Zoran Stefanović

The artist is a scholar of Metaphysical: Directing method of Goran Trenčovski as cognition of immense pressure

It is quite possible that the essays, a true craftsman's notes written by eminent Macedonian and Balkan movies and theater director Goran Trenčovski, will surprise even his fellow colleagues, artists.

At a time when the imperative of artistic activity by means of mass impact and efficiency, becomes an intense need to "brand" each separate artistic act or product, Trenčovski behaves as a compulsive Classical or Renaissance artist. He still understands arts and entertainment industry as a science of catharsis.

Behind the spiritual forces which overwhelm him, the archetypal images, Trenčovski constantly improves his poetic and philosophical system. But that system is not merely an instinctive one, as it is the case with so many artists. Relying on theoretical models, often devised by himself, the director articulates a problem, thoroughly rethinks conventional reality, employs the analytical apparatus of comprehensive tradition, even when compressing it into a nutshell of a few sentences.

Trenčovski is not afraid to rediscover long forgotten apparentness. In his titanic effort to comprehend, he is unscrupulous and ruthless in the use of theory, pop culture, mysticism, science and spirit of the times and, above all, the filter of established practice - human and creative.

Therefore, his writings - densed and hyper-composed - simultaneously interpret, recount, sing and perform. Alone, they often do not represent an artistic act more lenient than those which Trenčovski bravely presents us in his directing settings. Inside us they arouse all of the bordering tensions at the moment we realize which of his own mental powers — belonging to the experience of one's creative practice — the artist-thinker has just performed.

Apparently, even the workshop from which so many excitements come is much more uncertain and more subtle from what the civil order and security of collective artistic ego dictate.

It is strange to see this rapid and parallel projection of film tape, the montage of total attraction... Those edgy journeys you are taking us on, Director.

Zoran Stefanović

Zoran Stefanović (born 1969) is Serbian writer, playwright and screenwriter. His works were published in several European languages. He was awarded several times. The setting of his play "Slavic Orpheus" by Goran Trenčovski (1992) is considered as one of the first offsets of post-Yugoslav dramaturgy and theater in Macedonia and Serbia.