Kretanja movements

32 | 19ČASOPIS ZA PLESNU UMJETNOST 8 DANCE MAGAZINE 8

movementsKretanja

KRETANJA 32 | 19

M veMents

KRETANJA Andile Vellem, Images courtesy of NM type

3MOVEMENTS 32 | 19

Jasmina Založnik04 Uvježbanje zajedništva 06 Rehearsing Togetherness

Ana Fazekaš08 Jedna za sve i sve za/jedno: bilješke o feminizmu u suvremenim plesnim kolektivnim praksama 14 One for All and All for One, Together: Notes on Feminism in Contemporary Collective Dance Practices

Zrinka Užbinec31 To prekrasno čudovište suradnje36 Beautiful monster of collaboration

Nina Gojić40 Kolektivno tjelovanje: o samoorganiziranim inicijativama i borbama zagrebačke plesne scene; razgovor sa Selmom Banich, Anom Kreitmeyer, Silvijom Marchig i Sonjom Pregrad48 Collective Bodying: Of Self-

organised Initiatives and Struggles of Zagreb’s Dance Scene, interview with Selma Banich, Ana Kreitmeyer, Silvia Marchig and Sonja Pregrad

Tara Ivanišević54 Kroz Kik Melone; O zajedništvu62 Through Kik Melone; On Collectivity

Iva Nerina Sibila68 Dan kada su potomci susreli divove,

razgovor s Natašom Antulov i Helvecijom Tomić

72 The Day the Successors Met the Giants, interview with

Nataša Antulov and Helvecia Tomić

Najbolja / The Best76 Hitra evolucija materijala: o njezinim zajedničkim interesima, novim valovima, krajnjim vremenima i uzajamnoj ljubavi84 Rapid Material Evolution: On Her Common Interests, New Waves, End Times & Mutual Love

Nada Dogan91 Dizajn i ples: tipografija Movement kao rezultat interdisciplinarne suradnje92 Design & Dance: The Movemet Type as the Result of Interdisciplinary Collaboration

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ContentsaDrZajIva Nerina Sibila04 Uvodnik 06 Editorial

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UvODnIK:

Bez imalo pretenzija da krećemo prema teoriji suradničkog, ali u potpunosti poravnane s potrebom dublje analize

suradničkih procesa koji su aktivni na suvremenoj hrvatskoj plesnoj sceni neprekidno je (su)rekonfigurirajući, Kretanja 32 posvetile smo kolektivnim praksama. I to onim suautorskim, suizvedbenim, suorganizacijskim, sugledateljskim procesima, koji svjesno i aktivno rade unutar područja označenog svojim prefiksom „su“.

Nesumnjivo, svaki proces rada u plesu uvjetovan je kvali-tetom odnosa unutar grupe koja ga stvara, a ti odnosi temelje se na zajedničkom interesu, povjerenju, odgovornosti i pre-danosti radu, spremnosti na stres i sumnju, kao i na (privre-menu) identifikaciju s projektom koji se stvara. No, unutar ovog temata tražile smo one primjere koji pitanje suradnič-kog (zajedničkog ili kolektivnog) radikaliziraju stavljajući ih u središte interesa i time inovirajući na razne načine u njihovo simboličko i logističko značenje.

Razlozi za okupljanje plesnih kolektiva vrlo su različiti, a njihovi načini funkcioniranja također. Uobičajeno je, pri-mjerice, da plesači nakon školovanja ostaju raditi zajedno kao generacija, a produkcijske okolnosti i loši ekonomski uvje-ti okreću plesače sličnog umjetničkog interesa i položaja na sceni prema zajedničkom djelovanju. Jedan od razloga je i potreba određenih umjetnika za specifičnim načinom kre-iranja izvedbe kao zajedničkog dobra.

Kolektivi stoga imaju razne stupnjeve dijeljenja pro-dukcijske i autorske odgovornosti i donošenja odluka, neke izvođačke grupe pod vodstvom jednog autora/ice razvijaju određenu ideju, u drugima se vodstvo i odgovornost roti-raju pa su u stalnom odnosu vođenja-praćenja. Umjetni-ci/ce koji se odlučuju zaranjati u horizontalne kolektivne

KOLEKTIVNE PRAKSE

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suradnje svjesno ulaze u intenzivna osvještavanja vlastitih i zajedničkih stvaralačkih procesa gradeći specifične kompro-mise i nove odnose. Kolektivni, suautorski plesački leksik i modalitet suizvedbenosti postaje tako sustavom interindivi-dualnosti, a svaki kolektiv uspostavlja vlastitu, autonomnu mikropolitiku plesačkog zajedništva.

Temat Kolektivne prakse otvara tekst dramaturginje i kustosice Jasmine Založnik koja kolektivno u plesu proširu-je na one prakse koje publiku iz pozicije konzumenta uvode u područje suautorskog i suizvedbenog. Autorica ovaj pomak smješta u teorijski okvir „performativnog kapitalizma“ u kojem kvalitete empatije i solidarnosti nestaju iz društve-nog opticaja. Tako, inspirativno i snažno imenuje „ples… kao poetsku i senzualnu silu kretanja… kao moguću snagu otpo-ra u procesu ponovnog buđenja zajedništva u društvu...“ U tri primjera s međunarodne scene donosi vrlo različite strategije kojima publika ulazi i participira u odgovornosti za izvedeno.

Plesna kritičarka i teoretičarka Ana Fazekaš u tekstu Jed-na za sve i sve za/jedno: bilješke o feminizmu u suvremenim plesnim kolektivnim praksama fragmentarno slaže različite točke kontakta feminizma i plesa unutar konteksta kolektiv-nih umjetničkih i razmatra tri predstave s recentne hrvatske plesne scene – Dom Sonje Pregrad, Familiju Roberte Milevoj i Sve četiri za jedno. Na rubu dodira i kaosa Ane Kreitmeyer supostavljajući njihove koreografske pristupe dijeljenom ili zajedničkom s feminističkom teorijom. Napominjući kako su „(k)olektivnost, feminizam i ples isprepleteni na načine koje ovdje neće biti moguće razmrsiti“ ovaj tekst ukazuje na iznenađujuće i zbunjujuće odsustvo feminističkog vokabulara unutar plesnih diskusija iako je suvremeni ples duboko uko-rijenjen i u mnogočemu paralelan feminističkom diskursu.

KoLeKtIvne PRAKse

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To prekrasno čudovište suradnje poetsko je teorijski samo-refleksivni tekst plesačice s interesom za koreografiju Zrinke Užbinec, dugogodišnje članice utjecajnog izvedbenog kolek-tiva BADco. Suradničko-plesačko tijelo ona naziva „eksplo-diranim i čudovišnim“, jer „ples postaje kombinatorička igra ruku jednog plesača i nogu drugog, različitih prostornih ori-jentacija koje doprinose ritmu zajedničkog pokreta“.

U iscrpnom razgovoru sa Selmom Banich, Anom Krei-tmeyer, Silvijom Marchig i Sonjom Pregrad, dramaturginja Nina Gojić iscrtava gustu mrežu „samoorganiziranih inici-jativa i borbi zagrebačke plesne scene“. Kolektivno tjelovanje, kako je nazvan razgovor, osim višeglasja istaknutih akterica ovih inicijativa, donosi i izuzetno vrijedanu vremensku crtu događanja od 1990. do 2019., koji će nadolazećim generacija-ma omogućiti snalaženje unutar ove mape.

Tekst vizualne umjetnice Tare Ivanišević svojevrsna je studija slučaja o Kik Melone, skupini ili kolektivu koji nizom inovativno formatiranih izvedbi inzistira na interdiscipli-narnom, radikalno horizontalnom suautorsko-izvedbenom zajedništvu. Specifičnost ovog teksta je u lucidnom razma-tranju pojmova kolektiv - kolektivnost koje autorica nastav-no na nedostatnost definicija na koje nailazi, „uspostavlja i opisuje uz pomoć vlastitog iskustva“. Tako ulazi u anali-zu suradništva Kik Melone s tvrdnjom: „Moguća prisutnost kolektivnosti ne ovisi o tome je li primijećena, imenovana, definirana, shvaćena… drugim riječima, kolektiv je grupa lju-di u kojoj kolektivnost može ili ne mora biti prisutna“.

Druga studija slučaja pisana kao razgovor dramaturgi-nje Nataše Antulov, plesne edukatorice Helvecije Tomić i Ive Nerine Sibile, a predstavlja edukacijski i izvedbeni projekt Peti ansambl u kojem su se u partnersku mrežu spojili Grad Rijeka, HNK Ivana pl. Zajca, Centar za odgoj i obrazovanje

Rijeka i Udruga Down 21. Projekt se bavi osnivanjem izvedbe-nog ansambla mladih ljudi nestandardnih tjelesnih i intelek-tualnih sposobnosti, i jedinstven je primjer snage društvene i osobne promjene koju kolektivni angažman generira.

