A Tribute to Alenka Bartl

Remembering the Grand Dame of Slovenian costume design through her sketches; exhibition curated and produced by Slovenian Theatre Institute

On 8 March – International Women’s Day – this year, Alenka Bartl died in Lucija, next to Portorož. She created a – quantitatively and qualitatively – exceptional body of work and won numerous awards and accolades for it. Her creativity was also linked to the Maribor Theatre Festival, as she received five Borštnik Awards for costume design (The Mountain Giants, SNT Drama Ljubljana and The Accused Woolf, Mladinsko Theatre, 1977; Cockroaches, Drama SNT Maribor, 1980; Dissident Arnož and his Followers, SNT Drama Ljubljana, 1982; Hamlet, Ljubljana City Theatre, 1984; The Threepenny Opera, Slovene People’s Theatre Celje, 1989).

Polde Bibič, the 1984 Borštnik Ring Winner, wrote about Alenka Bartl: "I find using exaggerated praise, calling a living person a legend, for example, loathsome, but when it comes to Alenka Bartl, I cannot but say that her feel for colours was genius. For this reason, I can’t think theatre without her. How dull would it be without grading rainbow colours in which dancers, singers, actors were enwrapped. /…/ And in the end, the essential truth: for the actor, the most important is that he doesn’t feel bad wearing a costume the designer has prescribed for him. This never happened to me when we performed clad in the rainbows that Alenka Bartl created."

Mag. Tea Rogelj, a dramaturg and a senior curator at the Slovenian Theatre Institute, who a couple of years ago co-authored the exhibition and e-xhibition Alenka Bartl – Costume Designer, will present the opus of this important Slovenian artist using her costume sketches.