Thursday, March 6th at 22.00, Menza pri koritu

Stand-up comedy
Martina Ipša (Slovenia): Martina’s Monologues

Stand up and spit it out! The stand-up comedy of Ptuj-based Martina Ipša is not the mere cracking of unrelated jokes, but rather the expression of her opinion on various current and intimate issues. She doesn’t consider herself an activist, instead arguing that she hasn’t been active for years. Her stage tools are words, her own body, and ingenuity and - of course - audience reaction, which may well take any performance in a completely new direction. Her formula for shaking an audience with laughter is simple, and yet remarkably successful: rather than hackneyed jokes, she relies on well-directed arrows, imagination, audacity and ingenuity, all spiced up with honesty: if you’re telling the truth, it can’t be anything but funny! For this reason, her words attract enthusiastic audiences in alternative clubs, on farms and at festivals, because the shred of truth in a joke also wrings the neck of some stereotype or sacred cow. In short: when she is joking, Martina isn’t joking.

Suzana Tratnik

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Martina Ipša studied stand-up comedy with Željko Vukmirica, an established Croatian actor and a master of the genre. Although on stage for just about two years, she has appeared in more than fifty group and solo performances, including Chill Out Caffe in Maribor, the 4th Evening of Gay and Lesbian Literature, as well as the Lent and Dobimo Se Pred Škucem festivals. Martina Ipša and her colleagues have recently established a stand-up comedy club in Maribor.

Webpage:http://www.myspace.com/martinaipsa

The performance is in Slovenian.