We live in a mediatized world of wild conspiracy theories, impending ecological crises, pernicious narrations, where ironic + nihilistic viral #influenza pictures are concurrently cropping up on innumerable devices. A toxic cloud of digital images is drifting from the monitors in parallel to the degradation of the physical environment.

? How does pixelated information get caught in the network of an organic body? What kind of stage (a)effects does a work generate with incompatible Internet content? What in the web of images is actually t r U E?

In response to the oculocentric organisation of the world, the hybrid stage production adds materiality to pasty digital images and processes them —\_( physically )_/—. It combines movement, video, the production with objects and sound, translating *through irony* the logic of the Internet into a physical space……………...The relationship between the body and images spreads open the virtual spaces of intermediacy; /between the organic /imaginary and digital /among memetic trash /between the atmosphere /affect and sensation //at the intersection of experience, apparition, premonition, and fact. Between the past, the manifold presents and – not virtual, but tangible – > future.
 

Jan Rozman (1991) is a freelance performer, choreographer, improviser and performance maker based between Ljubljana and Berlin. He is interested in and in his artistic practice engaged with extended bodies, material semiotics, textures, gaps, errors & confusions, ecology, imagination, (science) fiction and humor in a search for relevant performative articulations for the post-internet /anthropocene era.

He attended the art secondary school, programme contemporary dance, in Ljubljana (teachers Maja Delak, Vita Osojnik, Gregor Luštek, Damaas-Mithras Thijs, Urška Vohar); later he also joined the choreography programme at SNDO in Amsterdam for a year and obtained a master’s degree in solo/dance/authorship at HZT (UdK), Berlin. He is also a certified physiotherapist, graduated at Faculty of Health Sciences (UL), Ljubljana.

He is the author of many dance works: Fur, Feathers, Scale; Glitch; Invitation; Bird Dementia, The Decision Guillotine, Senzasenso, Thinging) and is well known on Slovenian stages (Ukrep Festival, Front@, OPUS, Slovenian Dance Platform Nacionala) and stages abroad (SPHA, Something Raw Festival).

In 2019 Jan Rozman received Ksenija Hribar Award for promising choreographer. The award was given by Association for Contemporary Dance Slovenia.

Raül Refree, guitar, keyboards – Maria Mazzotta, vocals

It’s been pretty difficult to keep up with Catalan producer, musician and composer Raül Refree over the last few years: his hugely acclaimed work with Sílvio Pérez Cruz (Granada), Rosalía (Los Ángeles) and Lina (Lina_Raül Refree), with whom he appeared in Ljubljana in 2021, has helped to propel these young artists onto the world stage; and he’s also found time to produce two brilliant solo albums for Ljubljana-based Glitterbeat Records. Now it’s the turn of Maria Mazzotta, a singer already well into a third decade of startling creativity, as solo artist and a member of the legendary Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino. Their collaboration was premiered in Barcelona in December, in a wonderful setting of voice, guitar and keyboards. It wasn’t a melding of different cultures as much as a coming-together of kindred spirits: the Queen of Puglia and the King of Barcelona. We’re looking forward to a repeat at this year’s Druga Godba.
 

Brina – A Kinaesthetic Monument re-examines the traditional view of monuments as static and unchangeable. How to make a monument that is ever changing? The generative, reactive and improvised kinaesthetic monument brings to presence Slovenian contemporary dancer Marta Paulin alias Brina – as she was known among her fellow partisans in the National Liberation Front during the WWII. She performed improvisational dance acts for the fighters and the locals on various meetings and gatherings. In the war, her feet were frozen, so she was not able to dance anymore. The kinaesthetic monument empowers Brina, as an antifascist and a dancer-choreographer, to rise not as a numb statue but as a spinning movement and echo in space. The emancipatory power of contemporary dance as it was performed by Brina: can it be a remedy against colonising our memories? In 2021, the performance was included in the main programme of the ImPulsTanz international dance festival in Vienna. “When, as a dancer, I stood alone in the massive crowd of liberation fighters, aware that I shall be able to use my dance gift and weak body to express what had been uniting us, that I shall also be able to master the vast natural space, I felt strength in my feet, tramping the hard soil of the forest ground” (Marta Paulin – Brina).

