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YOU AND I ARE WE

7. December 2009.

„You and I are we, and  we are the whole world. We can change the world from a black one into a white or multi-colored one. We can also make a change from the Latin script into the Cyrillic one. Everything is so amusing, since the world is rich in differences. You aren’t like me and I aren’t like you, but still you and I are we, and we make up a team“.

Set out above is the refrain of a song by which fourteen Serbian, Albanian and Roma secondary-school children from Presevo and Bujanovac finished off the premiere of the “You and I are We” play. The young actors and actresses were commended with applause in the overfull Community Center’s hall on Wednesday, December 2, 2009. The students are both authors of and actors/actresses in the play in which they speak about growing-up in their three languages, as well as in English. That was the finale of a two-month educational and art project, which was for the first time made in this way and which was performed by gifted secondary-school students and a bit older than them lecturers from Belgrade, Valjevo, Novi Sad and Sombor. In addition to basic theatrical education, these young people gained the experience of working and studying together with the young of their own age who are from other ethnic communities. They developed the understanding of and tolerance towards other cultures through the theatrical workshop and by learning dramatic skills. 

The project is funded by the Coordination Body of the Government of the Republic of Serbia for the Municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja. Prior to the performance, Aleksandar Lazic, director of the performance, addressed the audience in English. The same text was conveyed to the audience by Milena Bogavac, a dramaturge, as well as by a local coordinator Rahim Salihu, who addressed the audience in Albanian. They told the audience that the “You and I are We” play was the most wonderful multiethnic picture postcard that one could possibly send from South Serbia to the world.

Milan Markovic, President of the Coordination Body and Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, thereupon, addressed primarily the young people in the audience by pointing out the following: „This project is the most wonderful thing that the Coordination Body has done so far and it shows what our attitude to the young is like. We won’t give up investing in the young and their education.”
Saip Kamberi, the mayor of Bujanovac, supported not only this activity of the Coordination Body, but also the other Coordination Body’s activities that pave the way for a better life in Bujanovac and in all South Serbia of members of various ethnic communities.  

The young in the audience responded to developments on the stage by recognizing the existential quality of acting, which was done by the young of their own age who spoke about all of them, as well as about the everyday life of secondary-school students from South Serbia. The young actors and actresses were firstly congratulated for their acting by Minister Milan Markovic, Shaip Kamberi, the mayor of Bujanovac, and by MP Riza Halimi. After working hard on the play for two months and after having a successful premiere, the Serbian, Albanian and Roma secondary-school actors and actresses jointly celebrated their first acting experience. 

This was the only pause for them over the last two months, since the Belgrade premiere awaits them in the “Dusko Radovic” theater on December 14, 2009.