SYNDICATE OF OUTLANDISH ENTITIES

New comedy, performative humour, irony, satire, parody, social commentary.

After deep contemplation and good winter hybernation Platform Syndicate is back! In Old Power Station you can see:
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Sophia Rodríguez: Without Filter – public presentation

Utterly wild, without filters, without inhibition, without fear. Get ready for a night of outstanding instant production in which local trained performers will show under leadership of Sophia Rodríguez that what really counts is a good idea and courage, even if you hardly have any budget. The instants are our response to the local (hyper)production climate and an attempt to pass the methodology of unit multiplication to appease the bureaucratic machine onto new generations. Besides that, we are also fostering their outlandish inclinations and hidden fantasies to make sure to provide sufficient quantity of twisted images and we are also planning a few surprise acts with special guests…

Emanat Institute is systematically organising different movement, performative and vocal workshops for several years. We put special attention to the development of genres of new burlesque and cabaret through workshops and also our own stage production – Image Snatchers technoburlesque. Most local representatives of these genres that are active in the independent scene already participated in our workshops. On our own or in collaboration with the City of Women association we hosted selected most interesting representatives of performance, new burlesque and cabaret, among others, British performer Marisa Carnesky (2011), Berlin performer Antonia Baehr (2011), international collective La Pocha Nostra (2011, 2013), and British and Australian creators Ursula Martinez (2014) and Moira Finucane (2015).

Join us!

Performers: workshop participants & special guests
Costume support: Urška Recer
Make-up support: Tina Prpar

Coordination and executive production: Sabina Potočki
Organised by: Emanat
In collaboration with: Old City Power Plant
Financial support: Ministry of Culture of RS, Municipality of Ljubljana – Department for Culture and Flanders Department of Culture, Youth and Media

Photo: artist’s arhive

Duration: 70-90 minutes
Language: Slovene, English
Tickets: 5 € (single price)
Information and booking: info@bunker.si, +386 51 269 906

More:
https://sindikat.emanat.si/en/project/without-filter-public-presentation/
https://sindikat.emanat.si/en/project/without-filter/

Image Snatchers

Technoburlesque is a mute comedy of the body that mocks rigidity of social roles. It uncritically appropriates, copies and glues together femininity, masculinity, family relationships, machismo and other degenerated social roles that are unrighteous considered normative. When Image Snatchers totally expose themselves — and remove their social dresses layer by layer — they do not find the essence, but realise that the essence is nothingness, and the performed travesties opium that makes living bearable. This amusing play in cross-dressing and their behaviour are a result of great sexual and bodily liberation from social bands. Satisfied in eclectic noise of media images they stretch popular snapshots and bite them to their unheard-of forms that provoke burst of laughter or despair.

Image Snatchers don’t seek for meaning but pleasure. As pleasure is the hedonistic polish with which they smeared everyday objects and made something exceptional out of them. Techno-burlesque is an intersection of (program/cybernetic) code and subjectivity; laying bare the physical and emotional body indivisibly bound up with the information matrix of contemporaneity.

For this edition of Syndicate of Outlandish Entities they are preparing a special program with pop sweets and evergreen highlights.

Image Snatchers is a regularly held, modular, always surprising, and never the same art-social event, constituted collectively by members of the group Feminalz. This burlesque collective is working under the patronage of Emanat Institute from 2013 onward. The core is composed of a permanent group of performers while they also frequently invite other outlandish guests to join them. In six years of existence they created over 50 acts, in every show they use successful strategies of appropriation and recycling to deliver a brand new experience.

Creators and Performers: Feminalz
Costumes: Urška Recer
Make-up: Tina Prpar
Selection of Music: Feminalz
Original Music: Luka Prinčič
Lighting Designer: Janko Oven
Video: WNDV

Photo: Nada Žgank

Production: Emanat
Image Snatchers were created in collaboration with Club Gromka and Maska Institute and received financial support by Municipality of Ljubljana and Ministry of Culture of RS.
Organised by: Emanat

Duration: 75 minutes
Language: Slovene, English, etc
Tickets: 7 € / 5 € (students)
Booking and information: info@bunker.si, +386 51 269 906

More: https://sindikat.emanat.si/en/project/image-snatchers-2/

Sophia Rodríguez: My Nature (2016)

In My Nature, Sophia Rodríguez improvises and dances with a huge soft sculpture The Swelf by Marijs Boulogne. Be prepared for unforgettable beauty, hilarious comedy and surprising shape shifting, while she balances onto the highest sport on the ladder of consciousness – in an improvisation. This direct and spontaneous show resolves any inhibitions with simple humour and wit.

Beyond language borders, Sophia’s performance opens up the realms of the universal language of spontaneous emotions, which are the same for all people. Although the sculpture is 10 meters bigger than Sophia, she expands herself and turns her body into the biggest artwork in the room.