Temat zatvara tekst Hitra evolucija materijala koji pot-pisuje enigmatski (ne)imenovana Najbolja iza koje sto-ji interdisciplinarni kolektiv, a koji je svojim povremenim pojavljivanjima unutar nezavisne izvedbene scene usposta-vio autentičan i kritički usmjeren model kolektivnog autor-stva. Tekst je, kao i njezine ostale pojave pisan zajedničkim sesijama, stvarajući, posuđujem termin od Zrinke Užbinec, čudovišni i eksplodirani entitet, u kojem nekoliko snažnih autora ulažu vlastiti kreativni kapital, intenzivno pregovara-jući kompromis i stvarajući zajednički rad u kome je svaka osobna akcija kristalizirana odnosom s čitateljima nevidlji-vim, a evidentno prisutnim drugim.

Za kraj ovog teksta kojim otvaramo diskusiju o raznim aspektima „su“ i „ko“ u plesu, a kao podsjetnik na zalog koje suradništvo stavlja pred sve uključene, posudit ću riječi Hannah Arendt:

„Što je više stajališta raznih ljudi prisutno u mojoj gla-vi dok promišljam o datom pitanju, što bolje mogu zamisli-ti kako bih se osjećala i mislila da sam na njihovom mjestu, to će jača biti moja sposobnost razmišljanja kao predstavnice zajednice i valjaniji moji krajnji zaključci, moja mišljenja.“1

Iva Nerina Sibila

1 Hannah Arendt, ‘Truth and Politics’ u Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future, London: Penguin, 2006, str. 241, u Rudi Laermans, Moving Together Theorizing and Making Contemporary Dance, Antennae Valiz, Amsterdam, 2015., str 377. Prijevod citata I. N. Sibila.

KoLeKtIvne PRAKse

Kretanja 32 | 196

IntRoDUCtIon:

Without any pretentions of striving towards the theory of the collaboratory, but nevertheless fully aligned with the

need for further analysis of collaborative processes active on the recent contemporary Croatian dance scene (co-)reconfi-guring it perpetually, we dedicated Movements 32 to collective practices. More accurately, to those co-authored, co-performed, co-organised, co-audience processes which consciously and actively operate inside an area marked by the prefix co-.

Doubtlessly, every working process in dance is determined by the quality of relationships in the group creating it, and these relationships are founded on mutual interest, trust, responsibility and dedication to work, readiness to stress and doubt, as well as (temporary) identification with the project in the making. However, under the aegis of this subject we sought for those examples that radicalise the subject of collaborative (common or collective), placing them in the focus of interest and hence innovating in different ways their symbolic and logistic meaning.

The reasons for gathering dance collectives are very differ-ent, as are the ways in which they function. It is, for instance, customary that dancers after training continue to work togeth-er as a generation, and production circumstances and bad economic conditions direct dancers of similar artistic interests and positions on the scene towards common activity. One of the reasons is also artists’ need for a specific way of creating a performance as a common good.

The collectives therefore have different degrees of sharing production and creative responsibilities and decision-making; some companies run by one author develop a certain idea, others rotate their management and responsibilities in a con-stant exchange of leading and following. Artists who decide to immerse into horizontal collective collaborations consciously embark on an intense road to awareness of their own and col-

COLLECTIVE PRACTICES

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lective creative processes, building specific compromises and new relationships. The collective, co-authorial dance language and modality of co-performance thus become a system of inter-individuality and every collective establishes its own, independent micro-politics of dance community.

The theme Collective Practices opens with a text by drama-turge and curator Jasmina Založnik, who expands the collective in dance to those practices that introduce audience into the field of co-authorship and co-performance. The author places this shift into a theoretical framework of ‘performative capi-talism’, where the qualities of empathy and solidarity vanish from the social circulation. She thus inspiringly and power-fully calls "dance a poetic and sensual power of movement… a possible power of resistance in the process of reawakening togetherness in society…" Through three examples from the international scene she illustrates very different strategies of audience’s inclusion and participation in the responsibility for the performance.

Dance critic and theoretician Ana Fazekaš in her text One for All and All for One, Together: Notes on Feminism in Con-temporary Collective Dance Practices fragmentarily arranges different points of contact between feminism and dance in the context collective artistic practices and analyses three pieces from the recent Croatian dance scene – Home by Son-ja Pregrad, Family by Roberta Milevoj and All Four for One. On the edge of touch and chaos by Ana Kreitmeyer, juxtaposing their choreographic approaches with common or collabora-tory feminist theory. Noting that "Collectivity, feminism and dance are intertwined in ways impossible to untangle here", this text points to a surprising and confusing absence of fem-inist vocabulary in dance discussions, although contemporary dance is deeply rooted in and in many aspects parallel to the feminist discourse.

COLLeCtIve PraCtICes

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The Beautiful Monster of Collaboration is a poetic and theoretical self-reflexive text of a dancer with an interest in choreography Zrinka Užbinec, a long-time member of the influential performance collective BADco. She calls the col-laborative dancing body "explosive and monstrous", because "dance becomes a combination game of one dancer’s arms and another dancer’s legs, of various spatial orientations contrib-uting to the rhythm of a joint movement".

In an extensive interview with Selma Banich, Ana Kreit-meyer, Silvia Marchig and Sonja Pregrad, dramaturge Nina Gojić paints a dense grid of "self-organising initiatives and battles of the Zagreb dance scene". Collective Bodying, as the interview is named, apart from a polyphony of voices of the prominent drivers of these initiatives, features an extremely valuable timeline of events between 1990 and 2019, which will serve the upcoming generations in navigating across this map.

Visual artist Tara Ivanišević’s text is a sort of study of Kik Melone, a company or a collective whose series of innova-tively formatted performances insisted on interdisciplinary, radically horizontal co-author-performance collectivity. The specific value of this text lies in its lucid examination of the notion of collective/collectivity, which the author, referring to the lack of definitions she encounters, "establishes and describes based on her own experience". She embarks on an analysis of Kik Melone’s collaboration with a claim: "A possible presence of collectivity does not depend on whether it is being noticed, named, defined, understood, paid attention to... In other words, a collective is a group of people where collectivity may or may not be present".

Another case study was written as an interview between dramaturge Nataša Antulov, dance educator Helvecia Tomić and Iva Nerina Sibila, and it introduces the educational and performance project The Fifth Ensemble, connecting the City of Rijeka, Ivan Zajc Croatian National Theatre, Centre for Edu-

cation Rijeka and Down 21 Association. The project focuses on the establishment of a performance company of young people of non-standard physical and intellectual capabilities and is a unique example of the power of social and personal change generated by collective engagement.

The theme issue closes with Rapid Material Evolution, signed by the mysteriously unnamed The Best, behind which is an interdisciplinary collective whose occasional appearances on the independent dance scene has established an authentic and critically oriented model of collective authorship. The text, as well as her other appearances, was written in joint sessions, creating – to borrow Zrinka Užbinec’s term – a monstrous and explosive entity in which several powerful authors invest their creative capital, intensely negotiating on compromise and creating joint work in which every personal action crystallises in relationship with the readers in an invisible and evidently present other.

To wrap up this text which opens a discussion on vari-ous aspects of ‘co’ in dance, and as a reminder of the pledge collaboration urges everyone involved to take, I shall borrow Hannah Arendt’s words: "The more people’s standpoints I have present in my mind while I am pondering a given issue, and the better I can imagine how I would feel and think if I were in their place, the stronger will be my capacity for represent-ative thinking and the more valid my final conclusions, my opinion."1

Iva Nerina Sibila

English translation: Ivana Ostojčić

1 Hannah Arendt, ‘Truth and Politics’ in Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future, London: Penguin, 2006, p. 241, in Rudi Laermans, Mo-ving Together Theorizing and Making Contemporary Dance, Antennae Valiz, Amsterdam, 2015, p. 377.

COLLeCtIve PraCtICes

8 KRETANJA 32 | 19 UVježbAVANje zAjedNIšTVA

Rehearsing togetherness

Uvježbavanje zajedništva

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Snježana Premuš, Tjelesne manifestacije foto: Madster

9MOVEMENTS 32 | 19ReHeARSINg TogeTHeRNeSS

JASMiNA ZAložNiK

01Kada su me upitali kakvo je moje poi-manje supublike u kontekstu plesa i

koreografije, istodobno sam osjetila i simpatije i izazov spram razmišljanja o mogućim novim vidovima već iscrpljenog izraza „publika“. Kada ističem iscrpljenost, govorim o birokratskim aparatima i procesima financiranja kojima se od publike radi najvažnije mjerilo procjene. U tom smislu, čini se kao da se kreativni procesi stvaranja predstave zamjenjuju strategijama privlačenja i zadovoljavanja publike, dok se kreativna vrijednost same umjetnosti razara. U ovom ću članku pokušati razraditi i razviti moguće poimanje supublike izvan granica birokratskih zahtjeva i doživjeti je kao sastavni dio izvedbene situacije, te ga sagledati s poštovanjem. Uglavnom ću se posvetiti prefiksu su-, kojim se u ovoj složenici ukazuje na zajedničko, dijeljeno i/ili razmijenjeno.

