The performance lasts 60 minutes.

Twenty successful seasons of Piaf, Edith Piaf

The normal life of a theatre show can usually be counted on the fingers of one hand. If counting on three fingers, we’ve got a success story; if on all five, it’s a sensation. Extremely rare are the performances that count their years on the fingers of both hands. These are legendary shows. There are hardly any performances that need a third set of fingers to count on. These are solitary exceptions, monoliths that defy time and at the same time attest to the indestructible power of theatre, which is otherwise subject to transience. And that is why such a monolith, transcending the theatrical life of all ten fingers, is particularly worthy of attention.

Piaf, Edith Piaf is such a monolith. Twenty, yes, twenty years have passed since its premiere at Kavarna Union, on the ideal, but sadly no longer operational stage of perhaps the finest cabaret venue in Ljubljana. Anyway, what happened that December evening in Kavarna was by no means meant to survive, alive and kicking, over a span of two decades. Non-existent budget, but boundless enthusiasm, a young creative team at the beginning of their theatrical journey, not enough time, too much work and the determination to see the project through, no matter what form it would end up taking. It has evolved into a form with no superfluous detail, in which nothing gets “stale”, none of Vesna's gestures has “gathered dust”, everything in its place, clear, pure, direct, emotionally charged, powerful.

The success of Vesna's vocal-theatrical take on Edith Piaf – still with musical accompaniment by (also appearing as an actor!) Joži Šalej – was certain at the premiere, and later confirmed by the Borštnik Award for Best Actress, by numerous tours and the 20th anniversary of the production.
And it will be confirmed by the anniversary show in Cankarjev dom's Linhart Hall.

Nobody could fail to notice her.
Nobody could imitate her.
Nobody can forget her.
Her name was Edith Piaf.

It seems the icon of Edith Piaf has lodged itself firmly in people’s consciousness: a gentle, fragile girl who rose from street singer to soul-stirring chanteuse. Nobody could have sung as beautifully and uniquely as Edith without not only having glimpsed but also tasted the dark side of life. The saying “only those who have endured hell can speak of paradise” undeniably applies to Edith.

The production was selected to compete in the 2004 Maribor Theatre Festival (Borštnikovo srečanje), where award-winning Vesna Pernarčič received the Best Actor Prize.

Vesna Pernarčič

Vesna first began performing professionally in her third year at the Ljubljana Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television as Mirandolina in P. Turrini’s Die Wirtin directed by Samo Strelec (ZATO Theatre, Ptuj). After graduation, she joined the acting ensemble of the Slovenian Permanent Theatre in Trieste. After three years, she became member of the Prešeren Theatre Kranj, where her first role was that of Micka in Županova Micka (The Mayor’s Daughter) directed by V. Taufer. She is currently member of the Prešeren Theatre Kranj.

Selected awards: žlahtna komedijantka (awarded to actors in Slovenian comedy, 2019, 2012, 2007, 2005), Best Actor Award at the Maribor Theatre Festival (2018, 2004), Prešeren Fund Award (2014)

The renowned German writer and journalist Norman Ohler follows up his worldwide bestseller Blitzed, an exploration of Nazi drug use, with Tripped: LSD for Mom, in which he recaps the mid-century birth of psychedelics, laying out the impact of psychoactive substances on society and politics, this time in the post-World War II era. 

A suspense-ridden, astonishingly vivid read verging on science thriller, the book takes us from the discovery of LSD and psilocybin to their impacts on modern medicine, legislation and public discourse. Ohler breaks down the three key roles of drugs: medicine, mind control tool and intoxicant. He also shares how the strict anti-drug laws have held back the therapeutic research of psychedelic drugs despite evidence suggesting that they help alleviate symptoms of mental disorders such as depression or dementia.

The journalist Patricija Maličev will talk to the author about his archival research in Europe and the US, touching on the prominent names that shaped the history of psychedelics use – from Aldous Huxley to Elvis Presley – and the experiment he carried out on his own parents.

The event will be held in English with simultaneous translation into Slovenian.
 

Oliver Frljić is regarded as one of Europe’s most emblematic directors of the last two decades when it comes to the theatre of rebellion. His productions are punctuated with social revolt, expressing popular dissent against nationalism of any kind, the politics of the Catholic Church (which he is well familiar with), capitalism, the blindness it generates and the poverty it leaves in its wake, homophobia, the repercussions of colonialism, as well as patriotism and melancholy.

