Culture vs Coronavirus - moderate optimism and caution

The Coronavirus pandemic in the past two years has drastically affected the way theater and film companies do business in Belgrade, as well as the City's festivals, and their representatives do not expect the situation to improve soon, unless more mass vaccination takes place. They have different views on the possible introduction of Covid passes in the domain of culture, and the City Secretary for culture Ivan Karl supports that measure. Theaters are also somewhat more sympathetic to the possibility of introducing Covid passes, while representatives of cinemas are expressly against such a measure, considering that they would lose the audience and that it is more expedient to do vaccination campaigns, especially for young people. The panel Culture vs Coronavirus, held on November 30 in the Belgrade Youth Center, also showed that cultural institutions today are more ready to adapt to the various challenges brought by the pandemic than in 2020, and they survive primarily thanks to stable financing from public funds - City or State, because the audience number has decreased, and thus their income.

The Yugoslav Drama Theatre, Atelje 212, the Zvezdara Theatre and the National Theatre, as stated by their representatives, strictly adhere to the epidemiological measures prescribed as early as 2020, which include wearing protective masks, reduced hall capacity (currently 50%), body temperature measurement at the entrance of both employees and the audience...

“We strive to keep the theaters safe places”, said Svetlana Paroški, PR of YDT, stating that the most complicated period was the fall of 2020, when theaters opened a new season after the state of emergency and the summer break, but soon there was a record number of new infections. “We still follow all the measures - we test both the actors and the technical staff before playing each show and possibly traveling, we all still wear masks, measure body temperature...”, she said..

The Executive Director of the Zvezdara Theater, Jasna Novakov, presented specific data on the consequences of the pandemic, noting that the theater proved to be an adaptable institution and quite tough, but also that “there is a line which one cannot cross”. “When we cross it, we will suffer large consequences. We are now somewhere near that line”, she said.
Although the audience fills the theater - as much as it is allowed, and the December repertoire is already almost sold out, Jasna Novakov said that these data can, however, present a false image, and therefore one should be careful.

The Zvezdara Theater will reach around 22,000 visitors by the end of 2021, which is a third compared to the period before the pandemic (in 2019 there were 65.000).

“We’ve achieved only a third of the visits, and we played significantly fewer shows - about the same number, with half the capacity of the audience... It was very difficult to attract new audiences to the theater even before Covid and we worked on it for years," she said, noting that the pandemic has major consequences for the financial operations of the Zvezdara Theater, which before the pandemic independently provided 60% of the budget, and 40% was the share of the City authorities. The situation is reversed today - independent income decreased to 35%, and 65% are budget funds, which have been reduced by 16%.

“This can be concluded based on how difficult it is to survive - almost on the verge of impossible”, said Jasna Novakov.

Nevertheless, it is a great privilege to be the City Theater, since funds are being provided for salaries, and partly also for new plays. “If not as before, then at least partly in line with the current situation”, she added.

The director of Atelier 212, Novica Antić, described the situation similarly, stating that the theater “is half full”.

“Plays sell out almost immediately, with us it's a little more than half of the audience's capacity”, said Antić, adding that the question is how the audience will react when the theaters open at full capacity. “Certainly, there will be consequences... If it were a normal season, we wouldn't say: ‘Uh, how many tickets we have sold!’, but: ‘Check how much less we sold!’”, said Antić.

As he added, the actors have already gotten used to the reduced number of audiences, but “at the beginning, when less than a third of the capacity was allowed, it was terrible. Now they also say - alas, the hall was full! Now, is the glass half empty or half full... We are getting used to a dose of optimism in this situation”, said Antić.

Atelier 212 adapts itself to the financial situation it is in: “The tickets that we sell comes in handy, in any case - it's better than last year when we didn't work or when we had a third of the capacity. Now we can invest in something - we bought some equipment”, he said.

Acting Manager of the National Theatre Svetislav Goncić emphasized the importance of the authorities' decision not to close theaters and to continue the distribution of cultural content in general - at the City and State level - despite the pandemic, while adhering to epidemiological measures. “We didn't close the theaters, as all other countries in the world did, we didn't fire anyone - everyone gets paid, the colleagues as well... We will talk about the Coronavirus for the next 300 years for sure, like we talk about cholera, but if we are already distributing content in this way - we are not private companies, as civil officers we are obliged to provide citizens with cultural facilities. In order to do that, we have to stay healthy, and in order to stay healthy, we can apply measures prescribed by the state, which is vaccination”.

According to him, all theaters have been applying strict measures since the beginning and there has never been a major problem in terms of mass infection. In the National Theater, everyone who performs on stage must be vaccinated, as well as all the support staff, said Goncić. “We have persons in charge and responsible for the implementation of measures precisely for this reason. It's not simple at the operational level... With the first suspicion, a sneeze, a whole series of actions is blocked that does not affect only one play, but more, because the ensembles are mixed”, he said.

Novica Antić believes that Covid passes will be introduced in the cultural sector at some point, and that this will probably cause a decrease in attendance at first - until people get used to it, and after that it will go smoothly.
Jasna Novakov, on the other hand, is not a fan of the introduction of Covid passes, since it would lead to another division of the audience.

“It is a "good" old characteristic of the Serbian people - we are prone to divisions. I think we have now acquired the 21st division - into vaccinated and unvaccinated. If there are half of us vaccinated and half unvaccinated, I expect the approximately same percentage among our audience as well”, she said and added that she would like the Zvezdara Theater to remain true to its mission - a Theater for everyone.