No prije toga važno je naglasiti da članovi publike u tra-dicionalnom kontekstu uvijek supostoje u vremenu i prosto-ru izvedbe. Međutim, iako je ono što dobivaju za sve članove publike istovjetno, njihov pojedinačni doživljaj nikada nije isti. Iz tog razloga zajedničko, dijeljeno i/ili razmijenjeno postaje upitno. Osim toga, ono što dobivaju uvijek se bla-go razlikuje zahvaljujući efemernoj prirodi plesa zbog čega zajedničko u zbroju doživljaja izvedbe postaje još upitni-je. Stoga, kako bih razradila te ujedno razvila okvir moguće artikulacije pojma supublike, predlažem da se odmaknemo od jednostavnog shvaćanja publike i istaknemo su-kvalitetu publike u odnosu na izvođače i izvedbenu situaciju. Nada-lje, promislit ćemo o različitim mogućim nedavno razvije-nim okružjima, okvirima i strategijama kojima se nastoji stvoriti zajednička situacija te na taj način uzemlje doživljaj

UVOD—

nepredvidive prirode društvenih odnosa između svih prisut-nih – dakle, o publici kao izvođaču. S tim će ciljem, su- u ovom članku označavati vezu publike i izvođača, a svaki član ove privremene zajednice obilježit će izvođenje drugoga te će svaki biti odgovoran za ishod. Prije nego ukratko opišemo nekoliko inspirativnih primjera koje smatram egzemplarnima za definiranje supublike, važno je oslikati kontekst društve-no-političke situacije koja je natjerala umjetnike da se preu-smjere s plesnog i koreografskog istraživanja na apstraktan pojam zajedništva.

Kao što ističu teoretičari, društveni pomak kroz kapitalističku sklonost apstrakciji predstavlja glad za pri-svajanjem i potlačivanjem, koju vidimo u širenju i usisavanju pri-

vatne sfere koja se nekoć smatrala neproizvodnom te stoga autonomnom. Društveni režim u kojem živimo, upozoravaju teoretičari, počiva na semio ili performativnom kapital(izmu)1. Posljedica okrupnjavanja tržišne sfere2 nestanak je mogućeg eksperimentiranja s „alternativnim stilovima života i zajed-

1 za semiokapitalizam, vidi jean baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange and Death (1976) ili, za noviji prikaz, Franco berardi bifo: Cognitarians and Semiocapital, Maska, Ljubljana, 2016. za performativni kapitalizam, vidi boyan Manchev, „The Struggle for disorganisation. Notes on the onto-logy of Actuality“ u: elena besteru, emanuel guidi i elisa Ricci (ur.): Re-hearsing Collectivity. Choreography Beyond Dance, str. 23-29.2 Manchev, oslanjajući se na jeremyja Rifkina slično kao bifo, kontek-stualizira prijelaz tržišne racionalnosti na stvari koje su se prije smatrale zajedničkima i društvenima.

KOREOGRAFSKI IZAZOVI U DOBA

PERFORMATIVNOG KAPITALIZMA

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Jasmina Založnik

Uvježbavanje zajedništva


ničkog bivanja“3. Ovo znači da načini zajedništva kao osnova društvenog koje je rezultat mreže društvenih odnosa (u pri-vatnosti) postaju sve standardiziraniji i tipičniji, „svodeći subjekt na funkcionalni instrument“4 koji se kontrolira i isko-rištava. Polagana transformacija kapitalizma u spomenutom smjeru primijećena je već početkom sedamdesetih s pojavom različitih novih društvenih protokola koji su stigli ukorak s prekarizacijom rada, širenjem potrošnje antidepresiva, u kom-binaciji s, najčešće ilegalnim, „podizačima raspoloženja“, vir-tualizacijom komunikacije posredstvom novih tehnologija i slično. Što su subjektivnosti instrumentaliziranije, to je druš-tvo imunije, nesposobnije za empatiju i stoga nesolidarnije.

Ne iznenađuje stoga što su se razni glasovi podigli u želji da se razmotre mogući smjerovi i spoje snage kako bi iznova probudili zajedništvo kao osnovu novog društva, uključujući teoretičare i praktičare plesa. Ono što je zajedničko brojnim napisima i praksama je trud da se iznađu eksperimentalniji i „humaniji“ oblici življenja, resenzibiliacija i stvaranje empa-tičnijih veza među živim bićima koji bi poveli prema (novoj) etici izgrađenoj na temelju svačije odgovornosti. Na tra-gu pisanja Michela Foucaulta, mogli bismo reći da je „prak-sa slobode“ kao politike sebstva i politike brige više no ikada potreba koju treba otjeloviti5. U tom smislu praksa slobo-de po njegovom je mišljenju emancipacijski čin, u kojem se emancipacija temelji na pretpostavci jednakosti te se smatra horizontalnom logikom. Zahvaljujući takvim zapažanjima i priznanjima, došlo je vrijeme da razmislimo o smjerovima i silama emancipacije koje karakteriziraju senzibilizacija i empatija u plesu i koreografiji. U tu svrhu važno je definirati specifičnosti plesa i razloge zbog kojih se upravo ples može postaviti kao djelatni faktor u ovom procesu.

Američki teoretičar plesa Randy Martin definira ples kao „umjetničku praksu u kojoj se vrijeme i prostor izravno generiraju tijekom izvedbe, a ne jednostavno kao aktivnost koja prolazi kroz već zadan prostorno-vremenski medij.“6 Prema njemu, „ples se ostvaruje susretom akcije i refleksi-je tako da suovisnost i suprisutnost oba izraza čini očitim na najbolji mogući način.“7 Osim toga, ples koji se bavi tije-

3 Vidi boyan Manchev, „The Struggle for disorganisation. Notes on the ontology of Actuality,“ U elena besteru, emanuel guidi i elisa Ricci: Rehearsing Collectivity. Choreography Beyond Dance., str. 23.4 Isto, str. 23.5 za detaljnije objašnjenje vidi: Michel Foucault. “The ethics of the Concern of the Self as a Practice of Freedom,” u Paul Rabinow i Robert Hurley (ur.), Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, New York: The New Press, 1997., 281-301.6 Randy Martin, „dance and Its others. Theory, State, Nation and So-cialism.“ U: Lepecki A. (ur.): Of the Presence of the Body: Essays n Dan-ce and Performance Theory, Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2004., nepotpisano.7 Isto.

lom kao glavnim alatom i građom „razotkriva se kao opća sila, kao kapacitet različitih tijela […] koja mogu dubinski uzdr-mati naše poimanje organizacije, percepcije i diseminacije pokreta.“8 Kao poetska i senzualna sila kretanja, ples ili, još bolje, njegovi tvorci, koreografi i plesači, najbolje opremlje-ni (skrivenim, ako ne i zaboravljenim) znanjem o somatici tijela, i kao moguća snaga otpora u procesu ponovnog buđe-nja zajedništva u društvu, trebali bi upregnuti svoju inven-tivnu snagu prema strategijama i oblicima kojima se možemo resenzibilizirati.

Koreografi koji se žele odmaknuti od instrumentalizira-nog, imuniziranog, koordiniranog i usklađenog zajedničkog ponašanja traže uvjete u kojima će biti mogući novi oblici odnosa. Koreografi i stručnjaci za ples traže, eksperimentira-ju i stvaraju formate i forme u kojima tijela doživljavaju, uče itd., te možda čak i utjelovljuju empatiju i solidarnost koji nedostaju. Takvi se pokušaji mogu shvatiti i kao potraga za „metodama kolektivne individualizacije (daleko od monad-sko-pravnog oblika osobe).“9

Privremena, uvijek promjenjiva skupina ljudi koji se sastaju povodom izvedbe služi kao laboratorij u kojem se ispituju metode kolektivne individualizacije. Predlažem da razmotrimo ovu vrstu situacija kao idealnu podlogu za supu-bliku u smislu sudjelatnika u ishodu izvedbe. Kako bih se izrazila živopisnije i uvjerljivije, u kraćim ću crtama opisati tri konkretna primjera izvedbi koje sam doživjela kao razne obli-ke resenzibilizacije, a koji uključuju zajedničku odgovornost.

