to be distinguished somehow. Marketing in my version looks something like this: a phone call, an email, a message, a quick meeting, another phone call, another email... and somewhere in between, a short pause to breathe life in. I consider the people I work with a dream team that can overcome any challenge. I look at the world rationally, often through the multi-faceted lens, but always on a creative wave. My superpower is to improve the energy in the team. When something succeeds, I like to say it out loud. If you see me at a festival with a phone to my ear and a laptop in front of me, it's a completely normal state. It only means one thing – things are happening. And that's actually a pretty good feeling.
As a festival producer, I am completely immersed in the planning and implementation of every single detail. I coordinate, connect, manage, communicate... From author contracts to the lack of sweets at the banquet. I enjoy youth theater with its innovation and themes that often provoke and bring important ideas. My first contact with theatre was pure coincidence – instead of a dance class at the elementary art school, I accidentally found myself in an acting class. Since then, I have not been able to give art a rest...
I am here with my team to make the festival stand out. So that you don't bypass it. So that you trip over it on every corner. Feel free to puzzle over what that huge pink sign in front of the theater wants to say and let it carry you to our gates. I am here and I will also speak to you in the pedestrian zone in the form of objects and displays as curatorial support for exhibitions of young talents. Be curious with me. I am. Energy, provocation, freedom, playfulness – these are the words that resonate with my vision of children's and youth theatre. It is like orange juice that refreshes when it is hot and awakens our perception. It forces us to look at ourselves and the world around us with a new, unexpected perspective.
For me, being a dramaturg of an international festival also means traveling a lot to different countries in Europe. Ljubljana, Berlin, Marseille or Prague – excellent theatre is being created everywhere, I would love to show you all of it, but my job is also to be able to choose what is top. Theatre for youth is a really important trend abroad and I am very happy that we here in Trnava are also trendy and cool (that's what my generation used for slay). In our time, we only had elementary art schools and when we wanted to see theatre that we liked, we had to make it ourselves. If TTF had existed in my “teens” years, I would have been a huge and ever-present fan.
The secret hero of every festival is the technical director. The one who holds a piece of magic and technology in one hand and a cup of coffee to survive in the other. My first contact with theatre took place in a deep pit, more precisely in the orchestra pit, where I performed with a youth orchestra as a trumpet player. I consider theatre for youth a magical portal to the world of fantasy and adventure.
As the festival's dramaturg, I make sure that you are amazed, concerned, outraged, satisfied and intellectually and emotionally saturated. In short, I help to compose the main and the accompanying program in such a way that they make sense. My attitude towards youth theater could be classified as the relationship of an older sibling to a younger one: I love them even when they pour orange juice on my new computer. Raised by amateur ensembles at various elementary art schools, I constantly try to fiercely defend my inner child.
Everything you read on our social networks and website has mostly passed through my hands. Articles, posts, copytexts… Articles, posts, copytexts... As a popular Slovak saying goes – everything needs to have a head and a heel. That's when things make sense. Altough, sometimes my texts have the head of a rhinoceros and the heel of an orangutan. Other times the head has an elegant bowler hat and the heel is in shiny dress shoes. It all depends on how I feel at that moment. I try to bring a relaxed mood, intelligent humor and something unusual to my work. I like to see how my work entertains people. That's when I know why I'm grateful to be able to work in culture.
My role in the team is to transform all the extraordinary that is born behind the walls of the theatre onto ordinary paper that can capture your attention and arouse your curiosity. I work in offline marketing, so my work won't jump out at you while you're scrolling, but it will be waiting for you discreetly in the most common places. Youth theater is fascinating to me, it reminds me of the paper I work with at the beginning of the process, clean, blank, malleable, fragile and precious. Although despite its fragility it can bear the weight of words, it cannot face the environment and its influences on its own. I perceive the ability to participate in creating an environment for young people as a rare opportunity, because I myself started in a children's theatre group, which aroused in me such an enthusiasm for art that I carry it with me to this day.