However, the representatives of all theaters expressed their gratitude to the audience for their patience and understanding for the postponement and cancellation of plays, stating that the pandemic has made it extremely difficult to plan the repertoire.

“Jumping in is now more present than ever. And we got used to that... regardless of the fact that it is terribly difficult to work, to organize anything. We showed a certain kind of vitality, we are somehow managing it”, said Svetlana Paroški.

Svetlana Paroški notices a difference among the audience compared to last autumn, because then both desire and fear were present, and now she sees “only an incredible desire to come to the theater, watch the plays and enjoy”.  

Jasna Novakov praised the audience, not expecting the situation to be better soon.

Antić believes that one should be realistic, not mourn as if it were the end of the world and as if everything would meet its end.

“However, I am a realistic optimist that this plague will slowly be reduced in the foreseeable future to being flu. We should consider it like that and work in accordance with that realistic optimism”, he said, adding that Atelier 212 had eight premieres, because it performed small plays. Now ensemble plays are being performed, “step by step, carefully, with all the problems”.

Unlike theater people, who are more or less reconciled to the possibility of introducing Covid passes, representatives of the cinema sector are clearly against such a measure, as the Cinematography Group at the Serbian Chamber of Commerce also stated in September.

Cinema program Director of Cineplexx Ivan Hinić and Director of MegaCom Film, Kombank Hall and the Author's Film Festival Igor Stanković, convinced that cinemas are safe, believe that it would be much more expedient than Covid passes to start a vaccination campaign, especially for young people, who make up the majority of the cinema audience.

Hinić as well thinks that the agreed protocol (distance, body temperature measurement, regular disinfection, ventilation...) provides for a perfect result. “There is not a single recorded case of Coronavirus spreading in cinemas, neither in the world nor in our country”, he said.

By the way, after closing at the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, cinemas were closed until September 1, which means that they had no income for almost six months.

“Last year was disastrous. In fact, we worked normally for 2.5 months. We survived very hard as a company. The state helped us to retain employees, and they are not easy to find, because this is a specific industry”, said Hinić, stating that September 2020, after the opening of the cinemas, gave good results, but due to reduced capacity, people's fear, but also due to the lack of films, attendance dropped, so December 2020 was at the level of 10% of December 2019.

Hinić believes that all cinemas are ready to participate in some kind of vaccination campaign, which would be clear to young people, confused by too much information. “We are a place where the main target group of visitors is between 15 and 20 years old. Let's address them – by videos, stands, promotions …”, he said.

The City Secretary for culture Ivan Karl is also wholeheartedly in favor of vaccination, who believes that it would be good if it were mandatory, and supports the introduction of Covid passes.

Although the Coronavirus pandemic has also disrupted the life of festivals in Belgrade, some of them have been postponed to 2020, and this year they had double editions - such as Bitef and March, while the Book Fair has not been held for the second year, the representatives of the City authorities believe that it is important that mostly continuity was maintained and that cultural institutions started working soon after the state of emergency, and remained open until now. The only city event continuity of which has not been held for the past two years is the International Book Fair.

According to the words of the Deputy Secretary for Culture Gordana Goncić, strategically, when deciding on City festivals in the past two years, one had to work on two plans - on the one hand, there was the epidemic and the need to continue life, in accordance with the slogan "Belgrade lives", and on the other hand, there was the artistic, conceptual aspect, i.e. the need to make the best possible program in unfavorable circumstances.

International cooperation during the pandemic was a special topic of the forum, which was led by Snežana Jojić Stamenković, and experiences in this regard, as well as in the context of the general uncertainty of business, were shared by the directors of the Ljubljana Municipal Theatre (MGL) Barbara Hieng Samobor and Zagreb Youth Theater (ZKM) Snježana Abramović Miljković, who joined via the Zoom platform.

Director of MGL reminded of the stricter measures that were in force in Slovenia on several occasions, leading to the blockade of the whole of Ljubljana, including theater life. Everything had stopped, as she stated, also on the international level - except for the memorandum signed within the Regional Union of Theaters (RUTA), on the basis of which MGL would be a guest at the Belgrade Drama Theater in early December, and one co-production play.

The Director of ZKM Snježana Abramović Miljković as well said that it was a "very difficult time" for the theater, although her theater managed to perform in Poland, Hungary and Lithuania. Despite the periodic waves of the strengthening of the pandemic, ZKM tried to realize this season of plays that were delayed from 2020. The new wave made work difficult again, because even the vaccinated actors fell ill.

BEMUS also experienced last-minute cancellations, both years at the opening. While in 2020 it was impossible to find a replacement for the celebrity Marta Agerič, this year the violinist Nemanja Radulović stepped in instead of the announced Georgian pianist Hatje Bunijatišvili, who found out before her trip to Belgrade that she was infected.

Artistic director of BEMUS Bojan Suđić said that it turned out that the festival managed to adapt quite well to the new conditions. “Perhaps, unfortunately, we had good practice and preparation during the 90s, we became more flexible, we realized that nothing can be planned with certainty. Now it's easier in a way, because we share that pain with the whole world”, said Suđić.

(SEEcult.org)

Funded by the International Relief Fund for Organisations in Culture and Education 2021 of the German Federal Foreign Office, the Goethe-Institut and other partners, goethe.de/relieffund