Leja Jurišić is a dancer and choreographer who practices performative and political art. Her performances draw from the body, which the author understands as a political machine, while remaining at the same time committed to exploring both the personal and intimate as well as the (bio)political. She presented her original performances across Europe, the USA and Mexico and received several awards for them: among others, Jurišić and Marko Mandić received the Borštnik Award, the Gibanica Award and the Ksenija Hribar Award for their performance Together.

Bara Kolenc is a philosopher and artist from Ljubljana. She is a researcher at the Department of Philosophy of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, the author of the book Repetition and Enactment: Kierkegaard, Psychoanalysis, Theatre (DTP, Analecta, 2014) and recipient of the University of Ljubljana’s top research achievement award in 2021. She received several awards for her work in the field of performing arts, most recently the Theatertreffen Stückemarkt Commission of Work Award 2016 and The Recognition of important works of art of the University of Ljubljana in 2018.

Peter Kutin (Austria) works with sound in various genres. His live performances or installations have a physical and psychological impact that throws the listener or the spectator off balance, but at the same time embraces it. He is interested in the speed and temporality of sounds and musical structures, exploring multimedia-polyrhythmic situations that often provoke hypnotic and psychedelic states, which earned him the “Golden Nica” award at the Ars Electronica festival (for the project TORSO # 1, 2019).
Patrik Lechner (Austria) is an artist who creates experimental audio and video content. By exploring technology, he creates original abstract sound works in real-time 3D graphics, without losing focus on artistic expression. He has presented his performances in Austria, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, Mexico and elsewhere.

Mathias Lenz (Austria) works in changing constellations and contexts at the interface between object theatre, performance art and mechanical engineering, sometimes also as an actor or a stage designer. For a number of years, he has collaborated with the Berlin based artist collective Club Real and the Vienna theatre collective God's Entertainment, with the directors Astrid Griesbach, Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens, with the choreographer Oleg Soulimenko, and with the singer-songwriter Christoph Theussl.
 

Spending Time Dancing presents Matej Kejžar’s artistic experimentation with dancing, discharged from the drive for choreography. In order to relieve dance from the burden placed on it by the concept of choreography, the burden of a carefully planned succession of movements as progress, he focuses on the processes that defy the linearity of both movement and time. What happens when Passing Time meets Dancing? What is their relationship? That's when dancing turns into the concept of “wasting time”, and is replaced by the general capitalist postulation that any activity that does not contribute to the concept of productivity as the main and only purpose of every life is not only irreversible, but also wasted. Time that becomes waste. But at the same time, the wasted time becomes a new critical perspective on Western conceptions of progress as an ideal. When we produce, we may not grow, but when we spend our time dancing, we flourish. “Perhaps even more important than possible ultimate solutions is the realization that every time we allow ourselves to liberalize our mental structure, we truly live, truly grow, and truly flourish! Therefore: live, grow, flourish” (Neža Vengust and Matic Ferlan, Odrišča, 18 September 2022).
 

Matej Kejžar (1974) is a graduate of SNDO in Amsterdam and also studied at X-GROUP P.A.R.T.S. and Trisha Brown Dance Company in New York. At the beginning of his career, he created many acclaimed performances. From 2008, has been working with the Rosas Dance Company in Brussels for four years (The Song, Cesena). Since 2011, he has been working between Brussels and Ljubljana, developing a strong oeuvre. Kejžar is the programme manager of international Spider festivals, and a teacher at cultural organizations such as SNDO, SEAD, P.A.R.T.S., TSEH, ImpulsTanz, Ultima vez and Rosas. In addition to Slovenian productions, he regularly creates performances all over the world (India, Singapore, Brazil). He also participated in the French choreographer Boris Charmatz’s project 20 Dancers for the XX Century.

Viktorija Bubalo (1997) is the recipient of the Croatian peer award for perspective dancer (2021). After graduating from the School of Contemporary Dance Ana Maletić, she enrolled at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb, where she completed the Contemporary Dance Studies course in 2020. In her research, she is interested in the intertwining of the written word, voice and movement, as well as in collaboration with other media such as sound, photography and film. 

Dora Brkarić (1996) graduated from the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb and continued her education at UNIARTS in Helsinki (Contemporary Dance), Blank Experimental movie school in Zagreb and SNDO in Amsterdam (Choreography). Solo performances and films at festivals: Monoplay at Ganz New Festival; Life is GREJP at the Garaža Kamba art gallery (Zagreb).

