Francophone theatre art addicts
From time to time yearly, a few years in a row already, there are whispers about an unusual event: amateur theatre. Nothing unusual, you’ll say. But this is not just any amateur theatre, but students’ amateur theatre. And it’s not just any students’ theatre, but it’s a theatre by Macedonian students and in French language!
The theatre group “Les Artcooliques” (or, a bit more English-sounding, Artholics) is already a well-known name on Skopje’s theatre and cultural scene. The members of this group are students of French language from the Department of Romance Languages and the Department of Translation and Interpretation at the Faculty of Philology “Blaze Koneski” – Skopje.
“ ‘Les Artcooliques’ exists since 2005/2006. The number of members varies, but it’s always between 10-15 students”- says Irena Pavlovska, a lector of French language at the Faculty of Philology and a founder of the group, as well as one of the animators of all the activities together with a few of Belgian lectors so far (Celine Mariage, Veronica Ntoumos after her and at the moment, Laetitia Peeters). The name itself shows that apart from love for French language, the members also share love for theatre: “The group’s name was an idea of the students-members, who consider themselves as (theatre) art addicts” – reveals Pavlovska.
In cooperation with the Belgian Agency Wallonie-Bruxelles International, the group has had the opportunity to work with a professional Belgian director each year, since 2009. “With two workshops, the director helps us realize one theater play per year, that we first present here and then take to some of the other countries in the region. That’s how the idea for organizing an international university festival “Unifest” was born (first it took place in 2010 and went on for the next 3 years)”- continues Pavlovska. “Even though our plays are in French, we try to make it easier for our non-Francophone audience by shortly introducing them to the plot and by adding some lines in Macedonian. Apart from that, the scene effects and the music help to understand the story on a visual level.”- she concludes.
The last project from “Les Artcooliques” is the adaptation of “Fear and trembling”, a novel written by Belgian author Amelie Nothomb, which had its premiere on the 8th of April. The hall of Academic Scene on the Faculty of Dramatic Arts was full and everyone laughed, cried and sympathized with Belgian Amelie in all her endeavours in the company which she works for in Tokyo.
To face this challenge, they had some help from the Belgian director with 40 years experience in the field of youth theatre. Michel Van Loo, who even after his retirement actively works on various projects, among which are also some for Wallonie-Bruxelles International. “Because of my previous experience with Balkan students’ theatre groups, I was already familiar with the work of ‘Les Artcooliques’ when they proposed me to come to Skopje and this is our second play together” – says Van Loo. “It’s not easy to prepare a play, when you work with a professional theatre, you say how many actors you need, how many male and female roles, everything is set. But when you work with students, if you go to India you will hardly ever find a girl, whereas in Europe you have 15 girls for one boy in the group and there aren’t many plays with many female roles.”- he explains. “Theatre is a tool that allows everyone to be in touch with culture, and reaches all social classes. Theater is not only saying a text, you need to think of the movements, the gestures, the environment. I like this group, the members try hard!” – says Van Loo with laughter.
“Les Artcooliques” try to tour on amateur theatre festivals each year in some of the neighboring countries. So far they have participated in several festivals in Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and France. As the director Michel Van Loo emphasized, “theatre is like painting – there are always many layers”. The last theatre layer of “Les Artcooliques” for this school year, was a nice, common trip and presentation of the newest play on the 10th of May in Belgrade, Serbia.
Ana-Marija Karadjovska
Statements in boxes
“Even though I recently joined this group, I can say that it has been a wonderful experience for me. As I had never participated in anything similar before, I had difficulties in the beginning, but with time I got rid of the stage fright and shame. This has also helped me a lot to relax while speaking French, which means a lot to me. Definitely, an experience everyone should live through!”
-Marijana Bogdanovska
“In the beginning, I thought of ‘Les Artcooliques’ as a great opportunity to improve my French. However, I quickly understood that even though it was amateur theatre, we work seriously and with dedication in this group and that discipline and sacrifice are necessary above all. Being a member of ‘Les Artcooliques’ is one of the best experiences of my life, I meet wonderful people, make friendships, I learnt what it means to work with love and at the end, at our great pleasure, the audience knows how to appreciate it. I feel immeasurably proud to be part of this team.”
-Elena Ristevska
