Mate Balota: NARROW COUNTRY

Mate Balota NARROW LAND Direction and dramatization: Marin Blažević Choreography: Maša Kolar Scenography: Marin Blažević and Maša Kolar Costume design: Sandra Dekanić Lighting design: Marin Blažević Projection designer: Marin Lukanović Language consulting: Anton Percan Scenography assistant: Vanja Ujčić PERFORMERS Narrated by: Neva Rošić Acting: Ivna Bruck and Luka Mihovilović Dancing: Maria Matarranz de Ias Heres and Michele Pastorini Performing: members of the INK Drama and Dance Studio Production: Istrian National Theatre Pula City Theatre Theatre season Ode to Peace 2025/2026 Duration: 95 min PREMIERE / PRIME: April 29, 2026 at 8 p.m. REPEAT / REPLAY: April 30, 2026 at 8 p.m. hours ABOUT THE PRODUCTION We are announcing a hybrid dramatic-lyrical, acting-dance performance that will bring to life the narrative and cultural or native insights of Balota's novel. We found the key dramaturgical and performance challenge in the collision and interplay of the cruel plot of the dramatized novel and the music of Vivaldi's famous cycle of violin concertos, "The Four Seasons". In addition to two actors (Ivna Bruck and Luka Mihovilović) and two dancers (Maria Matarranz de las Heras and Michele Pastorini), the performance will also feature the doyen of Croatian acting, Neva Rošić, as the narrator and embodiment or personification of Istria. We will not deal with the romanticism of ethno-historical reconstruction, but with the aesthetic experience of the past, present and future of the ecology of the Istrian peninsula. However, we will not even try to resist patriotic sentiment. Quite the opposite.