Nadalje, ovi će mi primjeri pomoći da istaknem njihove zajedničke osobine te smjer u kojem bismo mogli dalje raz-matrati načela učinkovitog sustvaranja zajedništva i/kao obli-ka društva.

Prvi je primjer iz mog lokalnog kontek-sta. Slovenska koreografkinja Snježana Premuš, čija se koreografska praksa

temelji na praksi i metodi centriranja tijela i uma (BMC – body mind centring), predano i neprekidno radi prema načelima BMC-a kao temeljima za kolektivan doživljaj supublike u svo-jim koreografskim uradcima. Njezino je istraživanje započelo 2012. godine uvodom u njezin rad Tjelesne manifestacije. Tije-kom tri godine predstavila je niz postupaka iz dvorane koje je kao koreografkinja vodila s plesačima, ali i s publikom različitih profila, zanimanja i disciplina, s ciljem „zajedničkog utvrđi-vanja kako je fizičko stvaranje percepcije slika ekspresivno,

8 bojana Kunst, “Some Thoughts on the Labour of a dancer“, u: da-njel Andersson, Mette edvarsdsen i Mirten Spingberg (ur.), Post-Dance, MdT, Stockholm, 2017., 133-134.9 Lepecki Andre. Singularities. Dance in the Age of Performance. Ro-utledge, London, New York, 2016., 15.

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što proizvodi, kako se čita i što možda ostaje oku nevidljivo.“10 Na temelju zbirke svojih zapažanja autorica je kreirala Poíesis sebstva (2016.) s povjesničarom i teoretičarom plesa Rokom Vevarom. „Fluidna instalacija osjetljivih tijela u pokretu u prostoru,“ Poíesis sebstva može se tumačiti jedino kao nastavak njezinog istraživanja tjelesnosti kao dinamičkog razmišljanja i inteligentne strukture, koji se razvijaju promjenama i foku-sima između unutarnjeg i vanjskog prostora. Prizori se fluidno pretapaju iz jednog u drugi dok se publika usmjerava prema raznim praksama slušanja, hodanja, kretanja zatvorenih očiju itd. Najjednostavnije rečeno, Poíesis sebstva razvija tjelesni subjekt kao transformativan, čija se percepcija i osjetilnost mogu mijenjati i razvijati praksom, kao što nam pokazuje govor Roka Vevara. Možemo reći da se nudi vrlo općenit prijedlog tjelesne percepcije, koji se razvija tijekom izvedbe zajedno s publikom, kao situacija i doživljajni pogon, sa željom da razot-krije neke nove slojeve shvaćanja kompleksnosti tijela, njegove odnosnosti i reaktivnosti na različita pitanja, osjete, tjelesne prisutnosti.11

Nakon Poíesisa sebstva Snježana je nastavila istraživa-nje, potragu za alatima i sustavima gdje bi trebalo čak i manje usmjeravanja kako bi se postigao sličan, a opet otvoreniji efekt jedinstvenosti i nepredvidivih doživljaja. Snježana Pre-muš ovu je fazu svog rada nazvala Tjelesne manifestacije II (2017.-2020.).

Sa skupinom izvođača (Dragana Alfirević, Tina Valen-tan, Dejan Srhoj) i dizajnerom zvuka Boštjanom Perovšekom autorica je pretvorila Staru gradsku elektranu u laborato-rij. U obliku serije plesači su isprobavali različite zadatke te ih otvarali prema manjoj odabranoj publici kako bi ih testi-rali angažmanom i doživljajem. Doživljaji su okupljeni u obliku rasprave koja je popratila proces, odrazila se i integri-rala u sljedećoj fazi. Poslije dvogodišnjeg procesa i proširenja suradnje s Anjom Bornšek, Gregorom Zecom i Špelom Škulj, iznašao se format i oblik „izvedbene situacije“ Svako sada je vrijeme, prostor, premijerno izveden 30. rujna.

Svako sada je vrijeme, prostor temelji se na točno određe-noj organizaciji prostora, nenametljivo podijeljenog u manje prostorne cjeline obilježene različitim zvučnim pozadinama (koje je dizajnirao Boštjan Perovšek) i okruženja, označene na karti koja se dijelila publici kao jasna uputa prije počet-ka predstave. Izvedbena situacija osmišljena je kao otvore-na struktura koja čeka da je naseli publika te performativno ponašanje i interakcije izvođača. Oni pozivaju publiku da

10 Rok Vevar, „The Poiesis of Self,“ promotivni tekst. engleska verzija dostupna na: https://www.cd-cc.si/en/culture/theatre-and-dance/poi-esis-self (posljednji posjet: 10.10.2019.)11 Nika Arhar, „V preiskovanju izkušnje in govorice telesa,“ dostupno na: https://www.rtvslo.si/kultura/oder/v-preiskovanju-izkusnje-in-go-vorice-telesa/407491 (posljednji posjet: 10.10.2019.)

hoda, sjedne, legne, stupi u interakciju i kreće se kako god želi i u bilo kojem smjeru, no ujedno ih u uputama lijepo mole da budu obzirni prema drugima i napuste intimne prostore ili situacije kada se broj ljudi popne na pet. Ukratko, tvorci nam ne postavljaju nikakva ograničenja, već nas pozivaju da sami iskušamo i doživimo te prostore postavljanjem i istraživa-njem mogućih položaja, pogleda, percepcija, osjeta koje nude.

Predstava Svako sada je vrijeme, prostor nastala je na raz-među laboratorijske forme i plesne instalacije. Plesna kritičar-ka Maša Radi Buh istaknula je da „misao vodilja ove varijacije prostor je koji se širi preko materijaliziranog prostora u kojem postojimo, te istražuje manje, osobne prostore koji mogu nastaniti veliku dvoranu i supostojati jedan s drugim.“12 Nji-hova povezanost može se shvatiti kao membrana koja diše i propušta, koja se mijenja našom prisutnošću i kroz nju, koja nježno nastanjuje izvođačku ekipu. Dizajneri zvuka i svjetla izvode svoje vještine mijenjanja i rekreiranja prostora proma-tranjem ponašanja publike i reagiranjem na aktualnu situaciju. U gornjem dijelu gledališta u oba se ugla nalaze mape s ispi-sanim papirima. Misli, isječci, citati iz raznih zapisa: filozofi-ja, književna teorija, poezija, plesna praksa (BMC) itd. Njihov superioran položaj i govornici pozivaju nas da sjednemo, pro-čitamo i (povremeno) šapćemo, što vidimo i na početku izved-be dok se dvoje izvođača dugo mota po tom prostoru. Njihov glas je tih, polagan i topao. Odašilju poruke u prostor, poziva-ju druge da ih slijede i zamijene. Međutim, govor iz mikrofo-na nije prisutan u prostoru, već ga djelomično stvara zvučnik spojen s mikrofonom. Šapat glasa stvara blag prostor, u koji u ovoj početnoj situaciji oštro upada glasan glas. Budući da su svi suodgovorni, ako govornika doživimo kao nekoga tko prekida atmosferu, uvijek se možemo primaknuti mikrofonu i zami-jeniti govornika ili se premjestiti u neki drugi dio prostorije.

Iako s bilo kojeg položaja u gledalištu uloga izvođača može postati uloga promatrača, mikrofonom nas se jasno poistovje-ćuje s redateljem. Govorenje, režiranje, komentiranje. Poanta je, stoga, još opipljivija i član publike može je lako zlorabiti.

U većini se slučajeva „suočeni s pomalo neodređenom situacijom, naši početni pokreti odlikuju određenom rezer-viranošću, no umjetnici tome nikada ne pristupaju nasilno; hodajući prostorom, oni suptilno opuštaju atmosferu.“13 Pro-stori koje tvore naša tijela u pokretu „mijenjaju se podjedna-ko u odnosu na položaj fizičkog prostora, kao i u odnosu na dinamiku i druge osobine samog kretanja. Nalikuju živom jednostaničnom organizmu koji nikada nije statičan i kona-čan, već je u stalnom tijeku, mijenja se i prilagođava.“14 Kao i

12 Maša Radi buh, “To be Togetheralone“, u: Maska, Performing Arts Journal, br. XXXIV, 196-197, 2019., Maska, Ljubljana, 114.13 Isto.14 Isto.


kod prijedloga otvorene demokracije, osoba može biti i činiti što joj odgovara, kako god je uvjetuju drugi i u bilo kojem tre-nutku može se pomaknuti, utišati, pa čak i ukloniti, no takva se situacija nije dogodila nijednom u oba puta kada sam bila prisutna. Ljudi su bili prezauzeti sami sobom, prenježni da bi ograničavali druge, već su se radije sami odmicali.

