You instantly know there is something different going on as you are passing by 6 Shipka Street on the warm Saturday that is May 12. Hordes of the underground are swarming around the galler’’s entrance, each armed with (at least one) bottle of beer, a lot of enthusiasm and genuine curiosity. People of all walks and talks of life are here, waiting to see what the reanimated Sofia Underground has to offer them.
After you pay the entrance fee, which varies between 1.30 leva and 2.50 leva depending on what kind of beer you bought, you go up the stairs and start exploring the exhibited works of art, installations, performances and interesting people that surround you. You feel like a teenage Alice, who is now in Underland and instead of a rabbit, chases after her own artistic tastes, surrounded by an atmosphere that is everything but ordinary. The elevator, this sometimes annoying attribute in older socialist-era buildings, here has undergone a curious transformation. It is the evolutionary outcome of a cross between the pink panther and your neighbour’s poodle: every inch wrapped up in a bright pink plush-like fabric. So cosy and warm it is, that some of the visitors actually decide to stay there and move up and down the evening in this pink little world of theirs.
At the landing of each floor there are people chatting excitedly or just dancing to the music played before them by the DJs. For those not content with the Madonna and Upsurt songs that could be heard upon climbing the stairs, there was a special treat of different sound performances later on: Kopfdrehung with their audio-visual improvisation, Ambient Anarchist, Izolirband, etc. It was a feast for the eyes as well as the ears: an interesting attempt to attack all senses with new, fresh ideas and by all means an unconventional approach to art.
For those for whom neither the pink colour nor the beauty of sounds could soothe the inner turmoil, an interesting solution was offered. llyan Lalev & Со’s Boxing Time, Or A Short History of the Long Cultivation of Agression included wide white space, a black boxing bag, you and all your demons and of course Sofia’s unconventional youth as co-spectators. Other notable performances that had to do with those sweet and perplexing inner fights in each of us were Aporia* of Intimacy” (*phil. impasse, perplexion) by Orlin Dvoryanov and Lilyana Dvoryanova, Lonelysoulopens, and more.
Guests from across the streets were the young actors from the Sofia University experimental “theatre laboratory” Alma Alter (who prefer their name to be spelled @lma @lter). For those who have already been to their performances, it wasn’t much of a surprise to see them participating in Sofia Underground. This theatre troupe quite regularly startles students with performing plays inside the bigger restrooms at the university. Space, conventionality and traditions are obviously restrictions far too tight for Ivo Dimchev’s performers and they use every artistic opportunity to show that, including the one provided by the Sofia Underground.
Theatre, photography, music, physical, poetical and physically poetical performances were all present within the more than 13-hour life-span of Sofia Underground this year. And there were so many things to be seen and done that they could hardly fit into a single article both physically and as an emotion. If one has to sum it all up, what happened on Shipka 6 brought aboveground a lot of Sofia’s artistic capacity and showed that it is mainly unconventional multimedia art that the future holds.
Speaking of the future, one may think that such an initiative is a product of the cultural needs of the new millennium. Actually the project was launched as early as 1997, taking place annually until 2000. Now, seven years later, Sofia Underground comes back to life with a lot of new ideas and fresh artistic blood.
The underpass of NDK, where years ago performers surprised/scandalised the passers-by, may have been quite literally “underground”, but Shipka 6 is much more associated with art. Thus, the transition that was made this year to a new stage of life for the project is justified. Moreover, judging by the number of people willing to go underground at least for a night, one can only imagine how daring the next attempt will be.
Now, in order to have a better idea of the people, standing behind Sofia Underground and their inner drive to pursue different forms of artistic expression, here is an impromptu interview with one of the organisers, Yovo Panchev.
How would you describe Sofia Underground to people my age, who in the period 1997/2000 were between 10 and 13 years old and who, back then, for obvious reasons couldn’t be neither participants nor spectators? In what way was Sofia Underground different and do you think its “upgraded” version has better chances to promote unconventional art to those interested in it?
It is almost impossible to describe Sofia Underground to people your age for too many obvious reasons. First, there is no underground anymore, as we saw then (at least I think it was seen), since I wasn’t much older that “people your age”. I’m 25 now. Second, there is no more Sofia as a centre or metropolis of Bulgaria, but also as the decadent centre of the decadent state of a disillusioned society. Third, upgrade and upgrading happens to things that need or sustain inherently some kind of development. Contemporary and performance arts are not among them, this is why they are precious as cultural phenomena and human invention. The situation now is totally different and the context of the event seems more a backdrop rather than a logical environment where it could emerge somehow naturally. See you talk about: age and generation difference, “upgrading”, promoting and paying attention to the audience. All these notions, used vis-a-vis contemporary, art declare the dramatic change (dramatic used in both senses) in local society and culture. I think this is what we want to make visible, to highlight.
