CoFestival

SLO | ENG

Since: 2012
CoFestival webpage: https://cofestival.si/
E-mail: info@cofestival.si
Phone: +386 30 310 105
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Organization: Nomad Dance Academy Slovenija and Kino Šiška

From November 21 to 28, the 14th edition of CoFestival will take place. Organised by Nomad Dance Academy Slovenia and the Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, this international festival of contemporary dance is supported by a number of partners. This year’s programme highlights the notion that our bodies are always part of something greater. This encapsulates the power of dance.

The art of dance is one of the very few artistic practices without an intermediary substitute. It is virtually impossible to take it home with you. No book, record, or recording is able to replace the experience of a dance performance focused on the human body. This experience is mainly available only in person, when we are not alone. The latter fact is very close to us with its communal characteristic, until dance becomes a commentary on the gazes mounted on the walls in the form of surveillance cameras, designed to recognize human kinetics and send information about our presence to control centres. This is the subject of the performance Gaitless by Marko Milić and Uroš Krčadinac, which will be featured at CoFestival as part of the European project Modina, dedicated to the relationships between choreography, technology, and artificial intelligence. Kino Šiška is a partner in this project.

However, centres of surveillance are not always solely external entities. As Maurice Merleau-Ponty once said, in the spectacle of the world, we are beings who are watched, and so the surveillance cameras in our own eyes – whether we like it or not – are often a form of self-control. The mirror image in our own eyes is a kind of surveillance camera that can occasionally detect foreign objects that it is unable to attribute to itself. The operation of self-gazing can be taken, as in the case of Sonja Pregrad’s Object of Dance, as a queer method and a way of regarding dance or the body differently.

The performances of the Dance On Ensemble (Making Dances, a dance evening featuring works by Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, Tim Etchells and Mathilde Monnier) and Andreja Rauch Podrzavnik and Milan Tomášik (Cage Open: A Truck Passing by a Music School) are linked to a paradigmatic shift in contemporary dance, which, influenced by the views of American composer John Cage, broke with the tradition of dance choreography being created through the external authority of the choreographer’s gaze. Instead, dance is subject to its own internal mechanisms, constructed by solving choreographic problems that are not necessarily optical in nature. This vastly expanded creative participation, whereby dancers were no longer merely instruments of the choreographer’s vision but co-creators of pieces. Influenced by European constructivism and Cage’s interest in the sensory qualities of everyday life, dance established a space for a wide spectrum of what choreography could be – it no longer needed to appear good by all means.

The gaze of the other, or the second gaze, becomes ambiguous when it seeks to act as our choreographer. Contemporary dance has been involved in the art of performance for more than half a century, and this is effective primarily because it persistently undermines and problematises the authority of the choreographer. This allows us to understand the choreographer as a social norm. Harald Beharie (Batty Bwoy) and Tiran Willemse (blackmilk), however, focus their performances on the gendered aspects of this norm, grappling with what it aspires to establish. Petja Golec Horvat (my own private *) and Bor Prokofjev (Equilibrium), on the other hand, explore their relationship with these demands thoughtfully in a variety of existentialist dance landscapes.

With Deep Song (1937), now considered a classic of contemporary dance, the work of American choreographer Martha Graham will be presented to the Slovenian public for the first time. In the 1930s, dance responded to the Spanish Civil War and the rise of Nazism under the Third Reich. The art of dance thus expressed its solidarity with the struggle for things that we have in common and that we must share as a human community. The pioneers of modern dance believed that through dance solos they were dancing as a community or a duet with their fellow human beings, so they never felt that they were alone in their dance solos. Isabelle Schad takes the opposite approach in Studies on Infinity #2 – Nudity and Landscape, intertwining a group of bodies into a multitude in which solitude ceases to exist. Sylvain Huc and Mathilde Olivares, on the other hand, create a kind of fundamental dance duet in La Vie nouvelle, which seeks to celebrate the joy of collaborative dance work.

The programmes of CoFestival, the international festival of contemporary dance, have always been motivated by the notion that bodies are interconnected, a fact that seems more relevant than ever in 2025. Our bodies are always connected to something greater than ourselves. Although this can sometimes be daunting, the power of dance lies in its connection to the community. When we experience the magic of dance together, we are filled with delight. At that moment, we realise that we are not alone.

Mark your calendars and stay tuned to the CoFestival channels — more programme details coming soon!

