Movement Research
A conference where thinking moves

The conference is dedicated to local and regional artists who are producing dance movement in a procedural way (with tasks, agreed principles, scores, instructions and other tools) and transforming it into a responsive material through sensual kinetics. It will be subjected to questions of what we do, how we do it and how others perceive it, what is choreography beyond the formalist object or the expressive production of the dance subject. We believe that somatic practices transcend the exclusive space and time of the studio, and that they are the site of a sensibility and mindfulness that, in contact with the public, can become political action, since their constitutive and indistinguishable link between the action and its reception, to which both dancer and spectator are subject, has the power of communal confrontation and consolidation, and can ultimately be the producer of individual ethical integrities. In Slovenia, movement research lacks visibility and recognition, and is largely excluded from cultural-political and production systems, despite the fact that there is a great deal of interest in it in the Slovenian contemporary dance scene, as artists are creating their own practices on a remarkable scale. The event will address questions of artistic, studio research as a relevant autonomous practice, and will pose them in a problematic and dialogic manner.

Guests: Aleksandra Janeva Imfeld, Katja Legin, Matej Kejžar, Anja Bornšek, Jan Rozman, Zrinka Šimičić Mihanović and others

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Constellation Deborah Hay
with Ballet Cullberg

The American artist, who broke new ground in dance in the 1970s and became a touchstone for later generations, will perform for the first time in Spain. She will present four pieces, two of them with Cullberg, Sweden’s most international ballet company.

The Match (2004)

Figure a Sea (2015)

my choreographed body… revisited (2015)

A lecture on the Performance of Beauty 

Installation: Writing as a Choreographer by Laurent Pichaud

Performative lecture: Translating as a Dancer

Film: Alignment is Everywhere

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Jonathan Burrows & Matteo Fargion
at Cofestival

Both Sitting Duet (2002)

Rewriting (2019)

 

Jonathan Burrows first appeared in Slovenia in 2001 together with Jan Ritsema in the duet Weak Dance Strong Questions (2001). Since then, he has presented a number of his works here, created with the composer and performer Matteo Fargion since 2001, and a translation of his work A Choreographer’s Handbook was published by Maska and JSKD (Public Fund for Cultural Activities) in 2010, in which the dancer and choreographer had organised (morphological, aesthetic, compositional, etc.) topics related to the creation of contemporary dance into a series of questions, statements, comments and quotations that address those dilemmas of the choreographer’s process that he is often afraid to say out loud. Both Sitting Duet (2002), created by Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion almost two decades ago, and which by a strange coincidence has never been seen in this country before, is today a classical work of contemporary dance. The amount of coverage that has accompanied it to date is extensive because it is, simply put, a genuine choreographic invention, the likes of which is enjoyed by contemporary dance only every so often. Without being accompanied by or generating any sound, the Duet functions as a dance-kinetic piece with its subsonority and orchestral stage situation, in which the performers seem to be separated from its execution. But despite all the possible conceptual, dance-theoretical and historical aspects it has produced so far, the piece is utterly humorous, it has virtuosity, and it reminds us of the sensual and intellectual joy of watching dance. In 2003, the Both Sitting Duet won the prestigious Bessie Award in New York. The solo Rewriting (2019) is the author’s meditation on the embodied but crossed out parts of choreographies. What could it possibly mean to carry within you the recollection of something that has lost its context and meaning?

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Fäden by Ivana Müller & Dance On Ensemble
live premiere

 

How can time be measured? What accumulates over its duration? Can it be wrapped up and stacked, or scattered and distributed? What gets lost and forgotten? And how do we humans change with time; or against it?

“Fäden” emerges in a fragile, interrupted and postponed present, with the memory of before and an inkling of after. From this suspended moment, the choreographer and author Ivana Müller, together with the actors and dancers Javier Arozena, André Benndorff, Walter Hess, Jelena Kuljić, Anna Gesa-Raija Lappe, Emma Lewis, Jone San Martin and Omagbitse Omagbemi, develops a web of movements, thoughts and images that reflect the inevitable process of time passing.

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Hacer Historia(s) Vol. 4
Cycle of contemporary dance and performance

Drawing: Quim Bigas

Fer Història i fer-la nostra i també, fer-la avui, fent-la…

(Make history, make it ours, make it today, making it now…)

The fourth edition of the Hacer Historia(s) series, organized by La Poderosa and staged at the Mercat, the MACBA, the Antic Teatre and La Caldera in Barcelona. It highlights the memory of the body in the shows and the importance of remembering.

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