Journey at the Edge of the Night

(First broadcast, 3rd October 2023)

“My friend Milan Kundera said that loving one another isn’t enough. That we need to know how to share the night. I and the nightingale, we share it fairly.”

Evgen Bavčar has a special ritual. For over forty years, he has been recording the nightingale singing on May nights in his hometown of Lokavec near Ajdovščina. Under the nocturnal cloak, in duet and in collaboration with the nightingale, the story from Lokavec unfolds into a narrative of the nightingales' blinding so they shall sing in perpetuity – a reflection on blindness as social castration, on existential proximities and distances, the position of the blind throughout time and the question: why should the pleasure of the night not be equal to the pleasure of the day?
The nightingale tells Dr Bavčar he is not alone in the dark. But this is not just a story of their coexistence. “When I was recording the nightingale for many years, here and in other places, a friend pointed me to the book Villa San Michele by Axel Munthe. I was taken by the text, I started to listen to nightingales in a completely different way; though I already knew that in some places birds are blinded, either nightingales or other species, to make them think it is always night,” says Evgen Bavčar, explaining the background to his interest in birds.

The night journey to the break of day raises profound questions about human existence, differences, exploitation, the struggle for justice, the environment, freedom and the intimate desire for duality, the Sun and a new spring. “When I say ‘we’, I also become responsible for another tiny existence, warming its next generation concealed in the bush. It reminds me that the sun shone the day before, that the sun once shone for me, too, and that the nightingale, in its melody, transmits to me the light or energy of the sun I knew as a child.”

Polymath Evgen Bavčar is a philosopher, artist, essayist, writer and cultural activist who was bestowed a Honorary Citizen of Europe title by the European Parliament in 2016. He is an advocate for the rights of the blind, having lost his sight at the tender age of eleven, so his world of light and visual perception remains encapsulated in the memory of his homeland, his native Lokavec. For many years, Dr Evgen Bavčar has been writing his story around the world, especially in Paris where his studies and research took him in the 1970s already. For Evgen Bavčar, sound is the companion that draws the images of his surroundings, the world, people, events and sensations.

Production is a joint project between First Program, the Ars, and Val 202 and was filmed in the spring of 2023 in Lokavec, on the island of Capri and in Naples. 

Journey at the Edge of the Night (colophon)
Concept: Mojca Delač, Luka Hvalc
Screenplay: Mojca Delač, Saška Rakef and Luka Hvalc in cooperation with Dr Evgen Bavčar
Director: Saška Rakef
Dramaturgy: Saška Rakef, Mojca Delač, Luka Hvalc
Sound design: Urban Gruden
Production: Radio Slovenia, joint undertaking of the First Program, the Ars, and Val 202 within the framework of the project B-AIR

LINK to our English translation/script (in pdf): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FK-K-a5TMeE3Ymc9dOR-JseknOfpGIFp/view?usp=sharing

Journey at the Edge of the Night

In the Karst region of Slovenia, people used to say that if you don't do well at school, you will become a shepherd on Vremščica Hill. Kids were so afraid back in the day that they did well at school not to end up being farmers. I had to check if it was so awful to end up there, and I realised that being a shepherd to 400 sheep on Vremščica Hill is challenging but beautiful. So, I no longer see Vremščica as a threat but as an opportunity. And I will certainly not pass this famous saying to my son.

Transcript available at: https://bit.ly/ebu002

Sheep Whispering

Imagine living in a body that doesn't feel like your own. Every day, you feel like something is lacking. You're telling yourself that you're ugly, disgusting, repulsive. These adjectives should not describe a human in any scenario. But this is how Edi describes his thinking before he made the most significant change in his life. In this audio piece, Edi stands in front of us almost as if he were naked. He shows his most vulnerable part so that we can feel him. He paints with words, laughter and a trembling voice if you close your eyes.

Transcript available at: https://bit.ly/ebu001

It's Not You, It's Me

Caves are a place I was never really interested in. What can be pleasurable in being trapped in a hole underground? Also, I've been to the caves before; I'm lazy and not a fan of humid places. But I met Rosana, went to the caves again, and things changed. Rosana is a caver, a nature conservationist of the Škocjan Caves Regional Park, a geographer and a cyclist. We went to one of the most beautiful caves in Slovenia together. And in the middle of the tour, she closed the lights.

Transcript available at: https://bit.ly/ebu0030

Rosana and The Cave

Zadnja oddaja letos v sklopu Vičstock unplugged. Na alternativni začetek sta oddajo pričela Kristjan in Martin, člana glasbene zasedbe Nubira. Člani v svojem ustvarjanju zajamejo širok spekter glasbe, vanjo vključijo precej žanrov, zato lahko prav vsak najde nekaj njemu ljubega v njihovih komadih. V intervjuju je med drugim govora tudi astronomiji, matematičnih izračunih in o njihovem albumu Incrementum. Želijo si vina. Zakaj? Pridite 13. maja pod oder Vičstocka na Ilirijo in izvedeli boste neposredno iz ust vokalista.

Nubira: Nils Rošker, Kristjan Vuk, David Petek, Timotej Volavšek, Luka Arčon, Martin Žmitek in Ivana Honsić

Snemalna ekipa: Ana Bajt, Oskar Longyka, Peter Gladek, Tinkara Kreft, Maja Zupanc

Vičstock unplugged - Nubira

Vičstock

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