Last week, in Bosnian media published a very flattering text by the famous BH theater critic, Indira Kucuk Sorguc.
The English translation of the text follows:
“STEĆAKLAND” – A BOLD AND SUCCESSFUL THEATRICAL INNOVATION
Production Information
Performance: StećakLand
Text and Dramaturgy: Vedran Fajković
Director: Kenan Kulenović
Cast: Selma Alispahić, Aldin Omerović, Elma Juković, Nedim Džinović, Enes Kozličić, Anja Kraljević
Set and Costume Design: Adisa Vatreš Selimović
Production and Partners:
The project was realized under the coordination of the Association for the Digitization of Cultural Heritage DIGI.BA, in partnership with NoHo Production (Ireland), the Institute of Archaeology Belgrade, the National Museum of Montenegro, and the Mak Dizdar Foundation, through the Creative Europe programme of the European Commission.
StećakLand at Kamerni teatar 55 represents a bold and innovative moment in Bosnian-Herzegovinian theatre — a project that merges a powerful dramatic foundation, profound historical themes, and contemporary virtual reality (VR) technology. What makes this performance truly unique is its ability to revive Bosnia’s medieval past through a poetic-visual form. Vedran Fajković’s text skillfully builds upon cultural memory and the epigraphic traces carved into stećci, silent guardians of collective narratives. His dramaturgical work transforms mystical symbolism and historical layers into a universal, emotionally charged story.
The performance is a poetic-visual and mystical staging: through a fusion of acting, sound, scenography, and VR projections, the audience enters multiple “worlds” simultaneously — the physical stage and the digital dimension revealed alongside it.
By: Indira Kučuk-Sorguč
A Complete Scenic Experiment
StećakLand, staged at Kamerni teatar 55 and directed by Kenan Kulenović, is a coherent scenic experiment that spiritually, aesthetically, technologically, and narratively interrogates the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina through theatre and virtual reality. Unique within the local theatrical tradition, the project invites the viewer to reflect on identity, memory, and myth through a layered narrative and visual matrix.
At the heart of the performance lies the dramatic foundation by Vedran Fajković, whose authorial and dramaturgical vision articulates the epoch of medieval Bosnia with exceptional precision and emotional sensitivity. Fajković does not treat history as mere background; instead, he explores it from within and, through the character of Queen Katarina Kosača, poses essential questions: “Who is the person looking at us from the mirror of history?” and “Which stories remain behind us, and who interprets them?”
A Text Worth Reading
This dramaturgical statement, at once philosophical and poetic, opens the performance as a meaningful system: stećci, which have stood silently for centuries, finally speak, inviting the audience to reconsider their relationship with identity and collective memory. In theatrical theory, StećakLand can be categorized as an intermedial performance, as it does not remain within a single scenic form but places theatre in dialogue with technology, memory, and history. Through multilinear narration and a collage of scenes, the performance reflects and aktualizes collective identity as something not possessed but constantly interpreted and reconstructed.
As dramaturg Fajković questions the truth and the multiple versions of our past, StećakLand responds:
“Truth is not singular, but it can be a shared space of reflection.”
Directorial Approach and Postdramatic Space
Kenan Kulenović’s directorial approach does not settle for the mere effects of VR technology; instead, it constructs a dramaturgy of presence in which every scenic element — physical or virtual — functions as part of an integrated whole. Kulenović successfully synchronizes the stage space with the digital realm without allowing one dimension to overpower the other, a complex process given that such technologies are not traditionally taught at theatre academies.
The audience occupies a position of dual perception: observing the real stage while simultaneously experiencing a virtual “second reality” through the perspective of actors wearing VR headsets, which become dynamic extensions of their performances. This hybrid of narration and performance situates StećakLand within the realm of postdramatic theatre, where meaning is constructed through a two-way dialogue between body, word, image, and virtual space.
Queen Katarina Kosača as a Figure of Memory
In the dramaturgical structure of StećakLand, Queen Katarina Kosača does not appear as a classical historical icon but as an existential figure of rupture — a woman through whose body and voice the fate of a disappearing land is refracted. Katarina becomes a lieu de mémoire, a site of memory in which home, faith, homeland, statehood, motherhood, and exile converge.
Fajković’s text does not romanticize Katarina; rather, it strips her down to human scale. She is not a queen in splendor but a woman in the collapse of her world. Her tragedy is not spectacular but quiet, internal, and enduring — like the inscriptions on stećci, which do not shout but persist. Katarina loses not only her crown, but her children, her people, and the language of the space to which she belongs.
In this sense, StećakLand establishes Katarina as an archetypal mother of a lost home — a figure that transcends her historical biography to become a symbol of the fragmented Bosnian being. Her experience of exile, separation from her children, and violent rupture of continuity resonates with contemporary traumas, rendering the Middle Ages something that repeatedly reoccurs in Bosnia and Herzegovina through different historical forms.
The Body as Archive: Selma Alispahić’s Performance
In Selma Alispahić’s interpretation, Katarina is constructed not only through rhetoric but through the body as an archive of memory. Her acting is suggestive and expressive, yet never pathetical. Every movement, held breath, and vocal fracture functions as an internal record of loss. Alispahić does not “play” Katarina — she embodies her, transforming history from something observed into something felt.
