Haris Pašovic
Encyclopedia
Haris Pašović is a Bosnian theatre and film director. Over the course of his wide-ranging career, he has also worked as a playwright, choreographer, performer, and designer. He is best known for his productions of Wedekind’s “Spring Awakening” and numerous collaborations with other artists, including Susan Sontag
, Miki Manojlovic
and Peter Brook
. He is the artistic leader of the East West Theatre Company
in Sarajevo and Professor of Directing at the Performing Arts Academy in Sarajevo.
, Bosnia and Herzegovina
in 1961. His education includes the Academy of Performing Arts in Novi Sad, ex Yugoslavia; the Fulbright Scholarship in the USA (University of Hawaii
, Honolulu, New York University
and the University of Wisconsin, Madison); the UNESCO
High Levels for Directors, Festival d’Avignon, France, and other professional trainings.
He directed in some of the most significant theatres in the former Yugoslavia
and participated in a number of festivals worldwide. His productions of Frank Wedekind’s “Spring Awakening” and “Calling the Birds” based on Aristophanes
’ play “The Birds” (both at the Yugoslav Drama Theatre, Belgrade
1987/90) have been considered as the landmarks in the theatre of the former Yugoslavia. Likewise, Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” (Belgrade Drama Theatre) and Alfred Jarry’s “Ubu Roi” (National Theatre Subotica) have been considered as the classic productions in the ex-Yugoslav theatre, the former being the last Yugoslav premiere performed on the eve of the war in the country. As the artistic leader of theatre “Promena” (“Change”), Pasovic directed with a great success Wiess’ “Marat/Sade”; Wedensky’s “The Christmas Three at the Ivanovs”; Kis’ “Simon the Magus” on a lake surrounded by sand desert; Bunuel’s “Hamlet” placed in the fortress sitting on a rock rising from the Adriatic Sea
(Dubrovnik Summer Festival
) and many other plays.
During the siege of Sarajevo (1992–95) Pasovic spent most of the time in Sarajevo managing the MES International Theatre Festival. He directed plays and produced several shows, among others “Waiting for Godot”, directed by Susan Sontag
. In 1993, while Sarajevo was still under the siege, he also organized the first Sarajevo Film Festival “Beyond the End of the World” and was one of the most prominent advocates of naming a square in Sarajevo after Susan Sontag. Pasovic even managed to tour in 1994 to several European countries (under UNESCO
auspices) with the Sarajevo Festival Ensemble invited by Peter Brook
and Theatre Bouffe du Nord. During the tour, the Ensemble preformed two productions he had directed in the besieged city: “Silk Drums” based on the Noh plays, and In the Country of Last Things
, based on Paul Auster
’s novel.
After the war, Pasovic directed several documentaries including “Greta”, a story on Prof. Greta Ferusic
who survived both Auschwitz and the siege of Sarajevo
; a documentary trilogy entitled “Home,” “Love Thy Neighbor” and “The Balkans – Blood and Honey” about the American journalists David Rieff
, Peter Maass
and Ron Haviv
, who had reported from the Bosnian war and an art documentary entitled “A Propos de Sarajevo” about the Sarajevo International Jazz Festival.
In 2002, Pasovic made a spectacular comeback to theatre directing Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet
” in front of the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina in a downtown Sarajevo. This was a brave futuristic production about a Muslim Romeo and a Christian Juliet, which involved 25 actors and live musicians, 1000 sq. m of stage, a 60-member crew, arms, vehicles, fireworks, video projections across the façade of the Parliament building and has stopped the traffic in the main city artery for four hours each night it was performed.
In 2005, Pasovic established the East West Theatre Company and directed a number of shows. Pasovic also writes the plays. He wrote “Rebellion at the National Theatre”, “Ulysses”, “Silk drums”, “Bolero, Sarajevo” and “Football, Football”. He also adapted several texts including Alfred Jarry
’s “Ubu Roi”, Aristophanes’ “The birds”, Miroslav Krleza's Europe Today, Nigel Williams’ “Class Enemy” and several others. He writes essays and articles.
Pasovic gave a number of workshops and master-classes for directors and actors, as well as public lectures (Tyrone Guthrie Centre
, Annaghmakkering, Ireland; National Theatre of Scotland
/Edinburgh International Festival
; Queens University, Belfast; Drama Centre Singapore; Festival Desire Subotica, Serbia, etc.).
He is a co-founder of the Directing Department at the Performing Arts Academy in Sarajevo. Several of his students are today internationally acclaimed film directors (such as Danis Tanovic
and Jasmila Zbanic
). Pasovic lives in Sarajevo. He is a professor of the Performing Arts Academy in Sarajevo and the Bled School of Management, Slovenia, where he teaches the subject Arts and Leadership.
Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag was an American author, literary theorist, feminist and political activist whose works include On Photography and Against Interpretation.-Life:...
, Miki Manojlovic
Miki Manojlovic
Predrag "Miki" Manojlović is a Serbian actor, famous for his starring roles in some of the most important films of former Yugoslav cinema. Since the early 1990s, he successfully branched out into movies made outside the Balkans, meaning that he's currently active in productions all over Europe...
and Peter Brook
Peter Brook
Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director and innovator, who has been based in France since the early 1970s.-Life:...