Speaking of “upgrades”: is the Upgrade!Sofia initiative in which you take part as a co-ordinator directly connected to Sofia Underground as a tribune from which new fresh artists can make their debut or have their say in the world of art?
Most of my projects are connected with giving a voice to new artists, not necessarily young, but uncontaminated by art education dogmas, local cultural guru figures and so on. I like the unprofessional stage, because it has no self-censorship and is bolder both as artistic expression and political/social statement. Studio Dauhaus was also a project of this type - an open, independent art space, very leftist as a platform, I guess, in the only acceptable way. I should stop here and thank Yavor, Iva, Ivo, yet another Ivo and most certainly Kalin Angelov for being my team. Just few days ago we officially closed the shop and start looking for another spot.
Upgrade!Sofia is a genuine project because it preaches the possibilities of new media to communicate and express oneself. However it’s a very tricky space/sphere to enter if you are not already established (only before yourself) as an artist or personality. IT art can steal your own genius and inspiration away from you, deprave you from very important real things and, last but not least, it can look very cheap if it’s not original enough. I don’t find a direct relation between my contribution in Upgrade! and that in Remember Sofia Underground!, but they all get many people together for nice reason (he smiles).
Speaking of Dauhaus, would you tell our readers more about it: how did you come up with the idea of using exactly this place (Dauhaus was located in an old industrial building/factory in Sofia’s Pavlovo borough, which was requisitioned for demolition and the eventual construction of more blocks of flats) and what inspired the name?
This is a very long story, but in a sentence or two it can be told like that: Canadian society and education are exemplary for educating a very social position. Since I got back from Montreal, gradually I found the environment and team to be able to manage the independent art space Studio Dauhaus as a platform for everybody that has some affection with arts or brings some flavour to the cultural landscape of the society. Dauhaus comes from Dau or Tao (the Asian doctrine) Bauhaus - which is a new doctrine - very systematical and connected with (self-) education, and creative potential. All this is a little bit too much now, I don’t mean to sound that serious.
I have been to Goth parties at Dauhaus: do you consider them a means of providing space for yet another form of unconventional expression or did they just take place in the same location without being related in any way to the concept of Dauhaus?
I find goth and other exotic subculture events important parts of the cultural scene and production of the society. They are important enough as instances of possible worlds and realities. I didn’t attend the Goth parties, I have to admit.
As a matter of fact, how did you become involved in these projects in the first place? Have aesthetics, culture and expression of the self through unconventional forms always been of primal interest to you or you gradually found out through the years that this is your area of interest?
I have some background in the arts. Generally I grew up in a theatre family and left for Canada to study cultural studies and international relations. This got me together with people and courses at the university in art history and critical theory. Then back in Sofia I happened to easily find people who think like me. Regardless of generation, occupation, education, etc. I think one quality that I have helped me a lot with achieving so many contacts in just a couple of years - this is, I respect people and what they do.
Do you think that the magazines dedicated to modern art are a reliable source and artistic enough medium to come reach the level of what they write about? (Aboba for example, was severely criticised by the team of Umwelt magazine, which in its turn also had his fair share of critics.)
Magazines and press in Bulgaria are tragically bad in general. Every attempt to create and publish anything decent is an act of heroism. That’s why I like both Aboba (with its few issues of lifestyle-meets-art-freaks-because-they-may-be-cool) and Umwelt (with its conceptual manifesto). There was a great magazine back in the days called Kamikadze Gazette that was great, too, and Art in Bulgaria (published by real art critics!). Now there is 39 grama where I write occasionally and I think it’s decent. We are a very small country and we should be reading foreign magazines, I guess, and writing in foreign magazines about our art elite living in Vienna, Paris, Berlin, etc. Publishing many and various magazines here should be more important to literature and critics, because they have to keep up with talking about stuff and using the language to its full potential. I would leave paper to the critics and writers, honestly wishing they were more and more hard working.
Last words: as a famous singer once said: “Everything has been said (or done) before.” Can (post)modern artists’ experiments exceed in any way what has already been done and find truly new forms of creativity? Many artistic revolts are nothing more than what the dadaists, for example, did in the years around WW2, just wrapped up in more contemporary means of expression...
This is a generalisation of a very Western type of mind. I totally disagree with that because I believe in art and people. Many of people and much of art don’t deserve it, but it has powers and qualities that even most inspired religions have lost with time and winds. Art is not only social, but personal and spiritual necessity and thus it rejuvenates its essence. It’s always actual, always contemporary, adequate, sound and speaking. This is too much now; I feel gradually sounding sillier and sillier. Thanks for the occasion to share some thoughts with you.