What makes this performance exceptional is the actress’s ability to exist simultaneously on two ontological planes: the physical stage and the virtual space. While wearing a VR headset, her acting does not diminish; on the contrary, it becomes more concentrated, organic, and almost meditative. The audience witnesses a paradox of contemporary theatre: the more present the technology, the more fragile and truthful the human body becomes.
Alispahić constructs Katarina as a woman who remembers on behalf of the land. Her expression turns inward, as if addressing the dead, the stone, and lost voices. In this sense, her performance achieves what performance theory defines as affective presence — a state in which acting transcends meaning and becomes pure experience.
Katarina’s presence structures the performance as a sequence of image-states rather than linear scenes, aligning with the director’s approach. The court appears not as a realistic space but as an inner landscape of memory — fragmented, resonant, and fragile. The narration accompanying these images is both interpretative and evocative: it does not explain history but summons it. In this poetic mode, Katarina becomes the voice of those absent from chronicles but inscribed in stone. Stećci here are not mere monuments or artifacts — they are sources of stories and silent spectators.
Through Katarina’s figure, StećakLand accomplishes a rare theatrical act: history ceases to be the narrative of victors and becomes an experience of loss. Through the tragedy of one woman, the performance speaks not of the end of a kingdom but of the vulnerability of every home.
Ensemble and Creative Team
Alongside Alispahić, narrator Aldin Omerović, through tonal control and narrative presence, establishes a polyphonic communication that aligns with the text as an interpretative foundation and enables the audience to listen as much as to watch. Transforming into several characters, he creates a multilayered introspection — between his internal experience of immersion into the VR application “Land of Stećci” and the emotionality of the characters themselves.
Special praise is due to the younger actors — Elma Juković, Nedim Džinović, Enes Kozličić, and Anja Kraljević — who contribute to the collective scenic vitality, resonating in harmony with the rhythm of the performance and demonstrating a shared mastery of the formal and content-related demands of such a complex production.
Set and costume design by Adisa Vatreš Selimović, with assistance from Monika Močević, features scenographic objects and costumes that are airy, symbolically layered, and visually striking. This visual code directs space as a sequence of scenic images — thoughts evoking the mysticism of time and place, transcending mere historical reconstruction into visual allegory.
Sound design by Muhamed Bajramović employs a perfectly integrated musical mix imbued with the mysticism of Bosnia, complementing narrative lines through rhythm and melody that roar like a river and resonate like stone. Choreography — conceived as a walk through time, a courtly dance, and constrained movement shaped by VR technology — was coherently and precisely developed by Irma Alimanović.
Particularly impressive is the work on VR and 3D content, successfully integrated into the narrative. The team included animation specialists (Alan Savić), photogrammetry experts (Bojan Mijatović, Domagoj Perkić, Goran Pajić, Uglješa Vojvodić), and 3D modeling and graphic visual designers (Mirsad Festa, Aida Sadžak, Emir Durmišević), who created a digitally rich world imbued with narrative and symbolic depth.
Symbolic and Imaginative Theatre
Performed at Kamerni teatar 55 under Kenan Kulenović’s direction, StećakLand stands as a rare and valuable example of intermedial, postdramatic theatre in the cultural space of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is a project that does not treat the past as a narrative to be explained, but as an experience to be activated — through body, voice, image, technology, and memory.
In this sense, StećakLand can be understood as a theatre of cultural memory, as defined by Jan Assmann: not as a simple transmission of historical facts, but as a symbolic space in which collective identity is continuously renewed through ritual, art, and affect. Stećci, epigraphs, voices, and virtual landscapes do not merely inform the audience — they enable remembrance in its deepest, existential sense. Technically demanding yet imaginatively liberating, the performance is not only a dramatic work but an experience of memory and imagination. StećakLand confirms that theatre can remain relevant, reflective, and aesthetically bold even in the digital era.
Special congratulations go to project author Selma Rizvić and the Digi.ba Association, as well as to all artists and designers whose coordination and visionary approach made this synthesis of theatre and digital culture possible. Thanks to them, Bosnia’s past is not only seen but brought to life and experienced through immersive engagement.
This has been recognized by audiences as well, who reward the performance with their presence and leave the theatre both satisfied and questioning what it is about Bosnia that is so fairy-tale-like and valuable that so many strive to claim it.
Pull Quotes (Egida)
EGIDA 1:
StećakLand is a postdramatic ritual of memory — a rare example of theatre that successfully unites cultural theory, contemporary technology, and deep emotional experience. Through the tragedy of one woman, the performance speaks of the fragility of home, state, and identity — not as the past, but as a persistent question of the present.
EGIDA 2:
Selma Alispahić stands out on stage with a suggestive and expressive acting style, undeniably carrying the emotional and symbolic weight of the performance. Her presence does not rely solely on verbal expression; she articulates the characters’ inner states through gesture and rhythm, allowing her to move effortlessly between real and virtual dimensions. This transitional weaving of acting expression reflects the fundamental, intimate connection between body and media in contemporary performing arts.