About

For the past two, maybe three years, the three of us: Kushtrim Koliqi, Armend Smajli and Rebeka Qena, have been meeting, talking, imagining, dreaming. Each of us still carries other dreams, other plans, other paths we are following. But this journey, we began together.

La Rremë started from a very simple wish: to create something that brings people together. Artists. Friends. People who already love theatre and music. But perhaps even more importantly, those who have not yet discovered that love. Those who do not yet know that a performance, a song, a conversation, or a chance encounter might move them, excite them, or open a door into a world they did not know was there.

Pristina, October. The days begin to grow shorter. Summer is gone, winter has not quite arrived, and the city slips into a different rhythm. It is also that time of year when we sometimes begin to doubt our plans a little. Perhaps even our dreams.

That is exactly when we want to come together.

To sit in a theatre and see what others have dreamed — and what they have made from those dreams. To watch a performance that takes us somewhere we have never been. To hear music that brings back something we thought we had forgotten. To be surprised. To be moved. To laugh. To disagree. To keep talking long after the performance has ended and the music has stopped.

But La Rremë is more than performances and music. It is a panel, a masterclass, a meeting, a conversation. It is the chance to meet people more closely, to hear how they think, how they work, what keeps them moving, and perhaps to look beyond some of the boundaries we build for ourselves in our own minds.

We want the exchange to go both ways. For people to come to Pristina and experience it from the inside; its artists, its energy, its contradictions, its humour, its rhythm. Not to look at one another from a distance, but to meet properly.

At first, this was our dream. Then, as often happens when a dream is spoken aloud, other people began to believe in it too. Artists, friends, institutions and partners joined us, and little by little, what had once been only an idea shared by three people began to take shape.

We named it after Muharrem Qena — La Rremë. Not only to honour a great artist, but because there was something in him that we want to keep alive: curiosity, courage, humour, a love of theatre, film and music, and an openness to the world.

His legacy is where we begin. But La Rremë is a dream that wants to move forward. To meet. To see. To listen. To talk. To learn. To be surprised.

And to remind one another that we need to believe in dreams.