Sanja Mitrović

I was there. And I am still there.

Sanja Mitrović knows what protest sounds like: as a student in Belgrade, she was right in the middle of it. Today, she lives in Brussels, but she still follows the recent student protests in Serbia from afar. This strange position — close by through memory, far away through geography — drives Zemlja, Serbo-Croatian for ‘land’ and ‘earth’.

The tragedy in Novi Sad, in which sixteen people lost their lives in 2024 when a newly built station roof collapsed, brought all of this back to the surface. In Zemlja, Sanja connects her personal past with the official history of her country. She does not use her memories to romanticize, but to understand what distance does to commitment.

Live on stage, she weaves testimonies, protest recordings, and half-forgotten songs into a soundscape that momentarily bridges that distance. An intense solo at the intersection of political theater and Butoh-inspired dance, delivered by a performer with exceptional precision and presence.