The Temporary Slovene Dance Archives

Recently we have renovated The Temporary Slovene Dance Archives in the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova Ljubljana. The new storage spaces with some additional technical equipment are the new improvements in the TSDA. This side is from today on reactivated. 👊👋💪 Nomad Dance Academy Slovenia in collaboration with MG+MSUM. Thanks for following. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Rok Vevar: Ksenija, Xenia: Londonska plesna leta Ksenije Hribar, 1960-1978 (2020, maska v sozaložništvu z JSKD in Nomad Dance Academy Slovenija). 👀👀👀

Rok Vevar, avtor knjige o londonskih letih Ksenije Hribar Knjiga Ksenija, Xenia: Londonska plesna leta Ksenije Hribar, 1960–1978 je kulturna zgodovina sodobnega plesa, ki rekonstruira britansko sodobnoplesno zgodbo,...

DANES ZADNJIKRAT: ADAGIO (1983). On the 10th of December 1983 the group of four young dancers called Danes Zadnjikrat (Sinja Ožbolt, Mare Mlačnik, Breda Sivec and Brane Završan) performed Adagio, choreographed by Ksenija Hribar (music: Schubert), in Cankarjev dom in Ljubljana. I think this may have been the only occasion of the founding members of (what would later become) Dance Theatre Ljubljana performing together. Photos: Božidar Dolenc.

Some materials from Ljubljana dance Days 1976 and Dance Days Festival 1980s and 1990s.

Yesterday unstoppable Anna Halprin, American dancer and choreographer, celebrated her 100th birthday! Here's a documentary on her titled A Breath Made Visible (2009). Happy birthday!

Anna Halprin Documentary (2009)

INTERNATIONAL DANCE DAY. Today is International Day of Dance. I still can’t get my thoughts around how I ended up working in this field. It still sometimes feels like a hang-over question when waking up after a night of drinking you cannot remember nor stop asking yourself what really happened. Nevertheless it was a decision I respect although it feels like something else has decided for me at some point. And I don't regret it. I’d never been really talented for sports nor I’d been practicing gymnastics or ballet in my childhood and later switched to dance. (I’m anyhow a dance historian, curator and activist; the one who usually writes about dance or is involved in advocating for it.) I’d been an occasional party animal: a relatively good party dancer, so I’m told. What I learned through the years is how to be a competent spectator. In this regard I think I'm doing relatively well. Being curious enough. Working in the field I was lucky enough to meet some incredible people and made my best friends = my different co-workers. They come from Ljubljana, some other Slovenian towns, the Balkans, EU and wider. The are mostly dancers, choreographers, dance writers, editors, curators, activists and advocates. I think they were mostly all – like me – at some point addressed by the call of a Thing itself. They all decided to continue with dance knowing they won’t earn any substantial money in their lives. Nobody works in the field for any real career advancing but mostly out of pure passion and love for the Thing. Therefore they are prepared to submit themselves to the life-long cultural struggle to be able to earn for their dinner. - In the field of contemporary dance there’s one thing making or watching people moving well but another making sense of it all: sensing, seeing, understanding, thinking, anticipating, speculating, planning or projecting. ETC. There’s a whole range of dance practices or aspects of them that make this Thing an art. And there’s a fundamental difference between sports and the art of dance although many people (also most of decision makers) cannot tell the difference. It’s nothing mysterious. - There’s a dance one watches and a dance one dances and they can be both very valuable. And in some cases they collaborate well. One Slovene philosopher once said to me, when we were discussing a Slovene contemporary dance hype of the 1980s: »We were fond of watching dance and writing about it not because we wanted to theorize dance specifically but because it mediated for us a field to be able to think and develop some other theoretical concepts.« It’s all good. It’s what dance can do. - I’m posting here two photos. The first one is Yves Klein’s Leap Into A Void (1960) that represents my decision to work in the field of dance, the second is Trisha Brown’s Man Walking Down The Side of The Building (1970) that exposes – in relation to the first one - a situation in which a leap has to be suspended in order to see it, think about it, study it, understand it and feel the weight of the fall. It does not only open a question what dance is but also how it works, what it does and what are its consequences. To all my dance camarades, happy International Dance Day.

"Mali pojmovnik sodobnih umetnosti" smo razvili zaposleni pri projektu "S(v)odobnost - svojo potencial razvij skozi sodobno umetnost (in ga bomo tudi kot samozaposleni še naprej razvijali). Ministrstvo za javno upravo RS je leto in štiri mesece (oktober 2019 - december 2019) za nas zagotavljalo plače, ki smo jih pridobili na javnem razpisu. Tako smo smo lahko izvajali programe na področju kulturno-umetnostne vzgoje. Gesla smo tako pripravili Nevena Aleksovski, Tea Hvala, Miha Kelemina, Sebastian Krawczyk in Rok Vevar. Zaposleni pa smo bili pri naših matičnih organizacijah: SCCA, Zavod za sodobno umetnost – Ljubljana, Društvo za promocijo žensk v kulturi – Mesto žensk, Kulturno umetniško društvo Mreža, Društvo ŠKUC, Umetniško društvo Nomad Dance Academy Slovenija.