PROGRAM

Pre-festival event:

THU, 20. 11., 16.00–20.00 / Kino Šiška, Komuna

Political Participation for All – For a Europe of Equals

assembly

The assembly will take the form of a structured discussion aimed at developing recommendations and proposals to support the inclusion of migrants in society. The recommendations will be forwarded to the relevant institutions.

Free entry.

FRI, 21. 11., 18.00–19.00 / Kino Šiška, Upper Foyer

Ann Papoulis on the Work of Merce Cunningham

Talk

American dancer, choreographer, and educator Ann Papoulis is an ideal guest to guide us into the heart of Cunningham’s studio and pedagogical work. She has had a manuscript of her book on the master prepared for some time now, and in this conversation, we will delve into some of its unpublished chapters.

The talk will be moderated by Rok Vevar.

Admission free.

FRI, 21. 11., 19.00–22.00 / Kino Šiška, Upper Foyer

Slovenian Theatre Publishers at CoFestival

presentation/fair

Printed editions from the network of Slovenian theatre publishers – Emanat, the MGL Library, Maska Ljubljana, and SLOGI – will be available for purchase at special prices.

Free entry.

FRI, 21. 11., at 20.00 / Kino Šiška, Katedrala Hall

Sylvain Huc & Mathilde Olivares: LA VIE NOUVELLE

dance performance | festival opening

La Vie Nouvelle by Sylvain Huc and Mathilde Olivares is a dance duet rooted in the radical nature of the present moment and in the exploration of togetherness. It contemplates life in a time when politics are staging the end of the world.

Presale: €8, at the door: €10

SAT, 22. 11., at 18.00 / Viba Film, Small Studio

Tiran Willemse: BLACKMILK

dance performance*

The dance solo intertwines the gestures of uniformed drumming majorettes, white female starlets, and Black masculine rap stars, exploring how movement defines the culturally coded postures of different social groups and the manifestations of masculinity.

*The performance will be held in English.

Free entry.

SAT, 22. 11., at 20.00 / The Old Power Station

Andreja Rauch Podrzavnik & Milan Tomášik: CAGE OPEN. TRUCK PASSING BY A MUSIC SCHOOL

dance performance with live music I premiere

In Cage Open, dancers and choreographers Andreja Rauch Podrzavnik and Milan Tomášik weave connections between the “responsive body” and live performances of compositions by John Cage, one of the central figures of 20th-century avant-garde music. A rare and remarkable collaboration.

Presale: €8, at the door: €10

SUN, 23. 11., at 19.00 / Španski borci, Upper Foyer

Slavcho Dimitrov: ANARCHIC BODIES: Corporeal Materialism, Affects and the Political

book presentation*

In close relation to corporeality and affect, Dimitrov reflects on how we might imagine and enact the “political” as radical difference – an unpredictable moment that simultaneously enables and dismantles societal foundations.

*The talk will be held in English.

Free entry.

SUN, 23. 11., at 20.00 / Španski borci, Main Hall

Sonja Pregrad: OBJECT OF DANCE

dance performance

“What can a drag persona named Object of Dance tell us?” asks Sonja Pregrad with her unconventional, intimate, and at the same time socially charged choreographic proposition.

Presale: €8, at the door: €10

MON, 24. 11., at 18.00 / The Old Power Station

Harald Beharie: BATTY BWOY

dance performance and after-talk *

With his solo Batty Bwoy, Harald Beharie shook up the international dance scene. Through an ambivalent presence oscillating between liberated strength, joy, and violence, he subverts the myths surrounding the Black queer body.

*The talk will be held in English.

*The performance contains nudity.

Presale: €8, at the door: €10

MON, 24. 11., at 21.00 / Kino Šiška, Katedrala Hall

Andreja Rauch Podrzavnik: FOLD

artistic performance event in three parts

In Fold, Andreja Rauch Podrzavnik creates a series of spatial, material, light, and sound parallels to the dance and movement sequences, expanding the choreography into other media.

Presale: €8, at the door: €10

TUE, 25. 11., at 19.00 / Ljubljana Puppet Theatre

Dance On Ensemble: MAKING DANCES (with works of Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, Tim Etchells and Mathilde Monnier)

dance performances, lecture and discussion*

Making Dances is a nourishing meal of dance history, seasoned with the dance of the present. The Dance On Ensemble has invited Mathilde Monnier and Tim Etchells to create their artistic response to two iconic works: Merce Cunningham’s open choreographic piece Story (1963) and Martha Graham’s solo Dark Meadow (1938), created in response to the Spanish Civil War and the rise of fascism in Europe. Historical introduction/lecture to the performance at 18.30.