As an authority on post-Yugoslav and European space as such, Frljić claims that neither area has dispensed with historical fascism and its legacy. His shows often explore revisionist interpretations of political history, not least, he says, because we live in a time when countries each in their own way consent to at least one or more forms of fascism. But in the end, as one of Frljić’s productions has shown, what unfailingly remains is the casualty count, the lives destroyed, or victims claimed. Sometimes the aforesaid conditions provide the impetus for new political projects.

The April edition of Critical Cabaret will see Patricija Maličev in talk with Oliver Frljić, discussing the above issues, as well as his upcoming show Inkubator, which is scheduled to open at the Mladinsko Theatre in a few weeks' time.
 

Panel: Dr. Dean Komel, Dr. Alix Landgrebe, Dr. Vlasta Jalušič
 

The book Pisma 1925–1975 in druga pričevanja includes correspondence between Hannah Arendt, the German-born American political theorist and philosopher of Jewish descent, and her former professor, the philosopher Martin Heidegger. The letters reveal their complex personal and intellectual relationship, providing a unique insight into their thoughts, feelings and reactions to key events of the 20th century, including Nazism, wartime and post-war reflections. Illuminating, subtle and intimate, the correspondence offers a fascinating glimpse into the inner lives of two extraordinary thinkers.
 

In collaboration with the Goethe-Institut Ljubljana and the Faculty of Arts

The Slovenian Contemporary Dance Biennial – Gibanica awards two prizes.
•    The Gibanica Grand Prix will be awarded by an international expert jury composed of: 
Sandra Neuveut, director of CNDC La Briqueterie, France
Catja Loepfe, director of Tanzhaus Zürich, Switzerland
Monica Gillette, co-director of the Tanztriennale Hamburg, Germany 

•    The Audience Award is given to the dance performance that receives the most votes by the audience. 
The Award Ceremony will be led by Daniel Petković, joined by the dancers from the choreographic laboratory. 


* You can access the Club with the elevator from the Small gallery (Mala Galerija)


More about the international expert jury:
Catja Loepfe is since 2014 artistic director of Tanzhaus Zürich in Switzerland. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, she began her career as a freelance art curator and workshop organizer. She directed Zürich’s Rote Fabrik Theater (1999 – 2007) and worked at Gessnerallee Zürich (2007 – 2012), ending as its interim director. She then led the Zürich tanzt Festival and was member of the Artistic Board of the Zürcher Theater Spektakel. 

Sandra Neuveut is the director of The Choreographic Development National Center – La Briqueterie since 2021 and served as president of the Association of Choreographic Development National Centers in 2024, and its treasurer in 2025. She was artistic advisor at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris for the projects Chantiers d’ Europe (2019) and was deputy director of the Musée de la danse in Rennes, led by the choreographer Boris Charmatz (2009-2018). She teaches regularly at universities and on vocational training programmes and holds the title of Knight of Arts and Letters, awarded by the French Ministry of Culture.

Monica Gillette is a dance dramaturg, facilitator and Co-Artistic Director of the Tanztriennale 2026 in Hamburg. She has accompanied several EU-funded projects, including Dance Well, Migrant Bodies – Moving Borders, Dancing Museums – The Democracy of Beings, Empowering Dance and Aerowaves’ Moving Borders. She is a dramaturg and transformation coach at Tanzhaus Zürich and researcher for EDN – European Dance Development Network, resulting in the 2024 publication Practices of Care and Wellbeing in Contemporary Dance: Evidence from the Field.
 

The opening night of SONICA 2025 includes three singular artists, builders of captivating and immersive soundscapes that operate at the intersection of electroacoustic and experimental music

Portuguese guitar trailblazer Rafael Toral is returning to Ljubljana with one of the most critically acclaimed albums of 2024, Spectral Evolution (Drag City Records, 2024), which landed on the AOTY lists of outlets such as The Wire, Pitchfork, The Quietus and Bandcamp Daily. No surprise, as his music sounds as if it were populated by fantastic creatures from the phantasmagorias of the master Hieronymus Bosch!
Polish SHAPE+ platform protégé, vocalist, sound artist and composer Antonina Nowacka is inviting us into her fantastic sonic realms that grow from new age and neoclassical traditions. Her elfin vocals and the ethereal timbres of various instruments (zither, harp, ocarina and others) wrap listeners in a blanket of fresh flowers and transport them to a mesmerising dreamworld. 
While Slovenian musician and producer Jan Bajc Funa aka .čunfa is premiering his new project Stamor, an enthralling blend of dark ambient, ritualistic dungeon synths and black metal-via-doom riffs.