. He is the artistic leader of the East West Theatre Company
East West Theatre Company
East West Theatre Company was established in 2005 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is a non-for-profit cultural institution which produces performing arts programs and music events. It also organizes touring shows, discussions, forums, master-classes and workshops...
in Sarajevo and Professor of Directing at the Performing Arts Academy in Sarajevo.
Life and career
Pasovic was born in SarajevoSarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
in 1961. His education includes the Academy of Performing Arts in Novi Sad, ex Yugoslavia; the Fulbright Scholarship in the USA (University of Hawaii
University of Hawaii
The University of Hawaii System, formally the University of Hawaii and popularly known as UH, is a public, co-educational college and university system that confers associate, bachelor, master, and doctoral degrees through three university campuses, seven community college campuses, an employment...
, Honolulu, New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
and the University of Wisconsin, Madison); the UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
High Levels for Directors, Festival d’Avignon, France, and other professional trainings.
He directed in some of the most significant theatres in the former Yugoslavia
Former Yugoslavia
The former Yugoslavia is a term used to describe the present day states which succeeded the collapse of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia....
and participated in a number of festivals worldwide. His productions of Frank Wedekind’s “Spring Awakening” and “Calling the Birds” based on Aristophanes
Aristophanes
Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...
’ play “The Birds” (both at the Yugoslav Drama Theatre, Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
1987/90) have been considered as the landmarks in the theatre of the former Yugoslavia. Likewise, Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” (Belgrade Drama Theatre) and Alfred Jarry’s “Ubu Roi” (National Theatre Subotica) have been considered as the classic productions in the ex-Yugoslav theatre, the former being the last Yugoslav premiere performed on the eve of the war in the country. As the artistic leader of theatre “Promena” (“Change”), Pasovic directed with a great success Wiess’ “Marat/Sade”; Wedensky’s “The Christmas Three at the Ivanovs”; Kis’ “Simon the Magus” on a lake surrounded by sand desert; Bunuel’s “Hamlet” placed in the fortress sitting on a rock rising from the Adriatic Sea
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
(Dubrovnik Summer Festival
Dubrovnik Summer Festival
The Dubrovnik Summer Festival In a unique ambient of open and closed scenes of Renaissance-Baroque city of Dubrovnik a rich programme of classical music, theatre, opera and dance is presented.-External links:*...
) and many other plays.
During the siege of Sarajevo (1992–95) Pasovic spent most of the time in Sarajevo managing the MES International Theatre Festival. He directed plays and produced several shows, among others “Waiting for Godot”, directed by Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag was an American author, literary theorist, feminist and political activist whose works include On Photography and Against Interpretation.-Life:...
. In 1993, while Sarajevo was still under the siege, he also organized the first Sarajevo Film Festival “Beyond the End of the World” and was one of the most prominent advocates of naming a square in Sarajevo after Susan Sontag. Pasovic even managed to tour in 1994 to several European countries (under UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
auspices) with the Sarajevo Festival Ensemble invited by Peter Brook
Peter Brook
Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director and innovator, who has been based in France since the early 1970s.-Life:...
and Theatre Bouffe du Nord. During the tour, the Ensemble preformed two productions he had directed in the besieged city: “Silk Drums” based on the Noh plays, and In the Country of Last Things
In the Country of Last Things
In the Country of Last Things is a dystopian epistolary novel written by American author Paul Auster and first published in 1987.- Plot summary :...
, based on Paul Auster
Paul Auster
Paul Benjamin Auster is an American author known for works blending absurdism, existentialism, crime fiction and the search for identity and personal meaning in works such as The New York Trilogy , Moon Palace , The Music of Chance , The Book of Illusions and The Brooklyn Follies...
’s novel.
After the war, Pasovic directed several documentaries including “Greta”, a story on Prof. Greta Ferusic
Greta Ferusic
Greta Ferusic is a retired professor of architecture at the University of Sarajevo and survivor of Auschwitz and the Siege of Sarajevo."Greta was the only one of her family to survive the Holocaust. After the war, she studied architecture at the University of Sarajevo and was the first woman to...
who survived both Auschwitz and the siege of Sarajevo
Siege of Sarajevo
The Siege of Sarajevo is the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare. Serb forces of the Republika Srpska and the Yugoslav People's Army besieged Sarajevo, the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996 during the Bosnian War.After Bosnia...
; a documentary trilogy entitled “Home,” “Love Thy Neighbor” and “The Balkans – Blood and Honey” about the American journalists David Rieff
David Rieff
David Rieff is an American polemicist and pundit. His books have focused on issues of immigration, international conflict, and humanitarianism...
, Peter Maass
Peter Maass
Peter Maass is an American journalist and author. He was born in 1960 in Los Angeles, California and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. He has worked for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the New York Times Magazine. He has mainly covered...
and Ron Haviv
Ron Haviv
Ron Haviv is a photojournalist, producing work covering a broad spectrum of international conflict. He is the author of several photographic collections and the recipient of a number of awards. Haviv is also a co-founder of VII Photo Agency, which is dedicated to documenting change, conflict, and...