Nastalu situaciju najbolje bi bilo opisati kao organsku i otvorenu, kao akciju i reakciju, koju oblikuju i preoblikuju sudionici. Jednostavno rečeno, nastala situacija stvorena je kako bi nas upozorila jedne na druge, kako bismo vježbali odgovornost. Ispituje kako u svijetu neizvjesnosti i nepred-vidivosti zamisliti i provesti etiku susreta s naglaskom na receptivnost i reaktivnost. Rad Snježane i njezine ekipe izvr-stan je primjer kako situacije tako i prakse kojom se propitu-je kako se određene strategije mogu iskoristiti za provedbu i poticanje etičkih pretpostavki receptivnosti i reaktivnosti. Bilo bi preambiciozno reći da se takvim formatom očekuje promjena otjelovljenja, no definitivno se stvaraju temelji za otjelovljenje empatije kao etičke pretpostavke receptivnosti i reaktivnosti. Iz istraživanja sa sudionicima Snježana je nau-čila da što su suptilnije upute i očekivanja, to je veća odgo-vornost sudionika. I da u otvorenom prostoru bez ograničenja i ispravaka uvijek postoji netko tko će zauzeti vrijeme i pro-stor koji ima na raspolaganju za demonstraciju vlastitog ega i odvlačenje pažnje od drugih.

Na osnovama sličnima nedavnoj izvedbenoj situaciji Snježane Premuš djeluje i mađarski interdisciplinarni umjet-nik Dávid Somló, koji se osobito bavi zvukom, prostorom i tijelom. Specifičnost njegova rada je naglasak na performativ-nom doživljaju koji se javlja kod istraživanja odnosa fizičkog, društvenog i osobnog prostora. Somlóa „zanimaju mali, važni trenuci neverbalne ljudske interakcije.“15 Iako se slična nače-la mogu pronaći u nizu njegovih radova, predstavit ću samo jedan, onaj kojem sam sama nazočila. Zvukovna instalacija Mandala, nastala u suradnji s Dánielom Sándorom, nudi više od jedne mogućnosti za izvedbenu situaciju. Može se izvesti u kazalištu ili nekom drugom zatvorenom prostoru, a može se i prilagoditi izvedbi na otvorenom. Mogu ga izvesti dvije skupine koje prelaze iz položaja promatrača u položaj izvo-đača i obrnuto, ili može ostati samo izvedbeni dio. U svakom slučaju, doživljaji sudionika iznose se u moderiranoj raspravi koja slijedi nakon izvedbe. Dávid prati sve situacije, no nika-da ne prekida. U skladu s njegovim koreografskim stavovi-ma, Mandala, poput njegovih prethodnih i kasnijih predstava, primjerice Drift ili Length of a Distance, fokusira se na stva-ranje jednostavnih struktura koje nude gotovo beskonačan broj ishoda. U Mandali autor je kreirao kombinaciju putanja

15 Stranica dávida Somlóa, dostupno na: http://davidsomlo.com/ (po-sljednji posjet: 10.10.2019.)

osnovnih linija kao što su kružnica, trokut, kvadrat, pravokut-nik, te linija u osnovnim bojama (crvena, žuta, bijela, plava, zelena) kako bi ih sudionici lakše raspoznali. Svaki sudio-nik dobiva mali zvučnik, usmjerava ga se prema dodijelje-nom obliku duž čijeg se obrisa kreće kako god želi. Postoje vrlo osnovne upute kako bi ih se okvirno usmjerilo u pro-storu, omogućujući im vlastitu interpretaciju, razmatranje i reakciju. Kao i kod prethodnog primjera, u Mandali sudioni-cima treba vremena da se naviknu na otvoren prostor i rad-nje kako bi prevladali nesigurnost i pronašli tempo koji im odgovara, koji omogućava zvuku da poleti i sunovrati se oko nas, dok njihov hod i interakcije postaju opuštenijima. Mje-hurasti zvuk može prenijeti vlastitu ili tuđu poruku, a hod prožima razmišljanja o svakodnevnoj situaciji, ili čak cjeloži-votnom iskustvu, kao što je spomenuo jedan kolega tijekom rasprave. Svatko radi što želi, krši pravila i napušta zadani put ili čak liježe posred njega… Ponašanja sudionika nisu una-prijed određena i zato je svaka izvedba jedinstvena, počinje i završava čitavim nizom mogućih ishoda, ljudskih osjećaja i doživljaja. Doživljaj izvedbene situacije u velikoj mjeri ovi-si o drugim sudionicima jer se javlja u sklopu akcija i reak-cija među ljudima čiji se putovi ukrštavaju, ali je i sukreiran tuđom prisutnošću i radnjama koje pogoduju kolektivnom doživljaju. Predstava se može opisati kao „radionica društve-nih odnosa“, kako ju je lucidno opisala plesačica i spisateljica Alexandra Baybutt.16

Zaključno, kod Mandale se, kao i kod nekih drugih Somlóvih radova, može reći da je osnovne alate i protokole najbolje upotrijebiti za ispitivanje i prikupljanje društvenih interakcija i ponašanja. Ocrtava se okvir u kojem doživljava-mo različite osobine pokreta, oblike suradnje, pregovore itd. Mandala se može definirati kao otvoreno djelo, u kojem se oprostoruje i ocrtava naša vlastita intimna koreografija u situ-aciji igre ili društvenog razmišljanja o sadašnjoj ili budućoj društvenoj kompoziciji ili društvenoj koreografiji. Ovakva osnova koristan je izvor za daljnje zamišljanje, sustvaranje i razvoj društva, društva u kojem je svatko od nas u ulozi supu-blike, u kojoj ujedno promatramo i izvodimo situaciju kao članovi publike koji se odlučuju priključiti izvedbenoj situa-ciji i sudionici koji postaju reaktivnim sudioncima/izvođači-ma. Praksom će, nadajmo se, postati osjetljiviji i reaktivniji. Samim time i empatičniji. Kao i kod prethodnog primjera, Mandala nam omogućava promatranje i razmišljanje o druš-tvenim vezama u nepredvidivoj skupini ljudi, našem i tuđem vremenu potrebnom za prijelaz iz izvedbe u igru, iz proma-tranja u otjelovljenje itd.

16 Alexandra baybutt, „Mandala“, objavljeno u: Bellyflop Magazine. budući da online časopis više ne postoji, autorica ga je dobila od kritičarke osobno.


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Kako bih ilustrirala da nisu potrebni samo oblici izrav-nog sudjelovanja za postizanje međuovisnosti, dinamike i sukonstitucije kao temeljnih značajki supublike poput snaž-ne sinestezije odnosa između publike i izvođača, moj sljedeći primjer temelji se na tradicionalnom okružju i dijeli publiku od izvođača. Opisat ću rad portugalske kazališne redateljice i glumice Mónice Calle, koja istražuje kako stimulirati emocije i senzibilitete kao preduvjete za prihvaćanje odgovornosti. U svojim radovima autorica ruši konvencionalne distribucijske sheme. Na Uvježbavanju kartografije [Ensaio para uma Car-tografia] počela je raditi još 2014. godine prema Sedam smrt-nih grijeha Bertolta Brechta i A Boa Alma Luísa Lopeza, kako stoji u katalogu. Na tom je putu pokušala iscrtati alternativ-nu kartografiju.

Dvanaest ležerno odjevenih žena sa žičanim instrumen-tima i baletnim špicama u rukama izlazi na pozornicu. Zau-zimaju prednji dio pozornice, gledaju publiku i čekaju. Prije nego predstava počne, Mónica Calle izlazi prije kolegica koje čekaju da izvedba započne i okvirno upoznaje publiku s oni-me što će vidjeti. Objašnjava da je rad započeo uslijed krize, poriva i potrebe da nešto promijeni. Pozvala je kolegice, žene koje je poznavala, susretala i cijenila. Pozvala ih je da zarone u nepoznato. „Nisu sve žene koje su sudjelovale u ovom puto-vanju s nama večeras, no sve su zaslužne za to kako ovaj rad danas izgleda, i svima sam zahvalna.“ Gleda publiku i prije no što nas zaista opet pogleda, kaže nešto poput: „Nadam se da nećete tijekom predstave koristiti mobitele, ali ako budete, niste vi krivi, mi smo krive jer nismo uspjele u svojoj namjeri.“