Rafael Toral (PT)
“We often talk of visionary albums, but Spectral Evolution should be celebrated for how visual it is, cracking open the listener’s mind’s eye to reveal an animated landscape populated by rare and exotic creatures.”
Jennifer Lucy Allan, The Guardian 

Producer, composer and performer Rafael Toral is one of the most singular experimental guitarists of our age, involved with rock, ambient, electronic music and free jazz. He pioneered a blend of ambient and rock, recording acclaimed albums such as Wave Field (1998). In 2004, he launched the alien-sounding Space Program, an ambitious long-term project exploring electronic music based on silence and inspired by post-free jazz. The resulting music, “melodic without notes, rhythmic with no beat, familiar but strange, meticulous but radically free – riddled with paradox but full of clarity and space”, has been described as “a brand of electronic music far more visceral and emotive than that of his cerebral peers”. Toral practices an understanding of silence as “space” with a clear function in music creation. The release of Moon Field LP (2017) marked the beginning of new creative trajectories with the Space Quartet. Returning to the electric guitar with a renewed interest in harmony, Toral synthesized all of the above on the masterpiece Spectral Evolution (2024), which landed on many AOTY lists. He has toured around the globe and collaborated with Jim O’Rourke, Evan Parker, Phill Niblock and Sonic Youth, to mention a few.
 

Antonina Nowacka (SHAPE+, PL)
“Nowacka has such a distinctive voice and way of singing that makes me feel she is singing from beyond a threshold. She opens a small portal to a world not quite the same as this one.”
Jennifer Lucy Allan, The Quietus 

Antonina Nowacka is a vocalist, sound artist and composer with a background in visual arts. Through years of sonic explorations in natural environments, studies of various music traditions and voice peculiarities, she has developed a deeply relaxing and hypnotic voice quality reminiscent of a theremin. Through her subtle soundscapes, she takes listeners on emotional imaginative journeys inspired by nature, space, dreams and otherworldly happenings. Her collaborators include names such as Agnieszka Polska, Nicolas Jaar and Sofie Birch. She performs all around the world in prestigious concert spaces, museums, art galleries and theatres such as Lincoln Centre (New York), Barbican Centre (London), Silent Green (Berlin), Centro National de las Artes (Mexico City) and Bourse de Commerce (Paris). She is an artist of the SHAPE+ platform for the season 2024/25.
 

Stamor (SI)
Live premiere of the album The Absurd (self-released, 2024)
“The album [...] leaves a great impression for its sophisticated, multi-layered production and well-thought-out dramaturgy. Its truly heavy mood plunges the listener into a black cloud of melancholy even on the sunniest summer's day. A soundtrack that doesn't require a film!”
Gregor Kocijančič, Mladina 

Stamor is a new ambient project by Slovenian musician and producer Jan Bajc Funa aka .čunfa, whose debut album The Absurd (self-released, 2024) is described as “a homage to Albert Camus and his absurdism”. Bajc has channeled his love for minor-key riffs and ominous metal ambience into The Stamor project. It seems as if instrumental parts usually used as introductions or interludes on a post-metal record represent the essence of his expression. The pensive guitar tones are not followed by blast beats, downtuned riffage and unholy growls, but rather they are expanded with synthesised bass lines, ritualistic percussion, gothic synths and hypnotic field recordings. His expression is reminiscent of Burzum’s dungeon synth releases, Earth’s cosmic drones and, at times, Muslimgauze’s mystical chants. The Stamor project is marked by a sincere desire to grasp the poetics of the absurd.

Bajc will be joined on stage by Manuel Brajnik (guitar, electronics) and Rok Babič (guitar, sampler) from the band Spiral Mind.