, who had reported from the Bosnian war and an art documentary entitled “A Propos de Sarajevo” about the Sarajevo International Jazz Festival.
In 2002, Pasovic made a spectacular comeback to theatre directing Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
” in front of the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina in a downtown Sarajevo. This was a brave futuristic production about a Muslim Romeo and a Christian Juliet, which involved 25 actors and live musicians, 1000 sq. m of stage, a 60-member crew, arms, vehicles, fireworks, video projections across the façade of the Parliament building and has stopped the traffic in the main city artery for four hours each night it was performed.
In 2005, Pasovic established the East West Theatre Company and directed a number of shows. Pasovic also writes the plays. He wrote “Rebellion at the National Theatre”, “Ulysses”, “Silk drums”, “Bolero, Sarajevo” and “Football, Football”. He also adapted several texts including Alfred Jarry
Alfred Jarry
Alfred Jarry was a French writer born in Laval, Mayenne, France, not far from the border of Brittany; he was of Breton descent on his mother's side....
’s “Ubu Roi”, Aristophanes’ “The birds”, Miroslav Krleza's Europe Today, Nigel Williams’ “Class Enemy” and several others. He writes essays and articles.
Pasovic gave a number of workshops and master-classes for directors and actors, as well as public lectures (Tyrone Guthrie Centre
Tyrone Guthrie Centre
The is a centre for creative artists at Annaghmakerrig, Newbliss, County Monaghan, Ireland, founded in 1981.The house was the family home of Tyrone Guthrie, and it was his will that it be used as a retreat...
, Annaghmakkering, Ireland; National Theatre of Scotland
National Theatre of Scotland
The National Theatre of Scotland is a theatre company established in February 2006. The company performs in a wide range of venues including theatres, halls and found spaces across Scotland....
/Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh International Festival
The Edinburgh International Festival is a festival of performing arts that takes place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August. By invitation from the Festival Director, the International Festival brings top class performers of music , theatre, opera...
; Queens University, Belfast; Drama Centre Singapore; Festival Desire Subotica, Serbia, etc.).
He is a co-founder of the Directing Department at the Performing Arts Academy in Sarajevo. Several of his students are today internationally acclaimed film directors (such as Danis Tanovic
Danis Tanovic
Danis Tanović is a Bosnian film director and screenwriter.Tanović is best known for having directed and written the script for the 2001 Bosnian movie No Man's Land which won an Academy Award. He was a member of the jury at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival.-Biography:Danis Tanović was born in the...
and Jasmila Zbanic
Jasmila Žbanic
Jasmila Žbanić is a film director from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a graduate of Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo, department for theater and film directing. She also worked as a puppeteer in the Vermont-based Bread and Puppet Theater and as a clown in a Lee De Long workshop. She is noted for the...
). Pasovic lives in Sarajevo. He is a professor of the Performing Arts Academy in Sarajevo and the Bled School of Management, Slovenia, where he teaches the subject Arts and Leadership.
Works
- Bunuel’s Hamlet, 1984
- Marat/Sad, TV drama, TV Novi Sad (adapted and directed by), 1985
- Paradise, now, TV drama, TV Novi Sad (screenplay adaptation and directed by), 1986
- Frank Wedekind’s Spring’s Awakening, 1987
- Calling the Birds (based on Aristophanes’ play “The Birds”), 1989
- Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot
- Ubu Roi (based on Alfred Jarry’s play)
- Wiess’ Marat/Sade
- Wedensky’s The Christmas Three at the Ivanovs’
- Kis’ Simon the Magus
- Silk Drums (based on the Noh plays), 1994
- In the Country of Last Things (based on Paul Auster’s novel), 1994
- Greta ”, feature documentary (director and producer), 1997
- Iz Albanije, documentary (screenwriter and director), 1998
- Home, a documentary trilogy, 1999/2000
- Love Thy Neighbor, a documentary trilogy, 1999/2000
- The Balkans – Blood and Honey, a documentary trilogy , 1999/2000
- Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, 2002
- A Propos de Sarajevo, documentary (screenwriter, director and producer), 2003
- Rebellion at the National Theatre (inspired by McCoy’s novel “They Shoot the Horses, Don’t They?”), playwright and director, 2004
- Ulysses (playwright)
- Bolero, Sarajevo
- Hamlet by William Shakespeare (director), 2005
- Faust (adapted and directed by), 2006
- Class Enemy based on Nigel Williams’ play (adapted and directed by), 2008
- Nora (Henrik Ibsen's Doll's House), 2009
- Football, Football, 2010
- Europe Today, 2011
- Roses for Anne Teresa/Football Stories, 2011
Awards
- BITEFBitefBITEF, Belgrade International Theatre Festival, is one of the theatre festival that takes place in Belgrade, Serbia, each year.Founded in 1967, BITEF has continually followed and supported the latest theater trends...
award for the Best Director - ‘’Bojan Stupica’’ award for Best Director in the former Yugoslavia
- Best Director Award at the MES International Theatre Festival
- UCHIMURA Prize
- The Best Director at the Festival of Bosnian Theatres