Ljubljana, February 27 – March 2 2019
Since 2003, Gibanica – Biennial of Slovenian Contemporary Dance Art represents Slovenian contemporary dance production, which is always selected by the three‑member selection team especially for the festival. This year, the selectors are Ivana Ivković (Croatia), Petra Pikalo (Slovenia) and Claire Verlet (France).
Of the 38 contestants, artists and groups, 9 performances were picked for the competition and additional one the accompanying programme. Staging a Play: Antigone was automatically qualified for the competition due to professional jury award won by choreographer Matija Ferlin for Staging a Play: Glass Menagerie, produced by Emanat (Gibanica 2017).
The selected competition performances will compete for Gibanica 2019 Audience Award for Best Performance and for Gibanica 2019 Jury Award for Best Performance.
Gibanica offers a selection of the best contemporary dance production by domestic producers and is considered the most significant contemporary dance platform in Slovenia.
The Selector’s selection for Gibanica 2019 reflects the remarkable diversity of the received applications. Diversity in all senses: gender, generation, format, relationship with the audience, treatment of space and duration.The selectors faced a difficult choice due to the exceptional quality of the productions, which reflects the vivid creativity of the Slovenian contemporary dance scene. In regards to this, the Jury questions the limited number of productions allowed in the competition and suggests that in the future the selection reflects the liveliness of the scene’s two-year production output. For this reason, we selected one additional performance for the main programme of Gibanica 2019 and two additional performances for the accompanying programme. The additional selection was also confirmed by the Gibanica programme committee.
There is no dominant topic or conceptual approach in this selection, each author has demonstrated an own voice and choreographic language; a further proof of maturity of the scene as a whole. The only selection criteria that we followed were excellence, distinctiveness, uniqueness, and innovativeness in a particular expression or form.
We noticed and rewarded the fact that there were more ensemble works produced than in the past.
The selection thus encompasses a wide array of authors’ concerns and reflects the distinct landscape of contemporary dance audiences in Slovenia today.
Claire Verlet, Ivana Ivković, Petra Pikalo