The Zeroite Mass*

Première 17 March 2017, KUD France Prešeren Ljubljana
Running time 1 hour 45 minutes. No interval.

Ana Duša • Blaž Celarec • Višnja Fičor • Andrej Fon • Gašper Jarni • Igor Leonardi • Janja Majzelj • Juš Milčinski • Rok Škrlj • Ana Vipotnik • Goran Završnik • Andrej Rozman Roza

In June 2009, Andrej Rozman Roza founded the religious movement Zeroitism (Za nič) for all who "believe that it is possible in Slovenia to have a zero percent VAT on products that propagate the basis of the Slovene state, the Slovene language". Thus, The Zeroite Mass was created as ritual celebrating language that contains a sermon, a series of short sketches in relation to the Zeroite religion and songs of various genres, from Gospel to Rock'n Roll. The ritual is led by Kangaroo, who invites the audience to take part in repeating after him the prayer Our Language in a musical sing-along. With its accompanying music and song, as well as its joyous social engagement, content-wise, the ritual is closest to a cabaret.

* The Slovenian title is practically untranslatable, since it is, on the one hand, a play on words, and on the other hand, the consequence of an action that Roza initiated years ago. This action is called "Zero Tax on Books" (Zanič davek na knjige), out of which stemmed a newly coined article "Zaničniško", roughly meaning "zeroism". Odmaševanje literally means "unclogging", but since the word maša in Slovenia means "mass", we arrive at a word play in which "od-maševanje" in the title of the production can also mean "un-massing".