Mali pojmovnik sodobne umetnosti Pojmovnik vsebuje "enostavno komplicirane" razlage umetnostnozgodovinskih pojmov, na katere so nas opozorili učitelji* zadnjega triletja osnovnih šol in profesorice* srednjih šol na ciklu delavnic Mozaik sodobnih umetnosti, rekoč da pogrešajo pedagoško gradivo, s katerim bi to izrazje približ...

THE SLOVENE TEMPORARY DANCE ARCHIVES: WEB DANCE ARCHEOLOGY IN THE PERIOD OF PANDEMIC #4: TRISHA BROWN - SET AND RESET (1983), Théâtre de Nîmes, 12. 3. 2020. Koreografija je te dni prvič v integralni verziji na voljo na spletu. - Set and Reset je brez dvoma eden od vrhuncev ameriškega sodobnega plesa 20. stoletja in vrhunec tiste sodobnoplesne paradigme, ki temelji na kompozicijskih tehnikah (v Evropi je njegovo kinetično arhitekturo posebej kompleksno razvila Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker s svojimi zasedbami Rosas). Zaradi kompozicijske kompleksnosti, predvsem pa zaradi specifične rabe plesne kinetike, se tega človek preprosto ne more naveličati. Mogoče jo je gledati znova in znova, tako kot poslušati kakšnega Bacha. - Delo spada v koreografski ciklus, ki ga je Trisha Brown poimenovala »nestabilne molekularne strukture«. Preden je določila strukturo, so plesalci dobili pet navodil »uporabljaj instinkt, ne kompliciraj, drži se robov odra, delaj na vidnosti in nevidnosti [gibalnih gradiv in prostora], delaj z razvrstitvijo v vrsto«. Ampak kaj je v tej koreografiji resnično tako fascinantnega, poleg tega, da npr. Trisha Brown z njo zaseda tiste regije prostora, ki so ponavadi pri kakšnih klasičnih koreografijah nezasedene, neuporabljene? Andrew Hewitt v tretjem poglavju svoje knjige Družbena koreografija - Ideologija kot performans v plesu in vsakdanjem gibanju (2005, Maska 2017, prevod Aleksandra Rekar) razdeluje gesto, ki se na prehodu iz 19. v 20. stoletje iz »naravnega« komnikacijskega orodja transponira v register abstrakcije. Na nekem mestu govori o Freudovem pojmu »paraprakse«, ki ga psihoanalitik razvije v knjigi Psihopatologija vsakdanjega življenja (1904) in ki se nanaša na govorne, gibalne in gestične spodrsljaje, v katerih se iz nezavednega nehote prebije kakšen lapsus, ki ga njegov izvajalec ni želel ali mogel predvideti. Hewitt na nekem mestu postavi vprašanje, ali ni resnična potencialnost sodobnega plesa prav v rabi ali afirmaciji paraprakse. Parafraziram. Trisha Brown je izjavila, da so temelji njenega koreografskega dela v »padcu, njegovemu nasprotju in vsemu, kar je mogoče vmes«. Igra s padcem in restabilizacijo telesa ali njegovih posameznih delov pred Trisho Brown (in njenimi koreografskimi kolegi, posebej v primeru kontaktne improvizacije pri Steveu Paxtonu, kjer je padec amortiziran z drugim telesom) nikoli v plesni zgodovini niso bili na tako afrimativeni način vključeni v plesno kinetiko in tako fascinantno zasedena v koreografska dela. Na ogled nam je mojstrska kompozicija padcev, spustov (telesa, rok, nog, torza itn.) in njihovih kinetičnih amortizacij, ki gibanju omogočajo kontinuiteto in v geometričnem smislu pridelujejo vijuge. Čas gibanja ni niti upočasnjen niti pospešen (zato je muskulatura neobremenjena), ampak je merjen s težo telesa ali njegovega posameznega dela. Tudi zato gledalci po ogledih koreografij Trishe Brown v telesu ne čutimo »muskelfibra«, ampak imamo občutek, da smo bili na masaži. Afirmacijo padca pa je mogoče v njenem primeru premisliti tudi drugače: kot temeljni premik iz modernističnega ali klasičnega diskurzivnega reda koreografije, kot afrimacijo nečesa, kar je iz klasične plesne kinetike vselej izključeno, kot emancipacijo telesne prezence, ki ne pripada redu discipliniranega ali disciplinarnega telesa. Set and Reset je delo, v katerem je zelo jasno razvidno, če se malo pošalim, kako je nezadevno v njem strukturirano kot koreografija. - Set and Reset je TBDC v Ljubljani plesala dvakrat: leta 1994 in 2015. V njeni modificirani verziji (Set and Reset/ Reset) pa so jo plesali tudi EKG Group v Španskih borcih.

