Via Negativa: THREE WOMEN: ENERGY, HYSTERIA, DEATH

Photo: Marcandrea

The First Law of B. K.

Video performance for four projectors, a bicycle and a performer. The First Law of B. K. emanates directly from the first law of thermodynamics: »Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed from one state to another«. For the purpose of the performance Barbara reduces her existence to that of a thermodynamic system where she transforms food energy (calories/joules) into luminous energy – the perceived energy of light (lumens). By pedalling the bicycle Barbara propels the dynamo, which generates electricity for lightning of the stage, as well as the brightness of the projections with the brightness sensor attached to the shaft of the pedal.

Conceived and text by: Barbara Kukovec, Bojan Jablanovec
Artistic director: Bojan Jablanovec
Performer and video: Barbara Kukovec
Production: Via Negativa

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Photo: Marcandrea

Still Life

Excess used to be considered as immoderate, excessive and hysterical reaction to a socially accepted norm. Up until 17thc, hysteria was perceived as an exclusively female disease that causes disturbances in the functioning of a womb and the remedy normally prescribed as therapy was sexual intercourse, orgasm and pregnancy. Today hysteria is no longer seen as a female malady, and excess is no longer perceived as a gesture of transgression or resistance – what remains now is the normalized protocol of democratization (hysterisation) of the norm. The ballerina urinating in a teapot in Nataša’s performance similarly portrays excess merely as an aestheticized gesture of submission and pure pleasure in knowing that she can get away with it.

Conceived by: Nataša Živković, Bojan Jablanovec
Direction: Bojan Jablanovec
Performers: Nataša Živković and Secret Guests
Production: Via Negativa

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Photo: Marcandrea

Drop Dead

What would you like to eat for the last supper? What will your final words be? Where would you like to be buried? Who would you like to come to your funeral? Which song would you like to have played at your funeral? On one hand, death is deeply intimate and on the other an extremely theatrical sensation. Katarina performs both of its faces: the intimate conflict within the one passing away: »I was told that I will go through three different phases: denial at first, then anger and finally acceptance,« and then death as the ultimate spectacle, experienced by the one who observes it from the outside. Drop Dead is a performance where everyone must play their part: the performer becomes a corpse, the audience becomes an undertaker and the performance becomes a funeral.

Conceived and text by: Katarina Stegnar, Bojan Jablanovec
Direction: Bojan Jablanovec
Performer: Katarina Stegnar
Production: Via Negativa