Daniel Petković (1991) is a dancer, actor and performer. Over the years, he collaborated with various collectives, choreographers and directors and performed at many Croatian and international festivals. He focuses on performance, neo-burlesque, contemporary dance, drama, hybrid forms of performing arts, dubbing of cartoons, and moderating.

“Things are yellow, green, red. They can be stationary or rotating. Some are twisted into really weird shapes. They can have stripes, they can have dots. Me, I like those that are soft like pillows. There are really many things, there is no end to them! Say ‘things’ if you see them too!” The performance explores the issue of ecology in an innovative and humorous way, raising awareness of the consequences of using plastic and promoting care for the environment. In the performance, which is intended for a younger audience, various plastic objects that surround us in everyday life appear on stage, and Julia and Jan place them in a completely new context, triggering new feelings and ideas in the spectator. They invite the audience to explore the mysterious and interesting plastic objects with them, using the form of contemporary dance to inform them of the issue of ecology in an innovative and humorous way. “The performance prompts us to think about the relationships between matter, things and people, and thus fits into the modern and increasingly acute and topical consideration of the roles of people on this planet (Maša Radi Buh, Contemporary Puppetry, 30 April 2021). In 2021, Things Thing received the Special Jury Award at the 11th Biennial of Puppetry Artists of Slovenia for playful criticism of the (un)useful plastic objects.

Jan Rozman (1991) is a dancer, performer and choreographer who works between Ljubljana and Berlin. In his artistic practice, he deals with the extended notion of corporeality, material semiotics, textures, gaps, errors and confusion, ecology, imagination, (science) fiction, and humour. He focuses his work on the research and articulation of relevant performance expressions for the post-internet/Anthropocene era. He studied dance at the Secondary Preschool Education and Gimnazija Ljubljana (SVŠGUGL) and choreography at the SNDO in Amsterdam. In 2018, he completed his master's studies at the Inter-University Centre for Dance Berlin (HZT).

Julia Keren Turbahn (1990) graduated in media and cultural studies from the Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf and studied at the University of New South Wales in Sydney as a DAAD scholarship holder for dance studies. During her studies, she was interested in the production of knowledge through artistic research and how different forms of knowledge are produced in an artistic research process working with movement. In 2019, she completed her studies in “Dance, Context, Choreography” at the Inter-University Centre for Dance Berlin (HZT). Her interest in the moving body as an inherent part of her artistic practice is reflected in moving in different positions and spaces in artistic projects.
 

In 2023, the Fabula in Theory addresses the issue of personal and collective past, what we have learnt from our past for a better today, and what await us in the future, how this relates to human (personal) and collective (social) memory. What advantage can be taken of hindsight and (self)reflection. Bernardine Evaristo, the world-renowned British author of Manifesto: On Never Giving Up, is to address the subject at Cankarjev dom.
 

Manifesto: On Never Giving Up is a vibrant and inspiring account of the path travelled by British writer Bernardine Evaristo – about her decades-long struggle to bring her creative work into the world. With her characteristic humour, Evaristo describes her childhood as one of eight siblings, with a Nigerian father and white Catholic mother; tells the story of how she helped set up Britain's first Black women's theatre company; remembers the queer relationships of her twenties; and recounts her determination to write books that were absent in the literary world around her. She provides a hugely powerful perspective to contemporary conversations around race, class, feminism, sexuality, and aging. She reminds us of how far we have come, and how far we still have to go. In Manifesto, Evaristo charts her theory of unstoppability, showing creative people how they too can visualize and find success in their work. A manifesto on being unstoppable. A manifesto for all of us.

The novel has been translated into Slovenian by Katja Zakrajšek.

Bernardine Evaristo (1959) is an award-winning author of eight novels. Her 2019 Booker Prize win was a historic and revolutionary occasion, with Evaristo being the first Black woman and first Black British person ever to win the prize in its fifty-year history. She writes fiction, verse and non-fiction. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London and President of the Royal Society of Literature. She was awarded an MBE in 2009 and an OBE in 2020, both for services to literature. 

The talk will be held in English, with simultaneous translation into Slovenian.
 

Teo Collori, lead guitar; Metod Banko, rhythm guitar; Matija Krečič, violin; Matej Kužel, clarinet; Jošt Lampret, bass

Premiere of the latest album, Capitano Della Noche

After scoring several notable successes, including outstanding Ljubljana Jazz Festival concerts, thrilling shows at home and around the world and an inspiring collaboration with Vlado Kreslin, Teo Collori and his ensemble of the country’s finest musicians are releasing a new album, Capitano Della Noche. The ten-track album was recorded in a living room with the aim of making the tracks as intimate and authentic as possible. There was barely any postproduction; embellishments and corrections were turned off before pressing the ‘record’ button. The band’s aim was to totally immerse the listeners in their music.