Tada počinje. Žene polagano hodaju prema zidu, pažlji-vo skidaju stvari sa sebe, kao i odjeću, i vraćaju se na sredi-nu pozornice. Bolero počinje svirati, a one počinju izvoditi baletne pokrete vrlo blizu jedna drugoj u obliku jata, ne skre-ćući pogled s publike. Nedugo potom glazbu prekida muški glas, dirigent koji daje upute glazbenicima kako da skladbu odsviraju bolje. Kada završi s uputama, glazba nastavlja svira-ti, a žene plesati. Međuigra ispravaka slavnog dirigenta i orke-stra rasplesanih žena, njihova iscrpljenost, upornost, ponos i dostojanstvo prepleću se s određenom nelagodom. I dok je dio publike obuzet njihovom izvedbom, drugom dijelu je dosad-no, što se lako osjeća. Pomak na instrumente i inzistiranje na javnoj probi unatoč sviračkoj nedostatnosti ipak ne mijenja puno. Sat vremena prolazi, veza i podrška publike odjednom snažno kulminira, da bi do vrhunca stigla tijekom solo dijelova na prstima. Prostor pršti od emocija i podrške; stisnute šake, otvorena usta, tihi vriskovi kojima se iskazuje poštovanje i podrška ženama na sceni. Svi njihovi neuspjesi, nevirtuoznost i nesavršenost nešto su s čime se svatko može poistovjetiti. Ipak je riječ o probi, kako autorica ističe. No ne toliko pro-bi glumica/plesačica na pozornici, koliko probi naših senzi-biliteta i uvjeta u kojima uvježbavamo odgovornost. Judith

Butler pisala je o tjelesnoj ranjivosti kao preduvjetu za politi-ku, što Mónica Calle definitivno utjelovljuje i uspješno postiže u Uvježbavanju kartografije. Do kraja predstave svi su pre-plavljeni emocijama, iskreni osmjesi miješaju se sa suzama u kolektivnom doživljaju zajedništva. Kontekstualizirane reakci-je, naglašene pozornošću, razorile su bijelu buku koja u većini slučajeva razara našu komunikaciju, naše zajedništvo. Uvjež-bavanje kartografije gradi „emocionalni put, i pojedinačan i kolektivan, podcrtan entuzijazmom i nevinošću otkrića.“17 Bez obzira koliko dugo živi, svaka predstava ostat će „proba, mogućnost prevladavanja, novi ciklus izgradnje puta, ozna-ka na kartografiji koja se gradi.“18 Ovo je rezultat dugotrajnog, uvijek blago promjenjivog i nedovršenog detaljnog i radikal-nog istraživačkog rada svih uključenih sudionika. Bez sumnje, Mónica Calle uspješno pretražuje temelje čovječanstva i uspi-jeva nam svoje ideje približiti i više no što možemo zamisliti.

Iako su plesači, osobito oni koji se bave improvizacijom, dobro pripremljeni i

shvaćaju da se svijest o somatici uči i razvija ponavljanim i namjernim senzoričkim doživljajima unutarnjih i vanjskih stvarnosti, njihova suradnja zahtijeva prilagodbu senzoričkom doživljaju kojim se može ojačati percepcija njih samih i drugih. Posebno u improvizaciji plesači moraju prakticirati otvorenost i reaktivnost. Moraju biti vješti i dopustiti kretnjama i radnjama da se „puste“, da nađu nove i različite metode kada nešto ne funkcionira. Kao stručnjaci za somatiku i otjelovljenje raznih senzoričkih doživljaja, ključni su za širenje svog iskustva. Kore-ografi triju istraženih i predstavljenih primjera u svojim su različitim okvirima uspjeli stvoriti prostor kojim se pogoduje prenošenju drugačijeg doživljaja kako bi svi obratili pozornost na druge, bili reaktivni i odgovorni. Stvaranje forme kao teme-lja na kojem svatko od uključenih može vježbati svoju sposob-nost djelovanja kao reakcije na ono što susreću, revidiranja u svjetlu novih informacija i impulsa koje izazivaju. Proširiti sudioništvo u predstavi i na publiku po meni je temeljna zna-čajka pomaka s publike na supubliku. Takvu transformaciju smatram bitnom, shvaćam je kao politički čin, čin pobune i otpora prema sociopolitičkom režimu u kojem živimo.Prijevod s engleskog: Ivana Ostojčić

Jasmina Založnik je plesna dramaturginja, teoretičarka, kustosica i producentica. Članica je mreže Nomad Dance Aca-demy i sukustosica CoFestivala. Živi i radi u Ljubljani.

17 Vidi objavu za film na Lisbon & Sintra Film Festival, dostupno na: https://www.leffest.com/en/events/2017/an-essay-for-a-cartography (posljednji posjet: 10.10.2019.)18 Vidi objavu predstave na Portugese Platform, dostupno na: https://portugueseplatform.pt/ensaio-para-uma-cartografia/ (posljednji posjet: 10.10.2019.)

ZAKLJUČAK—

14 KRETANJA 32 | 19

JASMiNA ZAložNiK

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UVježbAVANje zAjedNIšTVAKRETANJA 32 | 19

When asked to respond to the notion of co-audience in relation to dance and

choreography, I felt at the same time sympathetic and challen-ged to think about possible new notion(s) of the already exhau-sted term audience. When emphasizing the exhaustion, I am referring to bureaucratic apparatuses and processes of finan-cialisation that made the audience a central index of perfor-mance evaluation. In that regard, it seemed that the creative processes of making performance(s) were substituted by stra-tegies of reaching and pleasing audience(s), while thereby demolishing the creative value of art itself. In this article, I will try to unfold and develop a possible understanding of co-audience away from the bureaucracy demands. I will per-ceive it as an integral part of the performance situation and for this reason think of it respectfully. I will focus mainly on the prefix co-, indicating a common, mutual and/or joint, in this compound term.

Before arriving to that point, it is necessary to stress that audience members in a traditional setting always co-exist in time-space of the performance. However, what they are deliv-ered does not differ, their experience is never alike. For this reason, the question of mutual, joint and/or common becomes questionable. Additionally, what is delivered, is due to the ephemeral nature of dance always a bit different, which is a reason why the common in the sum of performance delivery becomes even more dubious. Hence, in order to unfold and at the same time develop a frame for a possible articulation of the term co-audience, I am proposing to move away of the mere understanding of audience and emphasize the co- of the audience in relation to performers and performance sit-

INTRODUCTION —

uation. Further on, I will think of various possible settings, frames and strategies that have been developed recently with a desire and aim for enabling a communal situation and so, a ground to experience the contingent nature of social rela-tions between everyone present – therefore the audience as the performers. In that regard, the co- in this article is indi-cated with the bound between the audience and performers, where every member of the temporary community is denoted by an enactment of the other and is co-responsible for the outcome. Before outlining a few inspiring examples that I perceive as exemplary for the articulation of co-audience, it is necessary to provide a contextualization of the socio-political situation that brought the artists to shift their orientation of their research in dance and choreography toward the abstract notion of togetherness.

As theorists emphasise, a social shift through the capitalistic tendency of abstraction represents hunger for appropriation and subordination, which could be acknowledged thro-ugh its spread and absorption of the

private sphere that used to be perceived as non-productive and thereby autonomous. The social organization in which we live is, as theorists warn us, underpinned by semio or perfor-mative capital(ism).1 The consequence of the totalisation of the

1 For semio-capitalism see jean baudrilard and his book Symbolic Ex-change and Death (1976) or more recent take on by Franco berardi bifo, Cognitarians and Semiocapital, Maska, Ljubljana, 2016. on the notion of performative capitalism, see boyan Manchev, “The Struggle for disor-ganisation. Notes on the ontology of Actuality“, in: elena besteru, ema-

CHOREOGRAPHIC CHALLENGES

IN THE TIME OF PERFORMATIVE

CAPITALISM —

Jasmina Založnik

Rehearsing togetherness


market sphere2 is dissipation of possible experimentation with “alternative modes of life and modes of being in common.”3 This means that communal modes as the bases of the social that are produced in the network of social relations (in privacy), are increasingly becoming standardised and typified, “reducing the subject to a functional instrument;”4 controlled and explo-ited. Slow transformation of capitalism in the above mentioned direction was detected already in the 1970s with the emergence of various new social protocols appearing hand in hand with the precarisation of work, proliferation of consumption of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs or antidepre-ssants) and their combinations with, mostly illegal, ‘uppers’, vir-tualisation of communication through the spread of new technologies etc. The more instrumentalised subjectivities there are, the more immune the society becomes and the more it is immune, the less capacity of empathy it owns and the less solidarity there could be.