This new comedy embodies the tension between the social relationships, boundaries and the need to belong, common to all human beings. By letting herself become truly open, she allows us to connect with our own nature. She spontaneously invites everyone to come along in search for the deepest sound in her body that resonates with energy, she hums in different tones to find this inner vibration of connection and accord. While being her natural confident self, led by her intuition, she playfully gets the public unnerved and makes us love her as she is. All inhibitions dissolve as she lifts herself up into The Swelf, where a beautiful dance unravels between its folds. Without complexes, she continues to make jokes as she digs deeper to locate the source of self. The discovery of the clitoris, the neurologic antenna of femininity, wires her into a total spin out of control, here comes to show her vulnerability, that is also part of her absolute strength.

Whenever Sophia desires, Marijs Boulogne assists her on and off stage, performative or dramaturgically.

Sophia Rodríguez is a Venezuelan performer, currently living and working in Brussels. In 2000, she got her Bachelor’s degree in Physical Theatre at Educational Program of the National Theatre of Venezuela. In 2003, she attended one year-long study in tightrope at National Circus School in Cuba and in 2008 she got her diploma in Dance/Performance at the University of Experimental Arts (UNEARTE) in Venezuela. In 2010, she was invited to participate in the project “50 days in Costa Rica” with David Zambrano, since then she has been teaching contemporary dance technique “Flying Low” and “Passing Through” around the world. In 2014, she got her Master’s degree in Physical Theatre. Since 2006, she has created several performances, either solo works or in collaboration with different artists, such as Ines Rojas, Nene Raul Vargas, Thomas Proksch, Ivo Dimchev, Micha Goldberg Inter Alias. She has worked with different choreographers, such as David Zambrano (VE/NL), Osmany Tellez (NY), Ayelen Parolin (BE), and currently, she is touring with a new dance performance by Koen Agustijnen and Rosalba Torres Guerrero, called “(B)”.

Performance and text: Sophia Rodríguez
Set design: Marijs Boulogne
Production: Buelens Paulina bzw

photo: Ilse Vanroy

Organised by: Emanat
In collaboration with: Bunker/Old City Power Plant

Financial support: Ministry of Culture of RS, Municipality of Ljubljana – Department for Culture and Flanders Department of Culture, Youth and Media

Duration: 30 to 40 minutes

Performed in universal language

Free entry
Information: info@bunker.si, +386 51 269 906

More: https://sindikat.emanat.si/en/project/my-nature/

Shazia Mirza: A Work in Progress (2019)

What’s going on? Why does everyone hate each other, why does no one talk on the phone? And why are there no women left with real eyebrows?

And why do all the right wing papers keep calling me up for answers every time there is a paedophile with the same colour skin as mine? Can we really educate people? Can we drag anyone forward against their will?

None of this really matters, what matters is:

People are scared of being alone. Why? Solitude can be a burden and you try to escape from it. How can you end it? How can you get rid of it? Sometimes you can’t get rid of it. Then one day you just accept it. You accept that you are just a being who doesn’t like talking or being with other people, but once a week on your terms you want to talk to someone about death and Brexit.

Following the success of her critically acclaimed recent shows; With Love From St. Tropez, a riot of brexit, burqas and butt-plugs through the lens of The Periodic Table, and The Kardashians Made Me Do It, a searing and urgent exploration of life, love and Jihadi brides, Shazia is taking on the burning issues of our time in her latest show for 2019.

Shazia Mirza is an award winning British stand up comedian and writer who works internationally. She has performed stand-up shows across the world in Europe, US, Asia and the Far East. Her sell out tours include; Norway, Sweden, Denmark, France, Germany, Switzerland, India, Pakistan, Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Cambodia and Kosovo. Listed by The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy, Shazia is also a winner of the prestigious PPA Awards; ‘Columnist of the Year’ for her writing in The New Statesman. Other publications she writes for include; The Guardian, The Financial Times, the Daily Mail, New Internationalist, the Chicago Tribune, the Big Issue and Loaded magazine. She is also frequently featured in TV and radio shows.

Performed and written by: Shazia Mirza
Production: Shazia Mirza
Co-production: MTM Productions
photo: Amelia Troubridge
Organised by: Emanat

Photo: Amelia Troubridge

Financial support: Ministry of Culture of RS, Municipality of Ljubljana – Department for Culture

Duration: 60 minutes
Show will be performed in English.

Tickets: 7 € / 5 € (students)
Booking and information: info@bunker.si, +386 51 269 906

More: https://sindikat.emanat.si/en/project/a-work-in-progress/

Sophia Rodríguez: Without Filter

Workshop: Mon – Thu 15 – 18 Apr, 2:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Public presentation: Thu 18 Apr at 8:00 p.m.

