"Is this alright with you?"
"The promo text?"
"Yes... "
"No."
"Okay, let's go step by step."
"OK, let's erase what we have and start again."

The two heroes are once again facing the battle of their lives. They joined forces and put aside the fights between them. They are no longer fighting for an audience. Or against it. They fight together with the audience: for content, for meaning and for time.

"I think that's enough."
"Sure, it's a promo text."
"Exactly. It just has to grab your attention and make you think: I really have to go and see this."

Once you're on stage, you can't get rid of it. You can't avoid it. We have descended into a game whose rules are so simple, so absolute and so relentless that you cannot hide and you cannot stay hidden. Either we have something to say or we are 'acting'.

"Now we have to be careful not to give too much away."
"Yeah, it can't be like a trailer that tells you everything."
"In the sense that we're talking about death and doubt and passing?"
"Yes, this we have to keep for the show."
"We still need something, though."

From this point on, it's just a question of whether it will pay off. The time we spend together is limited. We are all running out of it. We need to be even more honest. We need to think even more. We need to try even bolder.

"Don't know. When I read it, it's so general."
"Yes, I agree. It's just empty phrases."
"All right, let's delete this one."
"Yeah, it's enough for a promo text. For more, there will be a programme booklet."

Theatre is a space where you have to fight for content, where you have to earn your position of utterance. If you run out of content, you run out of heroes. There is no room for doubt. We are all aware of where we are, the roles are allotted, the consensus is made. We are on this side, you are on the other. Let the game begin.
Business as usual.

"Does the title work for you?"
"Of the performance?"
"Yes."
"Now we just need an audience."

About the Authors:
Uroš Kaurin and Vito Weis are among the main representatives of the younger generation of theatre authors in Slovenia. As actors, movers, performers, authors they are versatile and many times awarded artists, who collaborated with most of Slovenia’s main institutional and non-government theatre organizations. As authors or performers they toured Slovenia and the world. They received the Borštnik award for acting for their performance Hero 2.0 – The Show of all Shows.

About the Hero project:
Project Hero is created by Uroš Kaurin and Vito Weis, with permanent collaborators Katarina Stegnar (dramaturgy), Boris Bezić (video) and Lea Čehovin (music). They have been developing this idea since 2011. Up to the present, they have made three performances, recorded hours of material, hosted events and award ceremonies, and talked a lot about their work. A lot.
Hero is meant to be a life long project and does not make any pretensions to modesty. Ambition is its starting point and its constant foundation. Two heroes, who find themselves in extreme, bizarre and absurd situations, are always walking on the edge of a precipice or triumph. In an honestly ambitious way. Two guys who want to give the audience everything they can. The audience often does not even know that they want to see this performance. Or they know that they don’t. But are still glad to have seen it.

"We are interested in honesty. Our ambition is our honesty. We don’t buy excuses and don’t tolerate whining. We also don’t accept the concept of target groups and the idea that somebody without a university degree isn’t able to recognise good art. If we aren’t making art for everyone, we aren’t playing.
Our work and the process have taught us that it is necessary for us to acknowledge our limitations and work with them. We see project Hero as an opportunity to overcome our limitations. All in all, we feel very affirmative towards our work (meaning: proud (meaning: some would say: conceited)), but this is exactly what stops us from being content, what does not allow us to stop. We are interested in what we have yet to learn.
This is more a process of dialogue and an exercise in mutual understanding than a process of creation. The main goal of our project is to try and work together for as long as we are inspired to do so, to do theatre, stay true to ourselves and also to be honest towards the audience. Contemporary ethical, political and artistic questions are always nagging at our backs and we are confronting them through our work. With huge delusions of grandeur and total belief in theatre.
Most of the time, we only get to understand our work after we have already presented it. We don’t go in and know everything. If our goal is to understand what we are doing and to be understood, we need the other to do it. This doesn’t always work, but: no pain, no gain. We are afraid of failure, but welcome it anyway. It is unavoidable. We can never be self-sufficient. It is simply impossible not to include others if we want to communicate at all. And with this mindset, it doesn’t matter what someone else thinks or feels about your work. Or if someone is present to see it. Only feedback enables us to understand our work. It makes our work alive. We need an audience. A live one. We need to share time and space with them."

We want to have a good time. We want the audience to have a good time too. With us.
We want to be funny, but also smart.
We want to be aware of what we are doing.
We want to be able to make mistakes.
We want our mistakes to work for us.
We want to make theatre. Great theatre.
We want to play our shows as much as possible and as long as we are able to.
In the end, we just love to be on stage.
And yes, we will probably end up naked at one point.

You are welcome to join us! (metaphorically, as in: follow our work, come see our shows. We are quite a handful to handle… even just the two of us.)

Authors and performers: Uroš Kaurin and Vito Weis

Dramaturgy: Katarina Stegnar
Video: Boris Bezić
Music: Lea Čehovin
Graphic design of Glej, Poster and Glej, Paper: Ivian Kan Mujezinović and Mina Fina / Grupa EE
Editor of Glej, Paper: Tery Žeželj
Graphic design of T-shirts and sales poster: Toni Soprano Meneglejte

Light design: Gašper Bohinec
Technical management of the performance: Gašper Bohinec and Grega Mohorčič
Video trailer: Nejc Vehovec
Executive production: Nika Bezeljak and Anja Pirnat
PR: Anamarija Nađ, Paulina Pia Rogač and Tina Malenšek

Residency coproduction: Hiša kulture (Celje)
Festival coproduction: Desiré Festival (Subotica), TESZT Festival (Timisoara)
Supported by Ministry of Culture, Municipality of Maribor and Municipality of Ljubljana

*Ticket price: 750 RSD (reduced price: 500 RSD)*

Photos: Andrej Firm & Ivian Kan Mujezinović

Duration: 01:20

Gallery