*The discussion will be held in English.

Presale: €8, at the door: €10

WED, 26. 11., at 17.00 / Kino Šiška, Katedrala Hall

Liis Vares & Taavet Jansen: STILL MOVING

VR instalacija*

Liis Vares and Taavet Jansen ask how we live in a world where technology expands and mediates the human experience. Visitors are invited into an experience that merges physical space with virtual reality.

*The presentation will be held in English.

Free entry.

WED, 26. 11., at 19.30 / The Old Power Station

Isabelle Schad: STUDIES OF INFINITY #2 – NUDITY AND LANDSCAPE

dance performance

Studies of Infinity #2 are a choreographic installation in which skin becomes a field of relations and community, a mirror that reflects and draws in what unfolds around it. A sensory introduction to the performance will take place beforehand (at 19.00).

*The performance contains nudity.

Presale: €8, at the door: €10

THU, 27. 11., 11.00–15.00 / The Old Power Station

Isabelle Schad: MASTERCLASS

masterclass for dancers*

In the workshop, Isabelle Schad will draw on somatic principles and choreographic practices that she also develops in her own group performances. Participants will explore the notion of subjectivity within a collective moving body that can function only as a whole.

*The workshop will be held in English.

Free entry.

THU, 27. 11., 14.00–18.00 / Kino Šiška, Komuna

Ruth Gibson & Bruno Martelli: NINO

dance installation*

Nino is a speculative simulation and immersive experience that transforms the anxiety surrounding artificial intelligence into a future of strengthened connection with our bodies, with one another, and with nature.

*The event will be held in English.

Free entry.

THU, 27. 11., at 19.00 / Dance Theatre Ljubljana

Petja Golec Horvat: MY OWN PRIVATE*

dance performance*

my own private* weaves the material qualities of the body and visual imagery with a cinematic gaze into a landscape of expanded time, evoking atmospheres and a melancholic rhythm of existential vastness.

*The performance will be held in English.

Presale: €8, at the door: €10
(The ticket includes admission to the performance Equilibrium)

THU, 27. 11., at 20.15 / Dance Theatre Ljubljana, Foyer

Nika Arhar & Jasmina Založnik (eds.): BODIES OF DANCE: Aspects of Dance as Cultural, Political, and Art Work in Yugoslavia and After

book presentation*

In a conversation with the authors, we will present the book Bodies of Dance, created as a result of the collective work of the NDA network. What does the historicisation of 20th-century contemporary dance practices in Slovenia, Serbia, North Macedonia, and Croatia yield?

*The presentation will be held in English.

Free entry.

THU, 27. 11., at 21.00 / Dance Theatre Ljubljana

Bor Prokofjev: EQUILIBRIUM

dance performance

Equilibrium is a carefully composed montage of kinetic distillates, clear movement actions that fascinate Prokofjev in their extremes. There, they become semantically dense materials for reflecting on the human condition and the stories we tell ourselves.

Presale: €8, at the door: €10
(The ticket includes admission to the performance My Own Private*)

FRI, 28. 11., at 10.00 / Kino Šiška, Komuna

Igor Štromajer & Jan Rozman: HISTORICAL EXAMPLES LINKING TECHNOLOGY WITH CHOREOGRAPHIC WORK II

seminar*

Together with a third-generation director and a younger-generation choreographer, dancer, and performer, we will present cases where performative or dance practices intersect with technological tools.

*The event will be held in English.

Free entry.

FRI, 28. 11., at 14.00 / Kino Šiška, Komuna

DANCE AND TECHNOLOGY

seminar*

The seminar will feature presentations and discussions on the solutions developed within the European collaborative project MODINA (Movement, Digital Intelligence and Interactive Audience).

*The event will be held in English.

Free entry.

FRI, 28. 11., at 20.00 / Kino Šiška, Katedrala

Marko Milić & Uroš Krčadinac: GAITLESS

participatory performance*

How can we outsmart technological surveillance of our movements? How can we evade technological control focused solely on human kinetics? Gaitless (2025) is a choreographic exploration of a peculiar kind of outlaw labour.

*The performance will be held in English.

Free entry.