Create a picture stronger than reality, dive into art

„All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts“ uttered Shakespeare out of the mouth of Mr. Jaques in the comedy "As You Like It". This year when the whole world marks 400th anniversary of the death of the greatest playwright of all time, this everlasting, timeless and (too) often cited line seems more real and true than ever before. Our world is boiling, its stage - the stage of politics, economy, wars, migration, tourism, sport, entertainment industry - creates systems of characters which in their complexity contribute to the belief in the theory of chaos, introducing disturbance, uncertainty, anxiety for the future.

Art, especially performing arts, in such a world is faced with a difficult challenge: how to create a picture stronger than reality, and how to fulfill it with word, sound, movement, how to express a thought on the stage and provoke emotion when the reality itself, always stronger than our emotional frame, has already become a real spectacle, stronger, bigger and more dangerous than ever before? How to "dive into art" and not run away from reality? There are manychoices, however none of them is easy.

Selected 62nd Split Summer Festival Programme represents "diving into art," and we through our posters invite you, dear audience, to dive into the sea of art in order to redesign, reconsider, and challenge our reality throwing down the gauntlet in a chivalrous code of honour. In ambient settings of our City with the help of Puccini and Shakespeare and Bach and Jeličić and Molière, who never feared this challenge, we will be able to learn from them. Help will come from others, numerous national and international artists, some older, some contemporary well aware of their mission and responsibility of their invitation: "dive into art."

Goran Golovko
General Manager of 62nd Split Summer Festival