Cultural life a one well knows is largely a monopoly of capital cities. True, with globalization in full swing, it has become quite usual for art festivals and other interesting cultural venues to be distributed in small towns or even villages hosting traditional annual events. Still in a capital city the rhythm of cultural life is more regular, performances more frequent and novelties reach there first.
In describing the latest trends of cultural life in this big chaotic and yet loveable city let me make use of a comparison, perhaps not the best one, with Budapest. While a student there I would go to a cultural event every single evening: jazz festivals, movie festivals, modern dance performances, novel acting premiers combined with video projecting or even the good old classical music performance in an imperial theater setting.
In Tirana, oh well, one finds these things more rarely. The important thing is though that they are sprouting more and more steadily.
What lacks is access and proper publicity. Their audience is limited and exclusive, almost guarding this exclusivity with the typical sophisticated jealousy of elites. The information about a certain performance reaches a limited amount of people. Otherwise, I cannot explain the absence of students in cultural events. One could argue that there is alack of willingness, yet with the high number of young people living in this city indifference can not be the only explaining factor in the list.
In a friendly conversation with students, I was informed that professors do not encourage students enough to diversify their learning experience with attendance in cultural events. I regard this as a particularly concerning handicap of the education system. What better illustration of social problems for social work students than a documentary on poverty, children trafficking and immigration? Literature students learn a lot on the contemporary literary trends by attending theater plays. Students writing papers on cultural diversity should be particularly attentive to foreign art.
Money could also be the issue. Students do not usually have a generous budget to afford all tickets to these events. To address the financial problem the Ministry of Culture could promote alternative pricing models with students getting discounts. Such an initiative was recently launched by The Youth Council with the “under 26” card which will offer discounts to all young people for certain cultural events. What impressed me from the range of actives that I wrote about is that half of them were free to the large public. Yet they were poorly followed.
Thus, I believe that the real problem stands in the accessibility of information and poor promoting strategies. When I set out to write my impressions of the latest performances, those that I have been lucky to know about, I wanted to give a chance to readers to know that there is an emerging universe of art in this city, with contemporary trends. In an interview with the lovely lady Griffin, patron of arts here, she confessed me her biggest worry was the insufficient exposure of Albanian art toward new global trends. It seems though that the trend is changing. What we need is an eager informed public that is willing to be subject of that global artistic exposure.
Entries from a cultural diary
Albane ou les yeux mauves, modern dance
A wonderful show combining Albanian traditional folk music with powerful aggressive dance and amazing video projections. Attended by and large by the francophone community though quite understandable even for us who unfortunately do not speak la langue noblesse.
The festival of Human Rights Documentaries
Located in the altogether too far periphery of Kinostudio, at the wonderful acting school Marubi. Not attended by ay government officials responsible for social policies, ant discrimination laws and the similes. Not supported by domestic authors. The head of the enterprise, well-known movie director Kujtim Cashku did not get tired of repeating these complaints to the largely foreign audience after each movie projection. Free entrance yet not attended by people who do not posses a car, thus lower middle class art lovers.
The dream of the hippopotamus , theatre
Attended by an aggravating audience which was more appreciative of coarse jokes involving physiological processes then of the complex intertwining of comic and tragic elements of socio-psychological depth.
Nights without sleeping, Egyptian movie.
Free entrance again. The cinema was almost empty. The event is part of the francophone week. Charming exploration of couple related problems with the necessary psychological depth. Colorful display of Oriental culture and music.