SONICA 2025: -STREAM
15 - 18 April 2025
www.sonica.si

Co-produced by MoTA - Museum of Transitory Art, SONICA Festival Institute and Cankarjev dom. Supported by the Ministry of culture RS and the Municipality of Ljubljana - Department of Culture. Antonina Nowacka is an artist of the SHAPE+ platform for innovative music and interdisciplinary art, co-funded by the European Union and Pro Helvetia.
www.sonica.si 

The Fabula Festival’s theoretical-humanistic event, in collaboration with the publishing house Analecta, is dedicated to Israeli philosopher and one of the leading contemporary theoreticians of capitalism, Noam Yuran. Noam's teaching and research turn to the history of economic thought as a way to explore alternative conceptualizations of the relations between economy and society. Yuran, a Senior Lecturer at Bar-Ilan University, studies how capitalist logic shapes our social norms, intimate relationships and consumer subjectivity. 

The event places focus on Yuran's book The Sexual Economy of Capitalism, to be published in Slovenian translation by Analecta. In Sexual Economy Yuran maps the erotic dimension of capitalism onto concrete economic questions around money, goods, private property, and capital. Yuran offers readers a powerful understanding of capitalism in its unique articulation of love, sex, and money. In analysing marital relations, advertising, consumption and financial practices, Yuran shows how capitalism exploits the boundaries between what can be bought and what is outside the financial domain – but only seemingly. His theory goes beyond classical economic debates. Yuran argues that capitalist society is based on a paradox where the category of what money cannot buy is not a form of monetary limitation, but extension. Capitalism, through the eroticisation of consumption and advertising, creates a cultural economy that transforms the relations between sexuality, consumption and power. The book also examines the role of visual media in shaping 20th-century consumer subjectivity, at the intersection of economy, eroticism and social norms.

In What Money Wants: An Economy of Desire (2014), Noam Yuran argues that money is not merely a technical tool in the administration of goods, but a vehicle for complex human desires. His works help us understand how deeply capitalism has penetrated the most intimate recesses of humankind, profoundly reshaping our values and attitudes.

The talk will be hosted by Alenka Zupančič.

The event will be held in English, with simultaneous translation into Slovenian.

In 2025, the Festival of World Literatures – Fabula has become an international partner of the European platform CELA (Connecting Emerging Literary Artists), which brings together young European authors, translators and literary professionals. CELA gives visibility to new literary voices, establishing links among translators and publishers, editors and the literary community across Europe, and strengthening the role of young translators in shaping Europe's literary future. Through this partnership, Ljubljana becomes one of Europe's major literary incubators, where literary creativity and professionalisation will enjoy a unique symbiotic relationship.

The Fabula CELA – Young Slovenian Translators is dedicated to Slovenia's promising translators who have spent the last three years translating works by contemporary European authors into and from Slovenian as part of the CELA project. Mojca Petaros, Zarja Lampret Prešeren, Rina Pleteršek, Sara Hočevar Mucić, Lucija Janc Novak, Tina Jurman, Natalija Milovanović, Aleš Belšak, Lara Potočnik and Maja Kovač will speak about their translation experiences, the challenges of working in contemporary European fiction, discussing the key stylistic and thematic features of recent European literature.

The panel will be hosted by Tanja Petrič, President of the Slovenian Association of Literary Translators.

Fabula x CELA as a Literary Incubator
As part of the Fabula x CELA – Young Slovenian Translators project, which runs in partnership with the publishing house Goga and the Slovenian Association of Literary Translators, the translators will also act as moderators at several literary evenings around Slovenia – the authors and translators will tour bookstore events in Novo mesto (Goga), Nova Gorica (Maks) and Maribor (Beletrina). In addition, a special networking event with local publishers and editors will be organised at Vodnikova domačija Šiška (Vodnik Homestead), where young translators will have the opportunity to form important professional connections for the further development of their careers, and an intensive closed-door translation seminar will be organised this year in cooperation with the Slovenian Association of Literary Translators.

The event will be held in Slovenian.

In 2025, the Festival of World Literatures – Fabula has become an international partner of the European platform CELA (Connecting Emerging Literary Artists). By building a growing network of literary artists across Europe through translating and promoting literary works in non-native languages, CELA aims to break through uneven literary infrastructures in different countries, and to open possibilities to reach European audiences beyond borders. Through this partnership, Fabula will contribute to the professionalisation of young literary artists and establish Ljubljana as one of Europe's major literary incubators.