"Set and Reset" (1983) The Trisha Brown Company performs "Set and Reset" (1983) at Théâtre de Nîmes, 12 March 2020. The dancers are Cecily Campbell, Kimberly…

THE SLOVENE TEMPORARY DANCE ARCHIVES: WEB DANCE ARCHEOLOGY IN THE PERIOD OF PANDEMIC #4: MAKING OF STILL/ HERE (1997). A short documentary on making of a performance called Still/ Here (1994) by American choreographer/ dancer Bill T. Jones. It was premiered 6 years after Jones’ partner Arnie Zane died of AIDS connected illnesses and while the epidemic still continued taking lives in the US. - Still/ Here was created, devised and also performed (along with members of Arnie Zane/ Bill T. Jones Company) by people who were terminally ill. It became infamous when NYC dance critic Arlene Croce wrote an article about it claiming it is an example of a »victim art« that people should ignore as she is going to. It provoked a scandal and very determined reaction of the public that opposed Croce’s claim and found it insulting (I think it is still a good example of how a dance/ art critic is not able to confront a changed reality). Dancer/ choreographer Meg Stuart went to see it, thought it was a very moving piece of art and out of protest against Croce’s article created a magnificent solo # # # For Arlene and Collegues (1995). (Further reading: http://www.damagedgoods.be/ # # #-for-arlene-and-colleagues). - It must have been around that time Bill T. Jones visited Ljubljana (Cankarjev dom) with an evening of three short pieces (one being a reconstruction of Kurt Schwitters Ursonate, if I’m not mistaken). I don’t have a documents from the TSDA at home right now, so I’m not able to check the dates. Jones was extremely lovely and kind person to talk to but European dance craze of the period made American choreographies look a bit academic and dated, so the public wasn’t very enthusiastic as I can remember. Anyway a few years ago I saw two of his more recent pieces in Cankarjev dom and I have to say I was totally taken by them (one of them was even open work). - I think Still/ Here is a seminal piece of choreography dealing with a reality of death and ilness in a very dignifying way.

Bill T. Jones: Still / Here with Bill Moyers Bill talks with dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones’s about race, HIV, and Jones' highly acclaimed dance, "Still/Here."

THE SLOVENE TEMPORARY DANCE ARCHIVES: WEB DANCE ARCHEOLOGY IN THE PERIOD OF EPIDEMIC #4: GLEJ THEATER ARCHIVES. In June this years there’s going to be 50th years since Experimental Theater GLEJ (Ljubljana, Slovenia) opened with its first premier, Handke’s Caspar (with legendary actor Kristjan Muck, directed by Iztok Tory). Experimental Theater GLEJ initiated the 2nd wave of theater experiment after WWII in Ljubljana. After the first experimental theaters (Experimental Theater, Theater AD HOC and The Stage 57) from the 1950s and early 1960s that opened up for different modern drama paradigms and staged the first examples of Slovene poetic plays as well as drama of absurd (Zajc, Strniša etc.), the second wave of experimental theater introduced radical approaches to theater making with the wide range of different theater procedures as well as the new stage physicalities to the counter-cultural stages of Ljubljana. The number of artists (directors, actors, set designers, composers and dramaturges) as well as performances extended and in the early 1970s GLEJ confronted with its first fraction. Some artists separated from GLEJ in order to establish their own communal approach to theater making and founded collective and venue called Theater Pekarna. - In the early 1980s The Slovene State Publisher (Državna založba Slovenije) emptied their warehouse at Gregorčičeva Street 3 and made their spaces available for the young theater makers who took over Experimental Theater GLEJ. The change of generations. Matjaž Zupančič, who had just returned from London where his partner Sinja Ožbolt studied at London Contemporary Dance School, became its artistic director. In Januray 1984 they premiered HARD CORE, based on the text of Goran Gluvić, with young cast of Damjana Černe, Miloš Battelino, Gojimir Lešnjak as well as Mare Mlačnik and Sinja Ožbolt who were both busy making first dance performances with the collective that would a year later become known as Dance Theatre Ljubljana. 4 days ago Glej Theatre made the recording of HARD CORE available for the public. Cheers!

HARD CORE Avtor: Matjaž Zupančič, Goran Gluvić Režija: Matjaž Zupančič Premiera: 1984 Igrajo: Damjana Černe, Miloš Battelino, Gojmir Lešnjak, Sinja Ožbolt, Marko…

Franjo Čibej (1901-1929). Prvi slovenski plesni teoretik.