Due to public health restrictions, the international festival of contemporary dance CoFestival featuring the curated theme of “The Amplifiers of Voices” will take place in two parts. From 20 to 25 November 2020, a series of events will take place online, with the live festival postponed to April 2021.
Although dance is usually associated with silent body movement, contemporary dance has never been a silenced subject in its outstanding examples. It always had its own specific voice. In a situation where, as a result of a pandemic, politics has turned into a choreographer, as it increased distance between bodies, prevented touch and created social scores with unprecedented somatic scenarios, we decided to set the dance »on high volume« at CoFestival. Ear-splitting loud. Now that we all learned how to embody a piece of freedom in disciplined choreographies along the city streets, as if we would be realising pleasure in inventive dance scores, perhaps the conditions may be met to help us understand who or what are the true amplifiers of our voices.
This edition of the festival is again co-produced by Cultural Centre Kino Šiška and Nomad Dance Academy Slovenija.
Co-curators: Irena Tomažin (guest co-curator), Dragana Alfirević, Mitja Bravhar, Rok Vevar, Jasmina Založnik.
Scroll down for the detailed schedule.
It’s published on the festival’s website and Facebook and Instagram profiles as well.
FRI, 20. 11.
➤ Educational programme Atelier of the European Dancehouse Network
from 10 am till 3.30 pm
Irena Tomažin Zagoričnik, Rok Vevar in Jasmina Založnik: The Amplifiers of Voices
Registration required in advance (10 eur): https://bit.ly/EDNatelier_registracija
SAT, 21. 11.
➤ Educational programme Atelier of the European Dancehouse Network
from 10 am till 2 pm
Irena Tomažin Zagoričnik, Rok Vevar in Jasmina Založnik: The Amplifiers of Voices
Registration required in advance (10 eur): https://bit.ly/EDNatelier_registracija
➤ A Gathering of Ghosts: meeting moderated by Ingrid Vranken
at 1.30 pm
Online meeting via Zoom (in English).
The event is free of charge.
➤ Re-Membering the Self: workshop by Anna Nowicka
at 3 pm
Online workshop via Zoom (in English).
The event is free of charge.
➤ Online concert: Ivo Dimchev
at 9 pm
Tickets for live stream via Dice app: 3 €
SUN, 22. 11.
➤ Temporary Creative Platform: Homo Saltans
at 6 pm
Online multimedia presentation via Zoom (in English).
The event is free of charge.
➤ Temporary Creative Platform: Someone’s Going to Take the Ball Out of the Hands of a Man Who Plays Terribly…
at 7.30 pm
Photo video collection via Zoom (in English).
The event is free of charge.
➤ Valeska Gert’s films and talk with Jule Flierl
at 9 pm
Online screening of selected films (with English subtitles) and a talk (in English)
Ticketsfor live stream via Dice app: 2 €
MON, 23. 11.
➤ Nataša Živković: Dance and Wellbeing
at 6 pm
Online dance training via Zoom (in English).
The event is free of charge.
➤ Interview: Rok Vevar and Vala Foltyn
at 8 pm
Online interview via YouTube (in English)
The event is free of charge
➤ Ruedi Gerber: Breath Made Visible: Anna Halprin
at 9 pm
Documentary film
Tickets for live stream via Dice app: 2 €
TUE, 24. 11.
➤ WILHELM GROENER: 33 SKETCHES_performing@archive
at 3 pm
Online performance, presentation of the Mime Centre, the International Theatre Institute (ITI) in Berlin via YouTube and a talk with the creators via Zoom (in English)
The event is free of charge.
➤ Rok Vevar: Dancer’s Voice
at 9 pm
Lecture via Zoom (in English)
The event is free of charge.
WED, 25. 11.
➤ Online concert: Sainkho Namtchylak
at 9 pm
Tickets for live stream via Dice app: 6 €
More info at www.cofestival.si
COFESTIVAL 2020 PROGRAMME (April 9-13, 2021)
The programme of CoFestival 2020, which will be carried out in April 2021, is composed of parts of the hybrid field between voice and contemporary choreography, which is traditionally linked to the experiments of the art movements of historical avant-gardes, such as the Dadaists (The Art of Noise, Kurt Schwitters), and the dance experiments of German dance artist Valeska Gert, American post-modern choreographers (Yvonne Rainer, Meredith Monk, Kenneth King) and Austrian Actionists (Valie Export). At the same time, in recent decades, the theory of the voice has developed in Slovenia within the framework of the Ljubljana Lacan school. Mladen Dolar’s book “A Voice and Nothing More” (“O glasu”, 2003) did not receive a resounding response just in Slovenia, but internationally as well. The voice in our programme is not just a bodily extension, but also a material part of the human body, its kinetics, its elementary, metaphoric, metonymic and metaphysic category, a material precondition for communication and subjectivity, and the manifestation of evidence of the Other. We invited Irena Z. Tomažin, an internationally acclaimed dancer and choreo-vocalist, to the CoFestival co-curatorial team, together composing a programme featuring some of the most esteemed names in this specific choreographic-vocal field.
The April part of CoFestival will feature: legendary Swedish Cullberg Ballet with the performance “Listeners” by choreographer and vocalist Alma Soderberg, Slovenian dancer and singer Žigan Krajnčan, the British duo of Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion with the performances “Speaking Dance”, “Rewriting” and “The Solo Piece”, and German dancer, performer and choreographer Jule Flierl with the solo “I Intend to Sing”. The Berlin Maulwerke collective will present a selection of its choreo-vocal compositions, and Finnish artist Elina Pirinen will present the group choreography “Ocean Haze”.