Sophia Rodríguez invites you to devise a new performative work together. Let’s bounce our cliches and inner fire, construct and deconstruct a series of fake and true phenomena in a relationship with yourself. Through exercises of body, voice, mind, and language, we will prepare ourselves to reveal our feelings and thoughts, this will be the masa bruta, the clay that we will use to develop an aesthetic performative statement.

Every day we are going to construct something individually out of our voice/body/actions and show it. We are going to open up fantasies and frustration, in action, in poetic actions that pull out our trash/fullness/fail/fight/flame/death/expression. We will be playing with superficial and deep, with subjective and objective, fake and true, letting ourselves to be influenced by poetry and metaphors we might encounter in the process.

How we stand for what we do? How do we give the value to emotions or thoughts that come from very deep or hidden space in our body? What can we discover through group communication? How can we change our perception of reality and our perception of art by giving a different form to our thoughts and feelings through group work?

Whatever comes to us in the process of research is an integral part of us. At the same time, when it is placed somewhere and inhabits a concrete shape, it is already something new, and something that we can distance ourselves from, observe and treat it. It is composing and decomposing, creating a space between the personal meaning and the value that that action itself can have for the environment, the public, etc.

Those are the things we are gonna experience together and reflect on while we develop our performances without any filters.

Sophia Rodríguez is a Venezuelan performer, currently living and working in Brussels. In 2000, she got her Bachelor’s degree in Physical Theatre at Educational Program of the National Theatre of Venezuela. In 2003, she attended one year-long study in tightrope at National Circus School in Cuba and in 2008 she got her diploma in Dance/Performance at the University of Experimental Arts (UNEARTE) in Venezuela. In 2010, she was invited to participate in the project “50 days in Costa Rica” with David Zambrano, since then she has been teaching contemporary dance technique “Flying Low” and “Passing Through” around the world. In 2014, she got her Master’s degree in Physical Theatre. Since 2006, she has created several performances, either solo works or in collaboration with different artists, such as Ines Rojas, Nene Raul Vargas, Thomas Proksch, Ivo Dimchev, Micha Goldberg Inter Alias. She has worked with different choreographers, such as David Zambrano (VE/NL), Osmany Tellez (NY), Ayelen Parolin (BE), and currently, she is touring with a new dance performance by Koen Agustijnen and Rosalba Torres Guerrero, called “(B)”.

Practical information:

Sophia Rodríguez: Without Filter

4 day-long performative workshop

When and where:

Workshop: Mon – Thu 15 – 18 Apr, 2:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. at Old City Power Plant

Public presentation: Thu 18 Apr at 8:00 p.m. at Old City Power Plant

Application:

Performers with stage experience (actors, dancers, performers, acrobats, clowns) interested in the genres of contemporary burlesque and cabaret are welcome to join us. Attendance at all four days of the workshop is obligatory. Attendance at the final performance is desired but is not a condition to take part in the workshop. Please send us a short description of your stage experience when you apply and also write a short motivation letter describing the reasons why you would like to attend.

Application deadline:

Please send us your application with short description of your knowledge and motivation letter at sindikat@emanat.si before Wednesday, 10 April 2019.

The number of participants is limited; in case of large interest we reserve the right to make a selection.

Workshop fee: 40 €
Workshop leader: Sophia Rodríguez
Organised by: Emanat
In collaboration with: Old City Power Plant
Coordination and executive production: Sabina Potočki

photo: Danny Willems

Financial support: Ministry of Culture of RS, Municipality of Ljubljana – Department for Culture and Flanders Department of Culture, Youth and Media

More: 
https://sindikat.emanat.si/en/project/without-filter/

https://sindikat.emanat.si/en/project/without-filter-public-presentation/

Mismo Nismo: NOise Circus

NOise Circus is a contemporary circus/musical improvised performance that translates the attributes and philosophy of noise music into stage and circus language by researching human experience in a space of discarded objects a.k.a. trash. Creators of the performance think we can translate the noise methodology to circus to liberate this genre through experiment and find new possible ways of its development. Project plays with capitalist reality and with fictional post-apocalyptic future that can exist at the same time on stage. We give new meaning to discarded objects through play and contemporary circus and performative practices. “What is circus and what is its role in the contemporary society” are the questions that we are most interested in indirectly. The aesthetic of performance is raw, experimental and filled with mistakes. Intra-personal dynamic, space where the used objects were salvaged from and the wider self-organised circus community in Slovenia is of key importance for this project.

Mismo Nismo is a new alt-art circus group from Ljubljana, Slovenia. We are pessimists that want to embrace the uncertainty through the experiences of (precarious) present. Our aesthetic is raw, experimental and filled with mistakes. Form is an experiment and idea is all.

