Gibanica, biennial of Slovenian contemporary dance art, has since 2003 presented contemporary dance productions by local artists selected by a three-member international committee. Providing a selection of the best contemporary dance performances, Gibanica is considered the most relevant contemporary dance platform in Slovenia.
It is somewhat a combination of a national dance festival that gives the local public an opportunity to review and reflect on the quality of biennial dance production, and a platform for both local and foreign guests of the festival to discover art that might deserve a place in their different art programmes. Moreover, Gibanica has a lot of side-bar events dedicated to a specific topic.
Performances of the Gibanica competition program compete for the best performance by the audience and the best performance by the jury.
In February 2013, the Slovenian Contemporary Dance Association (CDAS) granted for the first time the professional awards named after Ksenija Hribar, an important Slovenian choreographer, dancer and teacher at 6th Gibanica. Due to the fact that throughout the years in which Slovenian contemporary dance was taking important developmental steps the professional award by the Contemporary Dance Association didn’t yet exist, this year – in order to compensate at least a little bit for this loss – various dance awards were granted in different categories Ksenija Hribar awards were launched In late spring 2012, when CDAS called the organisations and colleagues active in the field of contemporary dance to propose candidates that in their opinion deserved an award for their special achievements. The committee appointed by the Association selected the award-winners among the proposals submitted to the Association. In the categories where no candidates were proposed, the committee itself made the proposals because it believed that the accomplishments of the candidates deserved to be awarded. In granting the awards, the committee took into consideration the complete range of contemporary dance artists.
