KEITH HENNESSY
POLITICAL WITCHCRAFT FOR THE NEW ERA
JUNE 2025
As part of his residency in Ljubljana within the framework of the project Choreographic Turn #10, Keith led a week-long laboratory for local artists, from which a new work emerged. Initiated by Dragana Alfirević and created in collaboration with Slovenian artists, the piece Political Witchcraft for the New Era brings together the politics of play and care with the rituals of summer in the context of advocating for the renewal of social relationships − both among humans and beyond the human.
Supported by Movement Research/Global Practice Sharing and the Trust for Mutual Understanding, the Life Long Burning project (Creative Europe), the Ministry of Public Administration, and the Municipality of Ljubljana. In collaboration with Bunker Institute, CK Španski borci/En-knap, and the Spider festival.
URŠKA BOLJKOVAC
DANCE PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTSNOVEMBER 2023
Alongside the exhibition Reflection of the Body, photographer Urška Boljkovac shared her knowledge and experience in the specifics of dance photography in a workshop intended for high school students. Boljkovac is part of the local artistic community, where she documents processes and events through her photographic work and transforms motifs from the field of contemporary performing arts into her own artistic photography.
Supported by the project (Non)Aligned Movements (Creative Europe) and in partnership with CoFestival.
THIAGO GRANATO
THRUGH PERFORMATIVE AND CHOREOGRAPHIC PRACTICES
NOVEMBER 2023
Thiago Granato invited us into an artistic immersion in which individual and collective working situations served as the basis for exploring different logics of composition. Through choreography, we examined the performative capacities of the body to create, penetrate, dissolve, merge, move, and transform various contexts. In the workshop, Granato presented his working methodology and proposed several possibilities for discussing how, today, we can recognize, situate, and sustain a performance practice or choreographic project.
Supported by the Life Long Burning project (Creative Europe). Organized by NDAS.
MÅRTEN SPÅNGBERG
HOW MUCH I DISLAKE ART THAT LOOKS EXPERIMENTAL
MAY 2023
During his a week-long stay in Ljubljana, Mårten Spångberg gave a public lecture titled How Much I Dislike Art That Looks Experimental, presented his book Stories That Tell No Nothing, and mentored young choreographers and writers (Tatiana Kocmur, Anja Mejač, Julija Pečnikar). His residency, co-organized with Maska and Kino Šiška, offered dramaturgical guidance and a critical framework for reflecting on dance and expanded choreographic practices.
Supported by the project (Non)Aligned Movements (Creative Europe), the Ministry of Public Administration, and the Municipality of Ljubljana. Co-produced with Maska and Kino Šiška.
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CÉLINE LARRÈRE
COME TOGETHER, RIGHT NOW, OVER LJUBLJ
APRIL 2023
Long-time NDAS collaborator Céline Larrère visited us in the context of the project Choreographic Turn #7: A Meeting with Deborah, within which she led a three-day workshop titled Come Together, Right Now, Over Ljublj. In the workshop, Céline focused on presenting her practice of improvised solos that create a dance community.
Supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Life Long Burning project (Creative Europe), the Ministry of Public Administration, and the Municipality of Ljubljana.
ADAM KINNER
THE VOICE THAT THE TEXT CANNOT HEAR
NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2022
Visiting multidisciplinary artist Adam Kinner (musician, composer, choreographer, performer, and dancer) led a five-day workshop during his residency and presented a work-in-progress at CoFestival. Adam shared elements of his practice with the group, combining voice and body in a particular way − how can vocal sound production also trigger or stimulate movement production? Certain preparatory exercises (such as voice and breathing warm-ups) were repeated, while others were developed further in order to embody and expand the experiences and practices.
At CoFestival, the artist presented his work-in-progress within the Feminist Pathways of Dance programme. The performance lasted about 30 minutes and was followed by a conversation with the audience. In the presentation, he drew on the workshop process (the material he introduced and developed with the workshop participants), focusing on the voice as a “free” material not necessarily tied to language, words, or meaning.
Supported by the 2022 GPS/Global Practice Sharing program of Movement Research and the Trust for Mutual Understanding. In collaboration with JSKD and CoFestival.
KATRA KODELA
EXPERIENTIAL ANATOMY
OCTOBER 2022
The experiential anatomy workshop was prepared and led by Katra Kodela, a therapist and educator. The workshop was designed for professional dancers who already have experience in somatic work. Kodela structured the workshop around bodily systems so that each day focused on one of the physical systems, which was then translated into movement/dance. In class we sought to deepen our sense of human anatomy and to develop or intensify the ability to dialogue with the “inner universe” (proprioception and interoception). We traveled through learning about and connecting with different types of tissue – bones, muscles, fascia, the nervous system, and organs – each of which has its own “character”, its own level of awareness and expression.
JASEN VASILEV
IMPOSSIBLE ACTIONSNOVEMBER 2021
Impossible Actions is a procedural work for ten performers who, within a precisely measured and structured working period, engage with the procedures (structure, tasks, and dramaturgy) of the dance solo Nutricula in order to realize it individually and collectively. The piece begins in extreme slowness, continues with a series of tasks in which the performers work separately, and then, through spatial convergence and a shift in lighting, unites them in a sequence titled Echo, where—at the open end of the piece—they abandon their separate spaces, agreed-upon tasks, and concepts, coming together in play with each other, with duration, and with the audience. The endings of Impossible Actions have differed across performances: some audience members left the space and later returned, staying until the end. Impossible Actions is a combination of precisely structured and open work, a task both for performers and spectators who strive to find possible solutions to impossible propositions, to carry imagination beyond the known and comfortable, and to provide the “impossible” with tangible alternatives.
Supported by the Life Long Burning project (Creative Europe). Organized by Kino Šiška and NDAS.
DARKO DRAGIČEVIĆ
FAILURE AS PRACTICEOCTOBER AND NOVEMBER 2019
Mistakes, slips, and failures are not only part of artistic practices but also integral to entrepreneurship, science, and, ultimately, life. In the contemporary world, they carry a negative connotation. Failure is the opposite of success, and when capitalism is its choreographer, it must be eliminated. In some cases, however, it can be used as a strategy. In art, failure with its many variations (error, slip, experiment, openness, risk, etc.) appears in different ways. It is an essential part of artistic practice, emerging in the gap between intention and realization. After successfully carrying out the project in Belgrade and Berlin, Darko Dragičević, in collaboration with a representative of the City Guerrilla from Belgrade and local Ljubljana-based creators, developed artistic practices of failure within an artistic laboratory. These were presented as spatial interventions intended to create different, parallel forms of community using means that resist the general valorization of success.
Supported by the Life Long Burning project, Performance Situation Room program line (Creative Europe). Organized by Kino Šiška and NDAS.
LISA CLARK
BODY-MIND CENTERING WORKSHOPOKTOBER 2018
In the period between 2017 and 2021, NDAS collaborated on the production of Snježane Premuš's project Physical Manifestations, co-producing residencies in Budapest and the performance Every now is time, space. In October 2018, we co-organised a Body-Mind Centering workshop taught by Lisa Clark. Clark has been collaborating with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen since the beginning of the development of the movement method and is one of its best pedagogues. The workshop was organized for the participants of Snježana's project as well as the wider public.
Supported by the Life Long Burning project, through the Creative Crossroads Artists programme line (Creative Europe).