Creators and Performers: Mismo Nismo – Oton Korošec, Eva Zibler, Tjaž Juvan, Panda
Music, set design, costume design, lighting and video design: Mismo Nismo
Consultants and external observers: Peter James, Liza Šimenc, Daniela Paci, Alessandra Simone
Photos: David Vidar Fogelström, Ivan PI. Marenić, Milan Szypura
Producer: Mismo Nismo Association
Co-producer: Bufeto Institute

Support and coordination: Jeunes Talents Cirque Europe with CircusNext programe

Partners: l’Espace Périphérique, Fondazione Vertigo, Ex-teater, Cirkobalkana, Cirkusfera, Cirkorama, KC Mladost, Room 100, AKC Medika, Menza pri Koritu, Galerija Miroslav Kraljević, Cirkusarna NaokROG

Financial support: EU Program Creative Europe
Selected in CircusNext 2018–2019, European program coordinated by Jeunes Talents Cirque Europe and supported by European Union.

Organized by: Emanat
In collaboration with: Bunker/Old City Power Plant

Technician: Syndicate 2019

Duration: 45 minutes

Tickets: 5 € (single price)
Booking and information: info@bunker.si, +386 51 269 906

More: https://sindikat.emanat.si/en/project/noise-circus/

Marijs Boulogne: The Swelf

13 – 18 Apr 2019 (during evening Syndicate events),

Lobby of Old City Power Plant

Prepare to see a revelation of a true goddess, commemorating the smiling Statue of Mary when Rosa of Lima was carried past. The Swelf consists out of thousands of intimate female shapes and folds in thick pink fabric. A thorough research into the unsurpassed forms of a vulva resulted in a playground for adults, a place to swing naked, to slide, to climb, becoming happy like a newborn baby again. The flexible sculpture lives by the name (neologism) ‘The Swelf’ coming from the expression ‘Take care of your s(w)elf.’

This sculpture can shift into many shapes, and surprise over en over again, depending how you hang it. The sculpture was created to be a mobile and dynamic and a female omnipotent presence. Dreaming of big sculptures as part of a playground for adults, like a circus on the inside of a giant crocheted female body, or its central meeting point of her nerves. This huge body of the clitoris together with the vulva was featured for the first time in March 2012 in The Grand Opening in Norway (with Joris Vercammen, Laura Verlinden, Bembo Davies), and in June 2012 as installation at the 38th Nordic Congress of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Bergen, Norway. Later, the embroidery was animated by Hungarian-Romanian puppeteers Iza and Mircea Moş or the contemporary music theatre project Who Wants to be Holy? in deSingel in Antwerp, where it interacted with live compositions by the young composer Joris Vercammen. During the last years, the sculpture The Origin of Things (T.O.o.T.) is exhibited under a new name The Swelf. In 2016 improvised dance performance My Nature with this sculpture was conceived by Sophia Rodríguez in collaboration with Marijs Boulogne.

The Swelf is an ongoing cycle by Marijs Boulogne, in which she develops works in different media – installations, workshops, performances, lectures, etc., inviting people of different backgrounds to discover the complexity of their bodies and sexual organs and open up about issues of gender and sexuality in a playful way.

Marijs Boulogne (1978) is a theatre maker, playwright and performance artist. She graduated as a theatre director in 2002 at the RITS School of Arts (Brussels) and studied an additional year in open workshop, new media, installation, and interdisciplinary work. She began directing her own plays in 1999 and received several prizes for her productions. Her plays have been translated into seven languages and have been performed in many countries under her own direction. She wrote and directed Voulez-vous poeper avec moi, Herzschmerz, Picknick!, Excavations, The Anatomy Lesson, Marzipan or Plexi and co-wrote Love Zero Control, Good Habits and Endless Medication with Manah Depauw.

Recurring themes in her work are sexuality, comedy and female strategies of liberation throughout the ages. She performs as singer, accordionist, storyteller and presenter. Since 2011, she is also presenting, coordinating and organising Lucha Libre wrestling events of the ‘Spelers van de Ring’ and Brussels Young Wrestling Style. Since a few years she also started wrestling herself as Peggy, trained by Pietro Badiali (Lady-Man-Catch Club), Belgium.

Concept: Marijs Boulogne
Crocheted by: Marijs Boulogne and Laura Verlinden with the help of Joris Vercammen, Eva Weerts, Iza Moş, Mircea Moş and Bembo Davies
Production: Buelens Paulina vzw
Sponsor of Material: Bekaert Textiles International Group

photo: artist’s archive

Organised by: Emanat
In collaboration with: Bunker/Old City Power Plant
Financial support: Ministry of Culture of RS, Municipality of Ljubljana – Department for Culture and Flanders Department of Culture, Youth and Media
 
Free entry (during evening Syndicate events)

More: https://sindikat.emanat.si/en/project/the-swelf/