O LEJI JURIŠIĆ SKOZI OSEBNO FASCINACIJO, Maja Šorli LUŠČENJE POMENOV V

Non ha l’ottimo artista alcun concetto c’un marmo solo in sé non circonscriva [...]

Nothing the best of artists can conceive but lies, potential, in a block of stone, […]

Michelangelo Buonarroti

1.

“And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.” (Lk, 19, 40.)

Today we have found ourselves in this period. It seems that nobody discusses the essential anymore, even when they are talking, and that stones have suddenly started to scream.

Is this less? Is this more? Is this the final point of the night? Is this the point, at which those who stayed awake, encounter those who are the first to wake into the new morning?

Does Leja Jurišić’s performance truly emanate the sound of stones, if only for a fleeting moment?

Did she hear the sound of stones and thus made it possible for us to hear it? Were they screaming? Did the stones scream? Sing? Whisper? (As with the ancient Celts.)

In his poem Masnavî, Jalâl âl Dîn Rûmî spoke about talking stones. Âbû Jahl held stones in his hand. And he tested prophet Muhammed, wanting to see if he truly was familiar with the secrets of the Heavens, asking him what he was holding hidden in his hand. And he replied: ‘What do you want me to do? It is not for me to say what are those things, it is on them to say I am just and true.’ Âbû Jahl commented: ‘The latter

is more unusual,’ to which the prophet replied: ‘Yes, but God has greater powers than this.’ At that very moment the stones intervened and started expressing their faith. When Âbû Jahl heard the stones, he was angered and threw them to the floor.

All of this is taking place today.

2.

The stone is not Leja Jurišić’s prop in the performance. It is an independent actor within the performance. She offers it long, deep and gentle attention (the attention that can be seen on stage, is a result of hours and days of almost Zenlike practice), at which we become aware of the arbitrariness of our aprioristic belief that a stone is not a loving being.

How can one hit a stone? When a stone falls to the ground – does it not speak? And when you hit a stone with metal, when you attack it – does it not speak, does it not speak with lively fire, sparks? The strike finds the spark in the stone, without the strike it would remain within the stone, stated Njegoš’s prior Stefan.

How does Leja Jurišić communicate with the stone? Does her presence bow to its presence? Is she reviving it? Leaving it indifferent? Does she touch it? (She was disturbed by las piedras enternecidas found in the mystery Divine Narcissus by Juana Inés de la Cruz). Does she play with it like a girl? Is she being iconoclastic or is she performing a ritual of some sorts?

She never rests. Even when she rests on the stone, she isn’t truly resting. In one of his poems Jure Detela wrote about shamans who carry stones with them all of their lives, just so that they can relax when death arrives. Once, when Leja Jurišić was working on the performance Izumitelj na Zemlji (Inventor on Earth), somebody wrote down the words she said in passing, so that they could serve him as