Children theatre centre in the Skopje Old bazaar

The yellow theatre brings magic in several languages

Audience consisted of “small and big people” started reviving one more lane in the Old bazaar
An event that undoubtedly marked the previous 2004 year is the opening of the Children theatre centre in Skopje, in the facility of the previous cinema Napredok. It’s situated in one of the busiest lanes of the Skopje Old bazaar, near Bit market, the cultural monuments Suli An (the Art faculty), Cifte Amam (Area 2 - National art gallery of Macedonia), among a large number of tinter shops, producers of musical instruments, teashops, clockmakers, clothes sellers, sellers of colourful candies… Its surrounding points out its great idea to attract mixed audience, people from different cultures, languages and religions, offering programme in several languages: Macedonian, Albanian, Turkish, Roma…

The Children theatre centre can’t leave indifferent even the least interested passer-bys, because there is impressively coloured yellow facade, that fits the ambience, but at the same time sends a message that inside, it is hiding a new, modern space filled with magic, that is actually offered by all the theatres in the world.

The aim of its founders to create a house of culture where people won’t feel the difference in languages, customs, where all the differences will flow into one (which is actually the motto of the Bazaar), is realized through five years of work of the Centre by implementing different activities whose start was in 1999, with realization of fast operational project for decreasing the stress of the children refugees from Kosovo.

“The mixed audience is our first strategic aim, and the second one is imposing a different theatre for children. We want to offer a real, stylistic theatre to the children because we respect their individuality. Here problems will be opened from the children’s point of view, how they feel, and first of all, how they see themselves, starting from the family, the school, the environment where they live” - will point out in 2003 the executive director Refet Abazi in a time when the old object with investing a lot of enthisiasm and with financial support from foreign donors, slowly started to form its present image, adding that people are gathered around the Centre on individual relations, after a previous cooperation on different projects and that its creation is a kind of school for everyone. Before the end of 2004, after a three-month anchoring in the long-desired theatre building, Abazi with unhidden pleasure will point out that he is very satisfied with the way in which the Children theatre centre continued to work. “Everything we have foreseen, we did in the facility. We lack only setting the auditorium, i.e. proper seats for the audience, so that we can start the regular repertory from January 2005, for which the citizens will be informed also through the daily newspapers”. Abazi mentions that from January the project “Culture for all, all for culture” should also start, dedicated to the democratization of the cultural life of children and youth, of overcoming the cultural isolation on ethnic basis in the context of the new administrative division of Macedonia, as well as of stimulating the cooperation between the local government and the independent organizations in the area of culture and civil organizations. Within the project they will work on training trainers for building capacities for working with chidren and youth in the towns in the country and in the rural environment, on including the chidren from the marginalized groups in the art work for building self-confidence. They will also work on preparing a series of intercultural and multilingual plays that will be performed throughout ethnic compact areas, on stimulating local artists and theatre groups from provincial areas to produce multilingual and intercultural theatre work, seminars will be organized dedicated to culture and the community, and during the summer months, in cooperation with the city Skopje, it is planned a Month of the bazaar to be organized with a series of cultural events and an open stage in the Skopje Old bazaar.

The great enthusiasm that is necessary even today, beside the finances, to make an almost ruined building in a modern theatre facility, is also pointed out by the technical director Krste Dzidrov, who shows with pleasure all the parts of the facility, the offices, the halls for meetings, the stage, but also the cabins with modern audio equipment where the translators are situated who together with the actors offer the magic of the theatre to the visitors in several languages. He believed in the goal that was set many years aback, regardless of the many on-going daily-political happenings that contributed the life of the Skopje Old bazaar to die for some time, and lately it is gradually returning together with the faith of many for its complete revitalization in the future.

Plays for big and small children
On the stage of the new theatre coloured in yellow, in production of the Children theatre centre, the plays “Multicoloured eyes” - text by Jeron Neziraj, directed by Dimitar Elinov, “The cuckoo” - text by Elin Rahnev, director - Gorgi Mihajlov are performed, and still in preparation is the play “Photographs”, text - Selvinaze Abazi, director - Vladimir Milcin. In twelve cities throughout Macedonia, in the autumn 2004 the theatre crew consisted of adult and young actors performed the plays “ Love or friendship”, text - Blagica Sekulovska, director - Kustrim Bektesi, “The old house” (puppet show), text - S.Abazi, director - Dragan Dovlev, “The new neighbour”, text - S. Abazi, director Martin - Kocovski and “ The giant wheel” (puppet show), text - Krisi Naumovski, director - Dragan Dovlev. All four plays are prepared in co-production with the civil organization “Search for mutual ground”, whose name is connected to the famous television series “Our neighbourhood” whose actors: Fisnih Zekiri, Zahida Amid, Nesrim Bektes, Nenad Angelkovik, Valbona Hodza, Borjan Krstevski and Bojan Velevski are now acting in the plays “Love or friendship” and “The new neighbour”. Valbona (15), Borjan (16) and Bojan (17) feel “at home” in the new theatre where one December night they were talking with pleasure that they are actors, that in the Children theatre centre everyone treats them professionally, but also that in their decisions to be actors further on in their lives no one can make them hesitate.

“In the Chidren theatre centre everything is OK, there are very good working conditions, unlike the other cities where we acted in plays on our road show, but still the road show was very good, we met a lot of people”-says Borjan. The road show through the cities left a great impression to Valbona as well. Until then, she had seen only the cities in the western part of Macedonia, and for the visited cities in the eastern and southern parts of our country she says they are beautiful and they have very good audience that followed them attentively all the time.

“For that audience we will always act the best”-says Bojan who as his colleagues met new people on the road shows, and some of them are already his penfriends. All three of them point out that most of their friends don’t even know about the theatre, but don’t refuse to come and watch them, but also that the opening of the theatre building provided them to meet the professional treatment of the stage and to get to know and love the Bazaar. For them the preparation and the performance of the plays in several languages is not a problem, and they say that their audience accepts them without a problem, no matter what city they go to.

The Children theatre centre in the Bazaar in 2003 succeeded after a long time to bring to the audience in Cifte Amam an original Karagoz play performed by Karagoz actors from Turkey, with which the stopped tradition started to be revived. The members of the Centre in their future plans put the street plays for children and adults, art demonstrations as part of the conceptual art, exhibitions, concerts etc. The yellow building has a nice beginning, we wish it has a lot of plays and an auditorium full of audience.


Katerina Bogoeva