Between November 22 and 29, the 13th edition of CoFestival will take place. This year’s festival program will focus on beings of human origin through outstanding contemporary dance works by local and international artists.
FESTIVAL TICKETS (available until Nov 26)
DAILY TICKETS
We named CoFestival 2024 The International Festival of Contemporary Dance, with a phrase by the neo-avant-garde poet Vujica Rešin Tucić: »We are beings of human origin.« It is about the articulation of a difference, a certain ethical and ideological distance, from which the poet distances himself because it turns him into a »visitor« in his own environment. The CoFestival curatorial team felt that Tucić’s lucid reflection was a good starting point to consider our own position in a world that is turning into something we hardly belong to, and at the same time a fertile proposal to reflect on contemporary dance art, which confronts us with worlds beyond the screens of the body, bodies that operate beyond the obvious and require us to consider the »beings« we are turning into when we come into contact with the more than human.
The art of contemporary dance is captivating precisely because it directs our gaze towards bodies that do things beyond the obvious with each other or with themselves. The phenomenon of mimicry, which blends the body into the background, has a particular function in ecology or everyday life, either to hide from view and lessen exposure, or to chase the curious gaze away by means of »attack,« optically overloading them. In contemporary dance, it becomes something else: it removes the optical surface or has a tactical effect that allows one to look beyond it. This is the typical task associated with the role of a spectator. If we perform it successfully, we begin to perceive the body with our senses, which must be included in the reflections if the bodily meanings in front of our eyes are to have any effect. This is how »beings of human origin« emerge in our gaze, exhibiting an expanded perception that distinguishes them from the purely operational and functional aspects of everyday life.
This edition of CoFestival once again invites us to such a kind of spectatorial engagement. Some of the curatorial interests that we have already embraced in previous editions of the festival will be complemented by new works. Choreographic works that address the inability to form language include choreographies by Sylvain Huc Sujets (2018) and Sanja Nešković Peršin The Moment Before (2024), as well as Tomaž Grom’s experimental film Don’t Think It Will Ever Pass (2023) and Jefta van Dinther’s extraordinary choreo-vocal work Unearth (2022). Sonja Pregrad’s O (2024) and Jan Rozman’s (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ screamage (2023) are developed from the concept of »object oriented ontology« and the interest in matter beyond the anthropomorphic, an aesthetic shift that contemporary dance has recently been dealing with in more detail and which the CoFestival curatorial team is very interested in due to its (eco)choreographic potential. The documentary choreographic works Necropolis (2019) by Arkadi Zaides and .G Rito (2023) by Piny take the spectatorial act to an extreme experience with a kind of contemporary version of ritual forms of the stage arts, as does Michael Turinsky, who pushes us to the limits of the relationship between body, movement and environment in Precarious Moves.
Additionally, three projects developed by artists in collaboration with engineers and technologists within the European project MODINA (of which Kino Šiška is a partner) will be presented. These projects address the relationship between choreography and artificial intelligence. Jorge Guevara and Naoto Hieda created SFDCANBAC++, Simona Deaconescu and Grigore Burloiu created Collective Cadence and Chris Ziegler and Christine Bonansea created Yugen. The programme will be accompanied by a seminar session that will historically and methodologically frame the use of technology in the field of contemporary dance.
Pre-festival events include the première of Mateja Bučar’s Hurry-Scurry, Stay in Line, which our esteemed collaborator will be presenting with a local contemporary dance cast at the Cukrarna Gallery, and the opening of the exhibition Dancing, Resisting, (Un)Working – Aspects of Dance as a Cultural, Political, and Art Work in Yugoslavia and After, which the regional contemporary dance network Nomad Dance Academy is opening at the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb as part of the European project (Non)Aligned Movements, and Open Studio, which we are making available for contemporary dance work to our local artistic community during the festival to illustrate the pressing issue of lacking dedicated premises. Furthermore, Jasmina Založnik and Alexandra Baybutt will present their most recent publications on dance and performative art practices in the context of socialist Yugoslavia and beyond.
On behalf of the creators of CoFestival, we extend our best wishes for your enjoyment and hope that you have a wonderful experience during our 13th festival programme.
Friday, 22 November at 8:00 p.m. / Kino Šiška, Katedrala
Sylvain Huc: Sujets
dance performance, festival opening
There is no simpler and more complex question in the dance art than what is a body and when does a body become someone. In this way, Sylvain Huc has created a remarkable choreographic study of people.
Presale: 8 €, at the door: 10 €.
Kino Šiška, lower foyer, after 9.30 p.m.
