Interview: Refet Abazi, actor and activist

Children Activelly Use the Universal Principle of Cultural Communication
 

The universal principle of cultural communication is to be cherished and stimulated within the youngest, because only such communication guarantees that a critical mass cab be formed in our country to say ENOUGH to many phenomena in the society led by personal frustrations and complexes. The scene of the Children’s Theatre Studio is a place where all children who want a different theatre will meet as audience. There will be Macedonian translation provided for the plays in Albanian and Turkish, so that the whole production will be available to all potential viewers

By Marijana Ivanova 

Refet Abazi is an actor and much more than that. Since he received an award by the Rector of the University “St. Cyril and Methodius” in Skopje, as a student with the highest average in the generation, he has constantly been distinguished as an extraordinary actor, equally successful acting in the Macedonian National Theater, the Theatre of the Nationalities, Drama theater, as well as outside Macedonia. He has acted in a few TV-series, films, as well as many international projects and festivals. He has been given several festival awards, as well as the award “13 November”. Mr. Abazi has been working as a professor of theatre play at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts since 1999 and he runs the class of Albanian speaking drama actors.

However, the reason for this interview with Mr. Abazi is not directly his prolific professional career, although it is related to it. Refet Abazi is a very active activist in the civic sector – he is an administrative manager of the Children’s Theatre Center in Skopje, where he carries out a noble mission: he tries to transfer the values of community, tolerance, democracy, culture, education to the children of various ethnic and social origin, through the language of art – concretely, theatre play....

C.W. – You are one of the managers of an organization with an original concept. Tell us something more about the Children’s Theatre Center.

R.A. – The main objective of the Children’s Theatre Center is to promote children’s theatre as a valuable artistic, educational and social means when dealing with the issues which refer to family, environment, education, multi-ethnic problems, understanding neighboring culture, understanding children’s rights and democracy.

C.W. – What kinds of projects does CTC implement?

R.A. – The Children’s Theatre Center implements several activities and projects. For example, there is a direct theatre work with children of different ethnic environments and social groups, as one of the primary tasks. Then, our relevant activities are making new children’s plays, producing theatre shows for children; creating means of learning democracy and children’s rights and other issues of this kind through theatre and theatre plays; introducing other foreign successful experiments, methods and experiences in developing children’s theatre. We carry out various activities for involving wider children’s audience and raising the awareness for theatre’s educational role among children, teachers, parents and theatre workers.

C.W. – The former cinema “Napredok” is being renovated in the Old Bazaar. What is this building’s destiny?

R.A. - The former cinema “Napredok” has already been reconstructed in a new institution – Children’s Theatre Studio, expected to be open soon. This institution is the first cultural institution producing theatre plays for children in three languages (Albanian, Macedonian and Turkish), clearly denoting that the cultural integration in this theatre is not only declarative, but essential, too. Thus the scene of the Children’s Theatre Studio is a place where all children who want a different theatre will meet as audience. There will be Macedonian translation provided for the plays in Albanian and Turkish, so that the whole production will be available to all potential viewers. The repertoire comprises mainly dramatic texts where the main accent is on the children’s rakurs in terms of his environment. The CTS scene will be an open scene and there will be a space for other shows too, which will guarantee a valid artistic quality.

Theatre as an educational instrument The Children’s Theatre Centre was formed in 1999, as a common project of the Open Society Institute of Macedonia Foundation and the organization Intercult from Sweden. During the Kosovo crisis, it worked with children-refugees and artists-refugees, linking them to local artists and international theatre groups. Since January 2000, the Children’s Theatre Centre has been working as a civic association, focused on children of different ethnic and social groups from the Republic of Macedonia. The Centre's strategic objective is to present the theatre as an educational instrument. Implementing this objective, the Centre works with schoolteachers, helping them to introduce some new theatre methods in their work. It also implements some new methods and experiences for theatre professionals via seminars, workshops and transferring knowledge from abroad. The Centre exclusively deals with staging newly written children’s plays. One of its important tasks is to broaden the children’s theatre audience, from both ethnic and regional aspect (rural settlements and smaller towns, ghetto settlements).

C.W. – CTC implements the idea of connecting through the universal principle of culture. I suppose it functions better within children than adults?

R.A. – Fortunately, children are not as "bitter", at least not as much as the adults. The principle “do not do what you do not want others to do to you” is still valid, and that is why the universal principle of cultural communication is still active within children. It needs to be cherished and stimulated at the youngest, because only such communication is a guarantee that in our country there can be a critical mass formed which will say ENOUGH to many phenomena in the society led by personal frustrations and complexes.

C.W. – How do children accept mutual “diversity”, if it can be called so. Do they understand the word as we do?

R.A. – Unfortunately, “diversity” is served as a division of: better and worse, cleaner and dirtier, smarter and dumber. It results from the wrong reading and interpretation of history, whose reading is the main obstacle for a normal and natural development of our society. Fortunately, children do not know “history” as well as the adults, and it is a facilitating circumstance, because the history of the Balkan’s populations is mainly recording events where some nations have done us harm, taking out of a time context the events themselves. In our history textbooks we can still come across terms such as: "damned Turks", "Kachak gangs" [traditional name for ethnic Albanian bandits] did this to us. Taking things out of the time context results in confusion and creates space for manipulation, because the individual thinking melts and the person, losing his/her integrity, chooses to belong to the “crowd”, that is people. But he/she already belongs to a nation which has suffered a lot, and as a result of the historic suffers, he has a right to “pay back”, which is actually awareness narrowing.