Within the context of the Fabula x CELA project, in cooperation with Goga Publishing House and Cankarjev dom, a special literary event will feature three up-and-coming young European fiction writers. The event is dedicated to exploring contemporary European literature and discussing the creative currents that have influenced the coming generations of authors. The event will be hosted by Aljoša Harlamov.

Guests:
Filip Grujić (Serbia)
Born in Novi Sad in 1995, Filip Grujić is an award-winning writer and playwright, one of the most prominent voices among the younger generation of Serbian writers. He graduated from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, where he now serves as a teaching assistant. Grujić is the author of several acclaimed plays and novels, including Podstanar (2020), which was nominated for the European Prize for Literature and the Nin Award, and Bludni dani kuratog Džonija (2017). With his most recent novel, I onda opet, iz doceko (2023), Grujić reasserts himself as a prominent voice in the Serbian literary landscape. His works explore existential questions, interpersonal relationships and issues of urban life.

Ekaterina Petrova (Bulgaria)
Ekaterina Petrova is a literary translator and non-fiction author. She holds a BA in Literary Translation from the University of Iowa, where she was awarded the prestigious Iowa Arts Fellowship. As a translator, she took part in various literary residencies, including the Art Omi Translation Lab in the US and the National Centre for Writing in the UK. Her translations and essays have been published in EuropeNow, Ninth Letter and Drunken Boat, among others. A leading name among Bulgaria’s young generation of translators, Petrova’s work opens bridges between languages, cultures and literary currents.

Francesco Aloia (Italy)
Francesco Aloia, born in Naples in 1999, is one of Italy's most prolific young authors. After studying at the prestigious Scuola Holden in Turin, he published his first novel, Questo sangue masticato, in 2024, which combines elements of a personal investigation, a family novel and a gangster story. He is currently pursuing the career of a writer and literary consultant and developing new projects. Marked by a vivid language and a blend of personal and social themes, Aloia’s writing ranks him among the most promising literary voices of the young generation.

Fabula x CELA as a Literary Incubator 
Within the context of the Fabula x CELA project, featured authors will participate in several literary events around Slovenia during the festival, including guest appearances at Goga (Novo mesto), Maks (Nova Gorica) and Beletrina (Maribor) bookstores. In addition, a networking with local publishers and editors will take place at Vodnikova domačija Šiška (Vodnik's Homestead), where young authors will have the opportunity to establish contacts and form connections with a view to supporting their further development.

The talk will be held in English, with simultaneous translation into Slovenian.
 

The Fabula literary evening is dedicated to the outstanding Mexican author Guadalupe Nettel, one of the most influential contemporary voices in Latin American literature. Nettel's distinctive poetics explores the boundaries between reality and the unconscious, telling the stories of socially excluded and marginalised people. Portraying otherness, her stories are laced with subtlety, empathy and psychological depth. She has received many awards for her fiction, including the Premio de Narrativa Breve Ribera del Duero and the prestigious Herralde Prize, one of the highest honours in Hispanophone literature

El huésped (The Host), Guadalupe Nettel’s debut novel, is a haunting story of a girl, Anna, inhabited by a disturbing creature – a mysterious, possibly imaginary "host". Anna wages an internal battle against this presence, which increasingly encroaches on her environment and leads to the disintegration of family ties. The novel moves between the conscious and the unconscious, exploring issues of blindness, otherness and community, questions that emerge when we fail to find our place within a society. With a remarkable sense of psychological precision, Nettel sheds light on the complex emotions that lie beneath the surface – fear, longing, acceptance and resistance. The author draws on her own experience, having been born with congenital cataract, which often inspired a sense of being an outsider, of having a disability. In the novel, she interweaves this experience with fiction, which raises important questions about the acceptance of self and others in a world that often does not tolerate deviations from the norm.

The event will be hosted by Ignac Fock, excerpts from El huésped (The Host) will be interpreted by actress Vesna Jevnikar.

The talk will be held in English, with simultaneous translation into Slovenian.

Guadalupe Nettel (1973) is a Mexican writer, author of award-winning novels and collections of short stories translated into more than twenty languages, including The Body Where I was Born, After the Winter, and Still Born which was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023. Her work addresses themes of physical and psychological otherness, anomaly and exclusion, presented as important aspects of the human experience.