BROKEN RIB – FEMMINICITY artistic residence and premiere in Novi Sad
BROKEN RIB – FEMMINICITY artistic residence and premiere in Novi Sad
The production of BROKEN RIB began in May 2025 with the announcement of a local public call for participation in the Feminicity project and in the preparation of a play on the topic of misogyny and femicide. The call was published on the websites and social networks of the Novi Sad partners in the project, the Drž nedaj Troupe and the Foundation Novi Sad - European Capital of Culture 2022. The public call was also distributed via e-mail and personal contacts. The call lasted 3 weeks and 53 interested persons from Novi Sad and the surrounding area applied.
The next phase of the implementation of the activity was interviews with the registered participants. In the end a group of 25 women and one man remained. The group that was formed was intergenerational, which means women ranging in age from 18 to 75. The participants are from various professions, art students, lawyers, economists, entrepreneurs, IT programmers, psychologists, foreign language teachers. Some of the participants had previous experience of participating in similar projects, but for most of them this was their first experience of participating in an international project and their first experience of participating in a theater production. In addition to actress Sonja Mladenov Leštar, who led the process, 3 students were engaged to support the production: Marija Đurđević, a psychology student, Amelia Stakić, a theater production student, and Nađa Milkov, a journalism student.
In the period May-July 2025, 4 preparatory workshops were held, which were intended to build a team and introduce the participants to the topic of the production. The participants were given theoretical literature on feminist reading of culture and feminist theories. For example, the doctoral thesis of Professor Jelena Stefanović: Silk Skin and Chicken Heart, which presents feminist reading of literature for older elementary school classes. The works Robinson Crusoe, Tom Sawyer, The Little Prince and others were analyzed. The book From the Margin to the Center by the American author Bell Hooks is recommended as an introduction to feminist theory. Of the 40 participants we interviewed at the beginning of the process, just 2 had experience reading authentic feminist literature. The participants also had psycho-drama workshops with Lidija Vasiljević.
The production work continued during September and October. During that period, the participants had intensive workshops with the Slovenian director Jako Andrej Vojevac from FEMMINICITY project partner ZIZ Maribor. Nađa Mišković, a young drama student from Novi Sad, was engaged to support the writing of the play. Composer Marjan Babić was engaged for the music and sound, and visual artist Đorđe Marković for the costumes and props.
During the workshops, the participants, using the materials collected during the research, together with the engaged artistic team, participated in the creation of the scene and stage material for the play.
The title of the play is BROKEN RIB. The play lasts 45 minutes and features 20 women and one man.
Directed by: Jaka Andrej Vojevec
Dramaturgy: Nađa Mišković
Drama pedagogy: Sonja Leštar
Audio montage: Marjan Babić
Visual identity: Đorđe Marković
Artistic cordinator: Bojan Milosavljević
Producers: Sonja Leštar, Nađa Milkov, Amelija Stakić, Marija Đurđević
Performed by:
Danica Bošnjak, Dragica Letić, Dubravka Cimeša, Jelena Basarić, Marica Kristo, Milena Lazarević, Milica Tornjanski, Nataša Todorović, Nikolina Tarajić, Snežana Medurić, Sofija Zakić, Tamara Bogojević, Vanja Stepanović, Slađana Pantović, Anđela Andrijević i Zoran Ivković.
The play begins as the audience enters the hall and takes their seats. The first scene is a cheerful drunken party where songs, mostly well-known hits, of various genres that promote misogyny are played. The performers are in the hall and seat the audience while the lyrics of the songs are projected in large letters on a screen on the stage, like at a karaoke party.
The second scene is in the form of stand-up comedy in which several women tell jokes about blondes. They walk around the audience with a microphone and ask the audience to tell a similar joke about blondes. This is followed by a paraphrased scene from the Book of Genesis from the Bible in which the scene of the creation of Eve from Adam's rib is reinterpreted in a feminist way. The scene of the creation of Eve from Adam's rib is a key Christian myth that promotes misogyny.
The fourth scene presents witches from cartoons and fairy tales who curse men to experience a female fate. To give birth in pain, to be beaten by their husbands, to have menstruation...
Scene 5 presents the situation of a young girl who was raped by her partner and the reaction of the female part of the family. The mother who supports the filing of a lawsuit and the grandmother who demands that the shame be kept within 4 walls. The girl receives messages about the cruelty of a system that does not support victims. After that, each of the women individually tells her experience of gender violence that she has survived, and it ends with a description of physical violence against one of them, which resulted in a broken rib. The next scene presents 5 girls drinking coffee in silence while during breaks they can hear the sounds of physical violence produced by the other participants, which culminates in a gun shot while they continue to drink coffee peacefully. This is followed by a scene of a video projection of newspaper clippings with news about femicide and a monologue about how culture promotes misogyny. The performance ends with an invitation to the audience to stand up and observe a minute of silence in memory of all the murdered witches. At the end, the misogynistic music starts again and two girls walk through the audience asking if anyone wants to sing karaoke.
The premiere performance was held on October 23rd 2025 on the large stage of the Hungarian Novi Sad Theater, which is a public city cultural institution. The premiere was held as part of the Isidore Duncan Festival with about 200 people in the audience, mostly women. For the premiere, we had guest colleagues and artists from Romania and Hungary. After the performance, a 40-minute conversation with the audience was realized.
The performance was played once again on December 15 at the Philosophy Faculty in Novi Sad for about 100 students of psychology, pedagogy, media and sociology. After the performance, moderated conversation with the audience was realized.
During the implementation of the projects, we encountered certain elements of censorship, because the project did not receive financial support from the city of Novi Sad or the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia due to Sonja Mladenov's participation and support for student protests in Serbia, which started in November 2024, when 16 people died at the Novi Sad railway station due to the collapse of a canopy.