Sahara Transport Services
DJ party
Free entry
Saturday, 23 November at 8:00 p.m. / The Old Power Station
Michael Turinsky: Precarious Moves
solo dance performance
In his 2021 solo, Michael Turinsky explores the relationship between gesture and its milieu in order to redefine the phenomenology of the body as part of a culture of disability, beyond normativity.
Presale: 8 €, at the door: 10 €.
Sunday, 24 November in intervals from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. / Tabor Sports Hall
Jefta van Dinther: Unearth
dance performance
Jefta Van Dinther’s contemporary choreo-vocalist “missa solemnis” creates a touch of humanity and mutual attunement in the midst of a world gone mad.
Presale: 8 €, at the door: 10 €.
Sunday, 24 November at 8:30 p.m. / Kino Šiška, Katedrala
Arkadi Zaides: Necropolis
performance
A performance about people whom Europe first turns into spectres in order to be able to integrate them into its symbolic universe. Choreographer Arkadi Zaides and his collaborators have created one of the finest examples of documentary contemporary performing arts.
Free entry
Monday, 25 November at 7:00 p.m. / Cirkulacija 2
Sanja Nešković Peršin: The Moment Before
artist intervention
The process of choreographic depersonalization is not new in the local contemporary dance space, but Sanja Nešković Peršin gives it a completely new form, in which we, the spectators, are placed in front of a human Thing, to which we have to assign a name.
Free entry
Monday, 25 November at 8:00 p.m. / The Old Power Station
Sonja Pregrad: O
dance performance
A choreography of expanding materiality O is a new work by Sonja Pregrad, in which the choreographer’s dance work reaches beyond the purely human, into the flora and the (an)organic. One of the forms of the choreographic future.
Presale: 8 €, at the door: 10 €.
Tuesday, 26 November at 8:00 p.m. / Kino Šiška, Katedrala
Jorge Guevara and Naoto Hieda: SFDCANBAC++
performance
The performance Stage for Digital, Contagious, and Networked Bodies and Code++ (SFDCANBAC++) is part of the European collaborative project Modina, which explores the relationships between choreography and the technological potentials of artificial intelligence.
Presale: 8 €, at the door: 10 €.
Wednesday, 27 November at 7:00 p.m. / The Old Power Station
Jan Rozman: (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ screamage
performance
The reality of the relationship between the digital and the corporeal or even the material, which Jan Rozman deals with in his latest group choreographic work, represents one of the most refreshing examples of local contemporary dance in recent years.
Presale: 8 €, at the door: 10 €.
Wednesday, 27 November at 8:30 p.m. / Kino Šiška, Komuna
Simona Deaconescu and Grigore Burloiu: Collective Cadence
performative lecture
The performative lecture Collective Cadence is part of the European collaborative project Modina. It focuses on the role of rhythm in the transmission of collective desires and fears.
Presale: 8 €, at the door: 10 €.
Thursday, 28 November at 7:00 p.m. / Katedrala
Chris Ziegler and Christine Saulut: Yugen
performance
Yugen (Japanese term for mystery and depth) is a pas de deux between a dancer and an avatar in virtual reality, created as part of the European collaborative project Modina.
Presale: 8 €, at the door: 10 €.
Thursday, 28 November at 9:00 p.m. / Kino Šiška, Katedrala
Tomaž Grom: Don’t Think It Will Ever Pass
film screening and discussion
An experimental film shot by Tomaž Grom with simple procedural pledges between the 25th of April 2022 and the 26th of January 2023, dates that are sacred to him, is kineasthetically brutal. An outstanding example of cinematic choreography.
Free entry
Friday, 29 November at 10:00 a.m. / Kino Šiška, Komuna
Rok Vevar and Jurij Krpan: Historical Examples and Curatorial Practices of Integrating Technology with Choreographic Work
lecture
The lecture will address topics related to the European collaborative project Modina, which explores the relationships between choreography and the technological potentials of artificial intelligence.
Free entry
Kino Šiška, Upper Foyer at 3:00 p.m.
Moving Balkans – Contemporary Dance Platform
presentation
Free entry
Friday, 29 November at 4:00 p.m. / Kino Šiška, Komuna
Dance and Technology
seminar
The seminar will include presentations and discussions on solutions developed in the European collaborative project Modina.
Free entry
Friday, 29 November at 8:00 p.m. / The Old Power Station
Piny: .G Rito
dance performance and discussion
The consecration of the woman’s spring, created by Portuguese choreographer Piny, is a celebration of different femininities, an open space in which all pasts can fit, if we imagine the future thoroughly enough. An event of true joy.
Presale: 8 €, at the door: 10 €.
Organised by: Kino Šiška and NDA Slovenia.
In collaboration with Bunker Institute, Sports Association Tabor and Association Cirkulacija 2.
