Frljić: TURBOFOLK

Although the official cultural politics has been ignoring it, and even if it is not yet about to become regular part of TV or radio programs, turbo-folk is omnipresent in our society: mobile-phones melodies, life styles of new social elites, and folk-clubs participate more and more in the creation of the identity of a new generation. Turbo-folk uncontainably permeates all social pores. How to deal with turbo-folk is a question our spiritual fathers on duty ask themselves. After the period of spiritual renewal, is turbo-folk the precursor of spiritual degeneration?

Though the term was coined at the end of the eighties by Rambo Amadeus, it started to be widely used in the first half of the nineties and has played an important role in political imbroglios and denouements on our tracts. Oliver Frljic, controversial young director, seconded by the dramaturge Borut Šeparovic, decided to speak about turbo-folk from the stage of the national theatre house in Rijeka, creating a provocative performance, one of the last season's most intriguing one in Croatian theatres. In the light of the Croatian theatrical scene that has always been suffering from all kinds of correctness and is always scared of any form of direct confrontation with the reality, "Turbofolk" is an important step forward towards liberation (...) Oliver Frljic's courageous staging will surely spark off opposite reactions...

It's a real thrill to see national theatre actors ready to get completely naked on the stage, to open their wounds, all sweaty and out of breath, to be simultaneously spat at and kissed... I believe that "Turbofolk" is one of those performances that will provoke very different and opposite reactions. But shouldn't such whirling of our mostly torpid social consciousness be one of the main goals of our equally torpid theatre?
T. Gašparovic, Vijenac