Hop.la! is a bunch of artists,  gathered in 2005 in Belgrade. It owes its cheerful name to
dark drama of Ernst Toller “Hopla, we’re alive”. The main areas of Hop.la! activity are collective practices in the scope of visual and performing disciplines, social experiments and art research. All works are realized through collaboration with networks, organizations and  institutions of culture at home and abroad – in the domain of art production, as well as in social interventions focused at cultural,
educational and ideological matrices.

​The bunch consists of  Irena Ristić and Anđelka Nikolić and associates.

https://hoplale.wixsite.com/hopla

We are going to make something about war, gender and liberty, it will be titled: what would Chelsea say to me

Irena Ristić and Đorđe Živadinović Grgur [then in reversed order]

premiere in 2023

This is a theater inquire dedicated to whistle-blowing and the concept of radical transparency. It is inspired by the testimony of Chelsie Manning, a former military analyst who [by her actions] has changed our perception of imperial wars and expanded the scope of the struggle for human rights [readme.txt, 2022]. This is the performative homage to Chelsea Manning, and the experiment based on a dynamic form in which the audience becomes an accomplice, and local echoes of macro political movements are explored and performed in a public inquire of an immersive character.

https://hoplale.wixsite.com/here/copy-of-surplus-value

Culture delivery and foundation of village cultural center Markovac

Anđelka Nikolić

2019-2020

​The village cultural center was created in Markovac near Velika Plana, with the aim of restarting cultural and social life in the village and its surroundings. After the first program of the theater for young people [village theater], Anđelka Nikolić initiated workshops, invited guests from Belgrade and Kragujevac, and created first joint performance that brings together the entire village for the first time. The state of emergency during Covid 19 brings bans, but actions continue. The “Cultural delivery” program is launched, performances travel from plot to plot, which enables the involvement of entire families, not only children. Anđelka relies on the techniques of the Japanese kamishibai theater: with the help of images, stories are shared and tailored on a small wooden stage. Together with Petar Lukić she directs several plays in Markovac, among which are “What is the kamibishibai”, “Dr li”, “Elmer on stilts”, “Rapatočki”, “Put vetra”, “Kišni oblak”. One of them, “Frog and the Stranger” based on the book by Max Velthuijs, was performed on the Festival of Ecological Theater for Children in Bačka Palanka, as well as on the Festival organised by the Asitež Center in Belgrade. With the establishment of the “Ekatarina Pavlović” reading room, a base for connecting local women and artists from the wider community is created. The Markovac Rural Cultural Center was formally founded in November, 2020.

novembra 2020.

​skcmarkovac.rs

Surplus value

Irena Ristić

February-March 2019

During winter 2019 in Šabac theater, the action research was conducted with artists who were involved in the preparation of the repertoire performance, in order to examine the attitudes of theater artists and cultural operators toward socioeconomic division within the collective to which they belong, as well as toward the distribution of a potentially common property. Semi-structured interviews, questionnaire and plenum techniques were used. The results show a high degree of tabooization of speech about money and a class division, the devaluation of socialist legacy and lack of information that facilitate the naturalization of current working conditions, as well as a series of contradictory reactions that reveal the inhibitory effects of fear from taking on the responsibility for the commoning. The results also indicate the conditions and possibilities of change within a theater institution, as a stronghold of collective practices and the space of social superstructure.

https://hoplale.wixsite.com/hopla/copy-of-pozoriste-na-selu-2

Epic games: Building of Skadar

Anđelka Nikolić

2017

The performance “Epic Games” deals with the poem “Zidanje Skadra”, which is part of the Serbian language curriculum for the 5th grade of elementary school, and links it with other school subjects such as technical education, mathematics and civic education. The performance is interactive: including playing with the audience and discussing the topics related to the poem and also depending of the age and interest of the other audience.

https://hoplale.wixsite.com/hopla/epske-igrice-i-zidanje-skadra