Our task was to select 8 of the 51 submitted performances, which premièred between the 6th of October 2022 and the 9th of June 2024, according to the criteria of concept originality, quality of execution, compelling form and coherence. The selection reflects the diversity of approaches, artistic stances, formats and subjects. A half of the selected performances are dance solos, which reflects the reality of the Slovenian cultural and political context, which does not provide adequate production and funding conditions for contemporary dance. However, in many works the wider artistic team is a pivotal part of the production, occasionally appearing on or next to the stage, which is also important for reflection on artistic creation and contemporary cultural production. Metaphorically, we could argue that dance cannot exist alone: it wants to cross different worlds, to establish relations and to communicate. As such, all of the selected performances create a distinctive stage world with deliberate and imaginative artistic gestures that manifest themselves as vital suggestions to the audience, while also taking into account what the body, movement or choreography of materiality can produce or signify.
Vita Osojnik invites you on a choreographic journey of irresistible movement and constant transformation by rearranging the many yoga rectangles in work Meals I Already Cooked. Creating different patterns, structures and meanings is accompanied by the hope that the new option will be better than the last. This solo work explores the transformative power of life, chaos and order, and raises questions about that which builds and tears down, the spiritus movens of constant change. The strong emotional impetus of a simple choreographic act, together with the visual and metaphorical layeredness, manifests a perpetuum mobile that drives us to deconstruct the old and find new (temporary) paths and situations.
In the visual and performative study Origami, Andreja Rauch Podrzavnik explores the process of artistic creation. By modulating the movement of bodies, materials, light and sound, the performers shape the texture of space and play with its materiality, creating a fluid image of the choreographic process. Akin to an origami, the work folds and unfolds on many layers, in proximity to everyday, functional movements, and engages with the liveliness of the choreographic position, the dedication to the task and the inclusive composition, while emphasising the importance of choreographic research and processuality as crucial elements of the dance work.
The dance installation Touch Tissue Fabric by Snježana Premuš and Anja Bornšek establishes a multi-layered immersive and participatory space that creates a situation of encounters and experiences through the braiding of fabrics, light, shadows, soundscapes, poetic writings and bodies. The subtle and sensual topography of this physical, architectural and social organism gently entices visitors to perceive, feel, take different perspectives and co-create their position. A serene atmosphere provides a space for embodied reflection on what it means for our bodies to touch and be in communication with ourselves, in proximity to others and in community.
In the performance Memoria, choreographer Mala Kline immerses herself in memories, imagination and the unconscious. On the basis of visual, personal and reflective impulses, sifted through the artist’s practice of dreaming, she builds a bewitching mosaic of images – from an apiarist with a glass sphere, a painting as a cinematographic recording, nostalgic childhood memories to mythological creatures, etc. Memoria takes shape as a dreamlike vision that dissolves the boundaries between the known and the unknown, the past and the future, the real and the unreal, the distant and the proximate, existence and transience. Rooted in absolute presence, it unfolds as a kind of alchemical extraction of different sensibilities for our being and our future.
In the 8-hour-long work Agmysterium, Klemen Kovačič traverses the entire cycle of human life. On the basis of own childhood, he begins to investigate memories, identities and the narratives we create in the process, to bid farewell to the past and to play out the manifold roles, (un)certainties and contradictions of human existence. With dazzling presence, he immerses himself in a wide range of performative acts, from dynamic movement articulations to butoh and the languid devotion to actions, shifting between the material and the spiritual, between the personal/special and the communal, between the everyday and the expanded outlook on life and death, in order to reveal in this ritual all that is concealed beneath the surface of life and what lies beyond it.
In Quartet, choreographer Magdalena Reiter uses a woman dancer, a male dancer and two cameras to create a complex dynamic of a partner relation, where flirting and conflict, violence and pleasure play, closeness and discomfort are intermingled. Through a dialogue between living bodies and synchronous projection, the performance unfolds as a construction of a cinematic story and, at the same time, as a vivisection of a living relation and the unveiling of its hidden antagonisms. Despite the conventionality of the subject of binary gender relations, the artist examines it in all its complexity, with a refreshing and precise analytical choreographic approach that multiplies the truths of the story through the activation of the observer’s gaze, and plays with the question of perception and perspective.
In the solo work A House A Home, Katja Legin creates a lucid image of family life, domestic routine and longing. She analyses everyday life from a woman’s perspective with subtle humour and irony, dabbling in the absurdity of everyday banal situations, melodramatic tones and self-referentiality in relation to her own position and the artistic process itself. In bringing together choreography with theatrical context, cinematic principles and the aesthetics of mid-20th century popular culture, she stitches together the personal struggles of the actual with the real and the fictional, embodying the figure of (thousands of) women; emotional, melancholic, at times irrational, but also grounded and powerful. Framed in different roles, but not victims. Legin imbues feelings of entrapment with vividness, freedom and beauty.
In (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ screamage, Jan Rozman embraces the logic of the internet and floods the stage space with a multitude of theatrical elements. Movement, live video, text, object theatre, a collage of videos and images, set design and sounds are intertwined in a “trash aesthetic” and a stream of organised chaos driven by irony. In the divide between the digital world we perceive and the physical space we feel, there is a sense of disruption and confusion in the postinternet age. This hybrid extract of a bizarre, anxious and infectious scream is an innovative and entertaining critique of our virtual behaviour and the addiction to the internet that is already shaping our bodies and their reality.
As we can observe, dance can be analytical, aware, sentient and subtle, in touch with our bodies, senses, feelings and minds. It can start from our everyday life and reveal parts of our reality, searching between and behind the obvious, exploring alternative layers and reaching for (thus far) unknown worlds. Above all, dance is “live”, it is alive and real… when it sparks our imagination, heightens our senses, stimulates reflection, connects with our bodies and moves us.
Ingrida Gerbutavičiūtė and Nika Arhar