HISTORY
DAH Theater was founded in 1991 by directors Dijana Milošević and Jadranka Anđelić, out of a need for experimental, research work. From the very beginning, actress Maja Mitić joined them, and over the years, a large number of permanent and occasional collaborators joined DAH Teatar.
In 1993, DAH Theater grew into the DAH Theater Center for Theater Research, and in 2017 it became DAH Theater International.
Since 1993, the Center for Theater Research has organized and realized many events such as: specific workshops (Laban technique, Alexander technique, the legacy of Maga Magazinović, working with stilts, Butoh, Suzuki technique, etc.), international
festivals and meetings, and guest appearances by many significant artists from around the world (Odin Teatret – Denmark, Joshi Oida – France / Japan, Shiro Daimon – France / Japan, Sonia Kehler – Germany, Jill Greenghalgh – Great Britain, David Zinder – Israel, Ron Jenkins – USA, 7 Stages Theater – USA, Bond Street Theater – USA, Anna Zubrzicky and Grzegorz Bral – Poland, Stella Chiweshe – Zimbabwe, Gennadi Bogdanov – Russia, among others).
Great theater masters have said that the first steps of a theater group determine its destiny. The first performance certainly determined the fate of DAH Theater, shaping the main postulates of its activity. The themes through which DAH Theater expresses its poetics remain connected to the relationship between the individual and society and the role of the artist in "dark times."
When the war in Yugoslavia began in 1991, DAH Theater faced fundamental questions: What is the responsibility and duty of the artist in dark times, in times of violence and human suffering?" In search of answers, the group interrupts work on the started project "Gifts of Our Ancestors" and dedicates itself to preparing a new performance. The performance "This Babylonian Confusion" was the first performance performed by DAH Teatar. An anti-war performance that DAH Theater performed in the open space in the center of Belgrade, at a time when it was not allowed to mention the war.
"The beginning of DAH Teatar's work, its cry for creation, coincided chronologically with the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and the general destruction that followed. Theater directors Jadranka Anđelić and Dijana Milošević, together with actress Maja Mitić, decided to oppose destruction with creation, to create a living theatrical microcosm in a disintegrated world."
Dubravka Knežević ("Until the Last Breath", SCENE no. 5/6, 1995)
A book about us
2016. In 2016, DAH Theater celebrated 25 years of existence and work when the first book about DAH Theater was published - "DAH Theater - A Sourcebook" published by Lexington Books, edited by Dennis Barnett, professor of drama and literature at Coe College
[Coe College], Iowa [USA]. Eminent artists from all over the world, as well as from Serbia, contributed to the book with texts about DAH Theater, and the foreword was written by Eugenio Barba, the famous director and founder of Odin Teatret.
"Dennis Barnett has compiled the most informative and exciting sourcebook on DAH Theatre, one of the world's finest theaters working in the context of social conflict. A work of great breadth that offers the historian, scholar, and practitioner a meaningful and enjoyable reading, while as a whole it manages to paint a rich portrait of a living theater, the people and social circumstances that breathe life into it. This is a necessary and revealing book."D" -Roberto Gutiérrez Varea, University of San Francisco
GUEST APPEARANCES
All this time, DAH Theater has been a guest throughout Europe, the USA, Australia and New Zealand, and in Serbia. Also, as a Center for Theater Research, it is open to various organizations and associations (informal initiatives, networks, association of women's initiatives, peace organizations, groups with special needs, minority groups) which, in cooperation with us, can realize their programs.
