The Children’s Theatre of Republika Srpska performed at the “Little Ladies and Little Gentlemen” festival in Ankara.
The theatre’s play “Once Upon a Time There Was a Lion,” directed by Nikola Bundalo, was presented to over 1,200 children at the main hall of the State Opera and Ballet in Ankara.
The reactions of the children and their teachers confirmed the universal appeal of this performance, which is based on a famous children’s poem by Duško Radović.
The ensemble of the Children’s Theatre will perform a total of six times in front of the festival audience.
According to director Nikola Bundalo, performing at the State Opera in Ankara has been the biggest production challenge to date.
“Primarily because of the stage we played on, this is definitely the biggest stage we have had the opportunity to put on a performance. The audience’s reaction was fantastic. These two performances, due to the children clapping in rhythm to the music, resembled a concert. The atmosphere was truly wonderful,” said Bundalo.
Actor Nikola Milaković performs musical parts live during the show, simultaneously creating sound effects in harmony with the rest of the ensemble.
“It turned out that the music and movement, as well as everything else in this performance, truly have a universal character. It’s a great feeling when you see that your performance transcends boundaries, that the audience experiences it with enthusiasm and returns even greater energy back to the stage,” said Milaković.
As part of the festival protocol, the ensemble visited the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey.
Celebrating Children’s Day, a major holiday established by Kemal Atatürk himself, the organizers of the “Little Ladies and Little Gentlemen” festival gather participants at the monumental mausoleum, “Anıtkabir.”
This event symbolically honors the person whose reform ideas included special care for the cultural and spiritual development of children.
The official opening of the Festival was organized with the presence of the most important political and cultural figures of the Turkish administration.
Ljiljana Labović, the director of the Children’s Theatre of Republika Srpska, emphasizes that participating in a festival like this is a matter of artistic, cultural, and national prestige.
The festival is non-competitive. It is primarily an expression of a serious understanding of cultural diplomacy in the Republic of Turkey.
The organizers highlight that their participation is an acknowledgment of their artistic achievements as it allows them to perform in front of thousands of children on the most prestigious stages of their capital.
“All this, including the visit to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s mausoleum and participation in the opening protocol among such distinguished guests, created a unifying sense of the festival’s energy within us all. Carried by this energy, we performed today at the State Opera and Ballet hall, one of the most prestigious cultural institutions in Turkey. Now we understand what they told us, the invitation to this festival is actually an acknowledgment and a reward. Performing in front of 1,200 children in a building with such carefully designed architecture is extremely important to us as it strengthens our commitment to serving art and promoting our culture,” said Labović.
The Children’s Theatre of Republika Srpska, after two more performances in the hall of the State Opera and Ballet, will also have two performances on the main stage of the State Theatre in Ankara.
This year’s selection of the “Little Ladies and Little Gentlemen” festival includes, besides the Children’s Theatre of Republika Srpska, performances by children’s theatres from Cuba, Bulgaria, Spain, Turkmenistan, Romania, Poland, and the host, Turkey.
