2nd Year (2026) Balkan Projects' Mentorship Program:Jana Panajotović.–
During the Balkan Projects’ mentorship, Jana Panajotović developed GUESTS, an interactive performance that draws on Slavic mythology and the search for meaning. Its text, assembled from Balkan epic poetry, stages a lost cosmology that survives in no written record and holds it inside a single day, repeated in an absurd loop. Three characters, caught between the primordial and the contemporary, the divine and the human, question their own existence and are unsettled by the irrational.
The piece comes alive only when the audience enters. Spectators are led onto the stage of the Academic Theatre SKC Niš, which has been reconstructed as a ritual space, and take part in the cycle as its Guests. Each is offered a role and can accept or decline it, choosing to take part or to remain simply a Guest. Over the course of the performance, the boundary between the characters' world and the audience's begins to dissolve.
The work is built around the number three: three main characters, three hosts who guide the audience across thresholds, and three projections that speak to everyone in the room as a higher voice. GUESTS remains an open work, leaving each spectator free to arrive at their own interpretation.
Credits:
Concept, Direction and Dramaturgy: Jana Panajotović
Performers: Miroslav Krstić (Character One), Maša Ranđelović (Character two), Ana Vučković (Character three), Jovana Gocić (Host / Figures), Ivana Petrović (Host / Figures), Jana Panajotović (Host / Figures)
Scenography and Costumes: Jana Panajotović
Lighting: Jasna Panajotović
Sound: Jovana Slavković
Production and Technical Support: Academic Theatre SKC Niš, Balkan Projects
Bio
Jana Panajotović is an artist of Serbian origin whose practice explores female experience and contemporary social phenomena through figurative and interdisciplinary approaches. Her work examines the relationship between the body, identity, and social structures, with a particular focus on self-representation and the visibility of women’s lived experiences. She primarily works with oil painting on canvas, while also incorporating photography, video, and performance as integral parts of her artistic practice. Through the use of multiple media, Panajotović develops a research-based approach that allows her to navigate between personal narratives and broader socio-cultural contexts.
Panajotović completed both her Bachelor’s and Master’s studies in Painting at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, Serbia. She has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions, as well as art projects, workshops, and residencies in Serbia and internationally, including Hungary, France, Germany, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition to her studio practice, she has been involved in theatre and collaborative projects within interdisciplinary and institutional contexts, with a particular focus on performative arts. She most recently participated in the opera production of Così fan tutte at the Lyon Opera, contributing through artistic and performative collaboration. Her work has received several recognitions, including an award for best work addressing the theme To Leave or Stay.