In such a situation, by no surprise, various voices have been raised in the urge to think about the possible lines and forces in a re-creation of the common as the basis of the new society, including dance theorists and practitioners. What many writings and practices have in common is their strive for a reinvention of more experimental and ‘human’ forms of life, resensitisation and creation of (more) empathetic bonds between living beings that would lead toward a (new) ethics based on responsibility of everyone. Recalling the writing of Michel Foucault, it could be said that the ‘practice of freedom’ as the politics of self and as a politics of care, is more than ever a necessity to be embodied.5 In that regard the practice of freedom is to him an emancipatory act, in which the eman-cipation is based on the assumption of equality and is as such characterised as a horizontal logic. Through such observations and acknowledgements, a time has come to contemplate on the lines and forces of emancipation characterized by sensi-tization and empathy that have been implemented in dance and choreography. In order to do so, it is necessary to define

nuel guidi and elisa Ricci (ed.), Rehearsing Collectivity. Choreography Beyond Dance, Argobooks, berlin, 2012, 23-29.2 Manchev in reference to jeremy Rifkin in similar way as bifo, con-textualizes the turn on the spread of market rationalities on those thin-gs that used to be defined as communal and social.3 See boyan Manchev, “The Struggle for disorganisation. Notes on the ontology of Actuality“, in: elena besteru, emanuel guidi and elisa Ricci (ed.), Rehearsing Collectivity. Choreography Beyond Dance, Argo-books, berlin, 2012, 23.4 Ibid, p. 23.5 For in-depth explanation see: Michel Foucault, “The ethics of the Concern of the Self as a Practice of Freedom“, in: Paul Rabinow and Ro-bert Hurley (ed.), Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, The New Press, London, 1997, 281-301.

the specificities of dance and reasons for which it is exactly dance that could be enacted as an agency in this process.

American dance theorist Randy Martin defines dance as “artistic practice where time and space are expressly gener-ated in the course of performance and not simply an activity that passes through an already given spatiotemporal medi-um.”6 To him, “[t]he dance as such is actualized through the encounter of action and reflection in a way that makes the codependence and copresence of both terms most evident.”7 In addition, dance addressing the body as its main tool and material, “discloses itself as a general force, a capacity of the different bodies […] which can deeply challenge our notions of the organization, perception and dissemination of move-ment.”8 As a poetic and sensual force of movement, dance or rather their makers, choreographers and dancers, who are best equipped with the (hidden, if not even forgotten) knowledge of body’s somatic, a potential resistance force in reinvention of the communal in the society should imply their inventive power toward strategies and forms that could resensitise us.

Choreographers who want to drift away from the instru-mentalized, immunized, coordinated and conformed shared behaviour look for conditions in which new forms of relations would be possible. Choreographers and dance experts search, experiment and create formats and forms in which bodies can experience, learn etc. and possibly also embody the empathy and solidarity that is missing. Such attempts could be under-stood also as search for “modes of collective individuation (away from the monadic-juridical form of the person).”9

A temporary, always changeable group of people that meet at a performance event serve as a laboratory in which modes of collective individuation could be tested. I am proposing to observe these kinds of situations as ideal ground for a co-audi-ence, understood as a co-agency of the performance outcome. In order to make my thought more vivid and hopefully also more convincing, I will outline three concrete examples of performances that I understood as forms of resensitisation implying shared responsibility.

6 Randy Martin, “dance and Its others. Theory, State, Nation and Socialism“, in: Andre Lepecki (ed.), Of the Presence of the Body: Essays n Dance and Performance Theory, Wesleyan University Press, Middle-town, 2004., unsigned. 7 Ibid.8 bojana Kunst, “Some Thoughts on the Labour of a dancer“, in: danjel Andersson, Mette edvarsdsen and Mirten Spingberg (ed.), Post-Dance, MdT, Stockholm, 2017, 133-134.9 Andre Lepecki, Singularities. Dance in the Age of Performance, Routledge, London, New York, 2016, 15.


01JASMiNA ZAložNiK

Furthermore, the proposed examples will help me in out-lining their common points and direction in which we could further contemplate on the principles of effective cocreation of a communality and/as a form of society.

The first example comes from my local context. Slovenian choreographer Snježana Premuš, whose choreograp-

hic practice is based on the practice and method of body mind centring (BMC) works intensively and continuously in the direction of making BMC principles a basis for a collective, co-audience experience in her choreographic works. The entire research started already in 2012 with the introduction of her work Physical Manifestations. In the timeframe of three years she presented a series of studio processes that were led by the choreographer with dancers, but also the audience of various profiles, professions and disciplines with an aim “to establish together how the physical creation of the perception of images is expressive, what it produces, how it reads, and what may remain invisible to the eye.”10 Based on the collection of refle-ctions, the author created Poíesis of Self (2016) with the dance historian and dance theorist Rok Vevar. A “fluid installation of moving and sensitive bodies in the space” Poíesis of Self could be read only in continuation of her research on body’s physicality as a dynamic thinking and intelligent structure, evolving through shifts and focuses between inner and outer space. Scenes are fluidly developed from one to another, while directing the audience toward various practices of listening, walking, moving with closed and open eyes etc. In simplest terms, the Poíesis of Self unfolds the corporeal entity as tran-sformative, whose perception and sensation could be changed and developed through practices, as we are taught by Rok Vevar’s talk. Every task that the audience is given is supported by vivid referential examples that fold in and with our own actions in a number of tasks directed by the authors. It could be said that it offers a very general proposition of corporeal perception, unfolding it in a performance situation together with the audience, as the situation and experiential agents with a desire to unfold some new layers of understanding the complexity of the body, its relationality and reactivity on vario-us matters, sensations, body-presences.11

After Poíesis of Self, Snježana embarked on a continuation of her research, search of tools and systems where even less direction would be needed to achieve a similar, yet even more

10 Rok Vevar, “The Poiesis of Self“, promotional text, borrowed from: https://www.cd-cc.si/en/culture/theatre-and-dance/poiesis-self (last visited: 10 october 2019)11 Nika Arhar, “V preiskovanju izkušnje in govorice telesa“, borrowed from: https://www.rtvslo.si/kultura/oder/v-preiskovanju-izkus-nje-in-govorice-telesa/407491(last visited: 10 october 2019)

PRACTICING TOGETHERNESS

—

open effect on singularities and contingency based experienc-es. Snježana Premuš named this phase of her work Physical Manifestation II (2017-2020).

With a group of performers (Dragana Alfirević, Tina Valentan, Dejan Srhoj) and sound-designer Boštjan Perovšek, the author turned the venue of the Old Power Station in a laboratory. In form of series, the group tried out various tasks, opening them up for a smaller group of invited audience mem-bers in order to test them through engagement and experience. The experiences were gathered in a discussion that followed the process, reflected and integrated in the following stage. On the basis of a two-year-long process and extended collab-oration – Anja Bornšek, Gregor Zorc and Špela Škulj – they came out with a format and form of ‘performance situation’ Every Now is Time, Space which premiered on September 30.

Every Now is Time, Space is based on a defined organisation of space, gently divided in smaller spatial entities designed by various soundscapes (created by Boštjan Perovšek) and settings, marked on the map given to the audience together with simple instructions before the beginning. The performance situation is designed as an open structure and waits to be inhabited by audience and performers’ performative behaviours and interactions. The audience are invited to walk, sit, lay down, interact and move around in any possible ways and directions but are kindly asked through instructions to considers others and leave the intimate outlined spaces/situations when the number of people reaches five. To sum up, the creators set us no limitation, but pass to us an invitation to try and experience these spaces by ourselves, setting in and exploring possible positions, views, perceptions, sensations that they offer.

Every Now is Time, Space is designed to move between the experiencing laboratory form and dance installation. Dance critic Maša Radi Buh emphasized that “[a] leading thought of this variation is the space that expands over the merely materialised space in which we exist, and also explores the smaller, personal spaces that can inhabit a large hall and coexist with one another.”12 Their interconnectivity could be perceived as a breathing and indulging membrane, changing with and through our own presences that are gently coinhabited by the performance team. The sound and light designers are perform-ing their skills in shifting and recreating spaces, observing the audience behaviour, while reacting to the given situation. In the upper part of the auditorium on both corners there are folders with written papers. Thoughts, excerpts, quotations of

12 Maša Radi buh, “To be Togetheralone“, in: Maska, Performing Arts Journal, vol. XXXIV, 196-197, 2019, Maska, Ljubljana, 114.


various writings: philosophy, literature theory, poetry, dance (BMC) practice etc. Their superior position and speakers invite to sit, read and (occasionally) whisper, as it is shown at the beginning with two performers who were lingering there for quite some time. Their voices are silent, slow and warm. They are sending messages into the space, inviting others to follow and replace them. However, the speech from the microphones is not present throughout the space, but fragmentarily creat-ed by a specific speaker connected with the microphone. The whispering voice creates a gentle space, while loud voice cuts in sharply in this initiated performance situation. As every-one is co-responsible, if the speaking person is perceived as interrupting the atmosphere, one can always move to the microphone and replace the speaking person or move to some other part of the room.

