Mateja Bučar: BILA BI PALMA

contemporary dance performance

The authors of the performance ask themselves: “If I remain in a certain position at all given moments and if I constantly move in one single place only, will subsequently things around me start moving at one point?” (more…)

Via Negativa: VIA NOVA

The material for the Via Nova cycle of performances has been extracted from the Via Negativa performances, created between 2002 and 2008, in order for the extracted material to be approached anew and placed within new formats and contexts. The seven deadly sins have given rise to numerous issues since 2002, which turned out to be of such crucial importance for the artists, that a need for tackling the issues in question once (and over and over) again appeared. Via Nova thus constitutes a platform, enabling performers to autonomously form contextual, thematic and interpretive frameworks on the basis of the Via Negativa material on the one hand, while preserving its open spirit for different forms of presentation in regard to these frameworks on the other. The performers appear as independent authors: they sign under their work, which they also contextualize and entitle. (more…)

Nina Fajdiga, Jasmina Križaj & Tina Valentan: SUGAR RUSH

Sugar Rush is a performance project that through the medium of movement and music aims to invoke unbearable sweetness of a shared community – a memory of a paradise that never really existed and yet it is forever lost. Although in its initial intention it refers to the collection of imprecise and personal reminiscences of Yugoslavia, the country that was violently wiped from the map of Europe during the last decade of the 20th century, Sugar Rush is not seeking to make political or critical statement on the subject. (more…)

A NEW PERFORMANCE OF SLOVENE CHOREOGRAPHER AND PERFORMER MALA KLINE: THE END

“THE END is a performance about us both: You playing the role of a spectator and Me playing the role of a performer. It is a performance about our encounter within the theatre – at the very end of the world. Only one law applies within the walls of a theatre: the Law of artistic madness. Under it, the theater becomes a space of freedom. This is why this performance pushes the limits of theatre, reason, judgment, and embodies madness turning things upside-down while holding expectations of the unexpected. This performance is nothing but an exercise in presence, nonsense, mistakes and laughter. Last but not least, this performance is a topsy-turvy dance in which we both take part in.” Mala Kline (more…)

MESTO ŽENSK- 15th International Festival of Contemporary Arts

The final year of this decade will see City of Women thematically approach the cultural constant of the South, which has been gaining increasing importance in the social, political and cultural context of the 21st Century. The field of culture and art proved itself far from immune to the general trends of globalization due to a specific distribution of thought, moral standards, and ethical values. The distribution in question took place through information networks, which were monopolized by the prevailing type of culture. Despite this fact, what nevertheless has succeeded to coexists on the sidelines are certain artistic practices with a critical stance, contemplating the modern mutated vision of society, which abolishes history, differences, identities, and specifics. What remains to persist and insist is art, which reflects upon wider or merely local and violence-soaked images of the peripheral Global South. It is for this reason that they decided to invite artists from all artistic genres and many peripheral continents to participate in this year’s festival and thus contribute to the contemplative and discursive arena evolving around the issue of the Global South with their own discourse on political-social and cultural reality. (more…)

Daniil Harms: JELIZAVETA BAM

“Jelizaveta Bam presents Ms. Novakovič as a performer of various characters and styles. The polyvalent performance thus portrays Jelizaveta and her executioners on both, stage and screen. Video screen opens a door into another space and enables simultaneous speech of several people. Ms. Novakovič displays her acting apparatus in front of the audience, encompassing speech abilities, movement and dance techniques, as well as the power to disclose her acting intimacy (…).«
Irena Levičar, Indirekt, 19th November 2008 (more…)

THE SHOCKING GALA SHOW

EVENTS AT THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE PUPILJA FERKEVERK GROUP

Short-lasting but nevertheless powerful work of the Pupilija Ferkeverk group managed to leave a lasting mark on the theatre neo-avant-garde in Slovenia and former Yugoslavia. (more…)

Magdalena Reiter: INSOMNIA

foto: Nada Žgank

Insomnia subtly discloses our very own assumption that fear normally resides on the Other side. And that, furthermore, it must be kept there at all costs in order to have a goodnight sleep. The problem of sleep as tackled by the performance, which is unable to sleep, touches upon the question of the right side and of the right sleeping/sexual position: between the fluid nature of the (female) body and the symbolic nature of the (male) speech. Fear thus becomes a different word for the binary reality, split upon the wrong sides, amidst which the contemporary individual still sleeps … on the Right side. Day by day, night after night. (more…)

Heiner Müller, P.A.T.: HAMLETMACHINE

Monodrama Hamletmachine is an audio-visual production based on the monologue-play by controversial German dramatist Heiner Müller. Author Slávka Daubnerová introduced herself as a skilful performer who masters the acting, as well as its motional and singing part. Her acting is fully concentrated on monologues of Hamlet, who has an innocent boyish charm in her interpretation, and Ophelia, who is expressed in word and motion. Daubnerová´s clear, unmannered and not psychological expression fits the non–emotivity and decadency of the text. (more…)

Neven Korda: ECHOES

You desire love, ungrateful rabid dog.
History isn’t yours, you wish to seize it
Thief, rogue and murderer – you were made to watch, feel, smell – from afar, dog. (more…)