Jovana dreams of Budva’s stone-covered stage
An article about Jovana Todorović, student of acting at Faculty of Contemporary Arts
Source: Večernje novosti
By: S. Gregović
She’s en route to realizing her childhood dreams, to take the stone-covered stages of the prestigious summer festival that has been taking place in Budva for three decades, with whose exquisite plays she grew up. Budva girl Jovana Todorović, born in Osijek, who came to Paštrovići during the war, among her mother’s kin, was quite busy this past summer.
Third-year student of acting in Vida Ognjenović’s class at the Faculty of Contemporary Arts in Belgrade was quite active in her Paštrovći. Especially at the Evenings of Young Artists and Creators. At the stages of the “Red Commune” Memorial Home in petrovac, she played in Vida Ognjenović’s “Sympathy and Antipathy” (Getting Married). Besides the noteworthy participation in this exquisite play written and directed by Vida Ognjenović, with the help of her assistant Ivan Bosiljčić, Jovana also held an evening of poetry and rhetorics, where she spoke rhetoric pieces and recited poems by authors from these parts.
Jovana thrilled the locals and guests of Petrovac last year, too, when she spoke “The Sister of Batrić” at the promotion of Radomir V. Ivanović’s book “Njegoš, Andrić, Lalić”. She also spoke, powerfully and convincingly, fragments from Andrić’s story “Blood Tax”. Jovana’s transformations into the complex characters by the giants of Serbian literature, along with the exquisite sense of language characteristic of these parts, enthralled the audience. One question was prevalent: guys, who is this kid!
Jovana says that those days of young artists are not her and her colleagues’ promotion, but more a form of asking people who love Budva to let the city get a small stage where dramatic artists can perform out of season.
– City Theater, the multimedia festival whose axis comprises dramatic works, which takes place in the open air of summer, needs a winter counterpart. And that would mean a small stage inside. Is there anything more natural than that? For the benefit of the local audience and the pleasure of young people, some of whom, like myself, will choose acting as their life’s calling – explains Jovana.
The young artist, who started reciting as a little girl, performing on TV, too, spend some time studying philosophy, but became convinced of what she felt in high school – that acting is her life. Being yourself, while being someone else, that’s her moto.
Although already a serious girl, Jovana, with no false modesty, emphasizes that becoming an actor takes a lot of “thick and thin”. To emerge on the other side as your true self, so that just the best remains. I think that the winner will be my love for acting, which has swallowed all my other loves.
ROLE MODELS MATTER
She is happy to be Study under Vida Ognjenović, exquisite director and playwright, whose cult plays “Kanjoš Macedonović”, “Jegor’s Road”, “Shock and Shimmer” and others, she used to watch at the stone-covered stages of old Budva during the City Theater festival.
– I have learned a lot from her, from her assistant Ivan Bosiljčić, and I still have to learn a lot more. – Belgrade gave me everything; this is probably the place where I will continue my acting life. And I want it to be in theater. And come summer, will definitely be in Budva, Petrovac – says Jovana.
