Being Participant in Belgrade - ISWiB 2006

Love, Art, Music and Slivovica

If I say it was hard work, I'd be lying, because there was a lot of partying, if I say it was all party, I'd be missing a really important element - cultural learning, diversity and the crossing of many borders


By ELEONORA VENINOVA
from Skopje, MACEDONIA


Speaking frankly, before comingtoISWiB, I had no idea where I was going. Belgrade, sure, a city I wanted to visit for a long time, a city notorious for its night life, cultural spirit, liveliness and everything else that includes the words - life and living. But, ISWiB??

Even now, after ISWiB is over, it is difficult for me to define it. If I say it was hard work, I'd be lying, because there was a lot of partying, if I say it was all party, I'd be missing a really important element - cultural learning, diversity and the crossing of many borders. So, what were we doing those 5 days in the city where, to quote a Serbian folk icon, "you're forever young???"

Exploring, learning, interacting, mingling, voyaging around Belgrade's cultural cites, disturbing museum expos and communicating - with each other, the city, Serbia, the past. As a participant in the Art and Culture group, we had a very easy task. We went to galleries that have managed to establish themselves as real "hot spots" in a region where the expression "go to a gallery" has the same effect of the expression "go to hell", since no one really gets there in this lifetime. Talking to Marko, the young enthusiastic manager of the gallery O3one, had an invigorating effect on the diverse group of participants, since we realized that we all face similar problems and that is the thing that connects us, but the creative solutions to those problems are different, and crossing the border in this case meant having the opportunity to see one of those creative solutions.

Another exercise that we did (and when I sayexercise, I mean sweating in the hot summer sun), was finding the most important cultural cites in Belgrade only with a photo in our hands and no other information on the actual location of the monuments, fountains and buildings that we had to find. Divided in two groups, we cruised around town with a camera in our hands, "speaking" (with our hands mostly) with the citizenfrom Belgrade, who were kind enough to direct us towards our destined cites. We made plenty of interesting, funny and naughty photographs in front of churches, fountains, road signs, parks and a mini skirt. Yes, a mini skirt, one of the most memorable cites in Belgrade, all colors, all lengths (both of skirts and legs). And three participants of ISWiB gathered around one of them. Speaking of mini skirts leads me to the part - from dusk till dawn or, Belgrade's night life.

Oh, it's a life alright, a tough one, especially if you're planning to live during the day too. Belgrade has a million places to go out at night, pubs, discos, clubs, cafes and they cover a variety of music tastes (and distastes). But, going around with an international group of people slightly influenced by alcohol, is an experience of a different kind. No matter of what was the music like, the place and location, this group of ISWiB people always found a reason to party. Sometimes that meant sweating in a hot discoth?que with the sounds of most popular disco hits, while trying to keep balance so that your disoriented moving around (in some cases known as dancing) can be encountered as a socially acceptable behavior. Other times it meant learning a whole new dance, which was the case in the restaurant REKA where we enjoyed typical Serbian (and Balkan) music. As people made a circle holding hands and trying to follow the steps of what in my country Macedonia is known as oro (or kolo, in Serbia), I witnessed the creation of a whole new dance, that resembled the oro I knew. It emitted a type of unity, true, unity in the untalented movements of us, the dancers, but also unity in the cultural enrichment and the cultural tradition that at that moment we all embraced as our own. And as we were waiting for the first bus at 5 a.m. in the morning, leaning on each other, we probably achieved ISWiB's objective - to erase the real and mental borders that divide us and to learn to cohabitate together trough the things that connect us - love, art, music and slivovica.

Hum... now you don't know what slivovica means. Well, I guess you'll have to come to next year's ISWiB and find out for yourself.