They took a few steps forward in terms of composition and delivery; the album includes elements of flamenco rumba, afro/gypsy, Italo-French waltz, Indian melodies... While the classic manouche jazz polka appears only as an echo of previous records, the band could not resist adding a dash of contemplative atmosphere reminiscent of their earlier tracks Inferno and Warrior’s Lullaby. More vocal input has been integrated into the music, but the voice invariably takes the role of an instrument, i.e., wordless vocalization, so that before entering the head the music can first touch the heart.

Perpetuum mobile, a hypothetical machine that operates for an infinite amount of time without an external energy source, is miraculous, evidently reflecting the human tendency to explore new ideas, the impossible and the unattainable. To date, the construction of such a machine has remained an unrealized dream. As constantly moving and ever-changing entities, the human body, the planet Earth we inhabit and the whole universe provide the greatest inspiration for creating a dance perpetuum mobile, a motion machine enabling the dancers to accomplish new feats, generating an irresistible and hypnotic movement of pulsating bodies, and thereby a miraculous ever-moving dance world, which forms part both of the past and the future.

The project is dedicated to the 570th anniversary of the visionary, artist, architect and inventor Leonardo da Vinci, an indefatigable designer of perpetual motion devices, and – like the master himself – blends art and science. With state-of-the-art technology developed by the Nova Gorica-based HPC company Arctur (in collaboration with Xcenter, a centre for creative practices in Nova Gorica, and a smart lighting solutions company, Intra Lighting), an international ensemble of dancers and an actor explore the limitlessness of movement and the limitless possibilities of discovering novelty in art and science. A co-production between MN Dance Company and Slovene National Theatre Nova Gorica, the project forms part of the run-up to the Go! 2025 European Capital of Culture. 

 

MN Dance Company
Nastja Bremec Rynia and Michal Rynia, both graduates of CODARTS – Rotterdam Dance Academy, are internationally renowned choreographers and dancers.

Their prolific artistic output and educational endeavors have opened up the cultural space of Nova Gorica, where MN Dance Company is based, enhancing the cultural life of both the city and country. Their work involves creating choreography and contemporary dance for full-length performances, dance vignettes, dance films, various theatrical performances, music videos, TV commercials and other events. Their long-standing, passionate and devoted partnership has produced outstanding results in contemporary dance. As well as promoting dance culture among adult audiences and young dancers both locally and internationally, Michal and Nastja aim towards establishing connections at the local and multinational level. Demonstrating choreographic, conceptual and technical brilliance – the utmost degree of artistic excellence, their works extend the seemingly inextensible boundaries of dance.

Their dance shows are produced by Zavod MN Produkcija, and feature an international cast of dancers from Slovenia, Italy, Sweden, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Great Britain, Germany, Romania and Hungary selected at an annual audition. The company has been creating pieces for the Slovenian National Theatre Nova Gorica, the Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, Cankarjev dom Ljubljana, and other theatres both at home and abroad (Theater Rotterdam, Baletto di Roma, ArtistiAssociati Gorica, Tanz Moderne Chemnitz, New Dance Drama Firenze…).

Created over the past three years in collaboration with SNG Nova Gorica, the full-length dance performances De-Set, Go! Borderless and Ikarus include a variety of stunning elements and dance figures that demand considerable technical skill and physical stamina, while delivered with great lightness of movement. Known for their original duets, the virtuoso dancers also excel at solos. Their apparent dance and stage minimalism is actually full of details that reveal various hidden meanings to an observant viewer. 

Nastja and Michal’s artistic creativity has importantly enriched both the local and international dance scene. In creating communicative artistic projects, the company plays a vital role in popularising dance among all generations. With their consummate physical, technical and expressive skill, with great insight and profundity, Nastja and Michal addresses both intimate and universal themes that probe into the innermost recesses of our souls, thus uncovering the hidden truth in each one of us.

Guests: Jadranka Juras, Vlado Poredoš, Samo Budna, Martin Štibernik, Aljoša Bagola, Denis Horvat, Bilka Peršič, Jakob Podlesek.