Although at any position of the auditorium the role of the

performer switches to the observer, the microphone easily identifies us with a director. Speaking, directing, commenting. Thereby the point is even more tangible and could be easily abused by an audience member.

In most of the cases, facing “somewhat undefined situa-tion our initial movements are marked by a certain restraint, yet the artists never interfere with it violently; by walking around room, they subtly ensure that the atmosphere gradually becomes more relaxed.”13 The spaces that are formed by our bodies in motion “change as much in regard to the position in the physical space as in regard to the dynamics and other qualities of the moving itself. They resemble a living unicel-lular organism that never remains in a static and final form but continuously flows, changes and adapts.”14 As in the open democracy proposition, one can be and do what fits to her/him, however s/he is preconditioned by the other and could be at any time moved, silenced or even removed, however such a situation did not happen in both situations of my presence. People were too busy with themselves, too gentle to limit the others, but rather moved themselves accordingly.

The situation that was created is best described as organic and open, acting and reacting, shaping and reshaping by and with the participants. In simple terms, the designed situation is created with an aim to make us alert to one another, to practice our responsibility. It tests how, in a world of uncertainties and contingencies, to both conceive and enact an ethics of encoun-ter, privileging receptivity and responsiveness. Snježana’s and her team works are a great example of a situation as well as

13 Ibid.14 Ibid.

practice that explores how specific strategies might be used to enact and encourage ethical dispositions of receptivity and responsiveness. It would be too ambitious to state that such a format could expect the change of embodiment, however, it certainly creates a foundation for the embodiment of empathy as ethical dispositions of receptivity and responsiveness. Based on her explorations with participants, Snježana learned that the subtler the directions and expectations, the bigger is the participant’s own responsibility. And yes, in an open space of no restrictions and corrections, there can always be someone who takes the time-space given for showcasing their own egos and dragging the attention of others.

A similar ground to Snježana Premuš’s recent performance situation could be identified by the Hungarian interdiscipli-nary artist Dávid Somló, who works particularly with sound, space and body. The specificity of his work emphasises a per-formative experience that emerges in the exploration of the relations of the physical, social and personal space. Somló is “interested in the small, important moments of non-verbal human interactions.”15 Although similar principles could be found in a number of his works, I will present only one, the one I experienced myself. The sound-installation Mandala, co-created in collaboration with Dániel Sándor, offers more than one of performance situation’s possibility. It can be per-formed in theatre venue or some other indoor space, as well adapted to an open space situation. It can be performed for and by two groups that shift between observer and performer, or only the performing part. In all cases, participants’ experiences

15 dávid Somlóa’s webpage, borrowed from: http://davidsomlo.com/ (last visited: 10 october 2019)

dávid Somló, Mandala photo: Urška boljkovac


01JASMiNA ZAložNiK

are shared in a moderated group discussion that follows. Dávid follows all the situations, but does not interrupt at any point.

In the line of his choreographic views, Mandala as his previous and later performances such as Drift or Length of a Distance, for example, Somló focuses on the creation of a simple structure(s) that offers an almost infinite number of outcomes. For Mandala the author created a combination of pathways of basic lines, such as circle, triangle, square, rectan-gle, lines in basic colours (red, yellow, white, blue, green) to make them recognizable and easier for participants. Each par-ticipant receives a small speaker and is directed to the assigned shape to use and moves along the outline in whatever way they wish. Very basic instructions are there to give a very rough direction in the living space, allowing participants their own interpretation, reflection and reaction. As in the previous example, also in Mandala it takes time for participants to get accustomed to open space and actions they are given, to maybe overcome their insecurity and find the pace that suits them, allowing the sound to soar and dive around us while making their walks and interactions more relaxed. The bubbled sound could be used for your own or other’s sound message, the walk transited in meditation of daily situation or even a life-long experience, as a colleague outlined at the discussion. Everyone does what s/he feels, even breaks the rules and steps out of the given pathway or laying in the middle of it … Behaviours of the participants are not pre-given, which is a reason why each performance situation is a unique one, beginning and ending in a number of possible outcomes, people’s affections and experiences. The experience of the performance situation is to a rather high degree co-dependable to other participants as the experience emerges in a knot of actions and reactions among the people whose pathways are being crossed, but also cocreated by other’s presences and actions that all embrace the collective experience. As such, the performance could be outlined as “workshop in social relations,” defined lucidly by dancer and writer Alexandra Baybutt.16

To conclude, in Mandala as some other works by Somló, it could be said that the basic tools and protocols are best used for testing and collecting social interactions and behaviours. It sketches a frame in which one experiences various quali-ties of movement, forms of collaboration, negotiations etc. As such Mandala could be defined as an open work, in which our own intimate choreography becomes present and out-

16 Alexandra baybutt, “Mandala“, published at: Bellyflop Magazine. As the on-line magazine does not exist any longer, the author received it by the reviewer herself.

lined, embraced in a game-like situation or social meditation of present and future social composition/social choreography.

Such a basis could be for sure a useful source in our fur-ther imagination, cocreation and development of the society, the society in which each of us is in the role of co-audience, a performer and observer of the situation, an audience member who decides to join the performance situation and a participant who becomes a responsive participant/performer. Through practice s/he hopefully learns to become more sensitive and responsive. And as such also more empathetic. As in the pre-vious example, Mandala offers us to observe and contemplate on the social bonds in a contingent group of people, our and other’s time that is needed for transition from executing to playing, from observing to embodying etc.

In order to show that not only forms of direct participa-tion are needed to achieve interdependence, dynamism and co-constitution as the core characteristics of co-audience as intense synaesthesia of the relationship between the audience and the performers, my next example is based on a traditional setting, dividing audience from performers. I will talk about the Portuguese stage director and actress Mónica Calle, who explores ways to stimulate our emotions, our sensibilities as conditions of acknowledging responsibility. Through her works the author is challenging conventional distribution schemes. On Rehearsal for a Cartography [Ensaio para uma Cartografia] she started to work back in 2014, basing it on Ber-tolt Brecht’s Seven Deadly Sins and Luís Lopes’s A Boa Alma, as stated in the catalogue. Along this path she tried to draw an alternative cartography.

Twelve women dressed casually, holding a string instru-ment and ballet shoes (pointe) in their hands are entering the stage. They are taking frontal positions around the stage, looking at the audience and waiting. Before the performance starts, Mónica Calle steps out before her colleague waiting for the show to begin, providing a frame of the performance we are going to see. She explained that the work started out of a crisis, an urge and a necessity to change something. She invited colleagues, women she knew, she met, and she appreciated. She invited them to dive into an unknown. “Not all the women that took part of this journey are with me tonight, yet all of them made this work what it is today, and I am thankful to all of them.” She looks at the audience, and before she really starts looking at us again, saying something like: “Hopefully you will not use your mobiles during the show, but if you will it is not your fault, it is ours as we fail in our intention.”

And then it started. Women slowly walked toward the wall, carefully taking off their belongings, including their clothes and got back in the middle of the stage. The bolero music start-ed playing and they started to execute rather like basic ballet


movements in a close proximity of one another in the shape of a flock, keeping their eyes on the audience. Not long after, the music is interrupted by a male voice, a conductor, giving instruction to musicians how to play the composition better. After finishing his instructions, the music started playing again and women dancing. An interplay between the correc-tions of a great male conductor and an orchestra of dancing women is several times repeated in front of us, unfolding the gender roles, the fragility of exposed women’s bodies, their exhaustion, insistence, pride and dignity intertwined with a certain discomfort. While part of the audience was captivated by the performance, part of it was bored, as one easily felt. The shift to instruments, their insufficiency in playing, yet insisting on public rehearsing, does not yet change a lot. An hour seemed to pass, before the connection and mutual sup-port from the audience’s part started to culminate intensively, reaching its point in their solos on their toes. The venue is elec-trified by emotions and support; clenched fists, open mouths, silent screams that would show their respect and support to these women on the stage. All their failures, non-virtuosity and imperfection were what everyone could relate to. It is a rehearsal, as the author shows. But less a rehearsal of actress-es/dancers on the stage than a rehearsal of our sensibilities and conditions in which we can rehearse our responsibility. Judith Butler wrote on corporeal vulnerability as a precondi-tion for politics, which Mónica Calle definitely embodied and successfully achieved in her Rehearsal for a Cartography. By the end of the performance, everyone was overwhelmed by emotions, sincere smiles combined with tear-stained faces, a collective experience of togetherness. Situated responses, pulsed with attentiveness, demolished the white noise that in most cases ruptures our communication, our togetherness. Rehearsing for a Cartography builds “an emotional path, both individual and collective, imprinted by the enthusiasm and innocence of discovery.”17 No matter how long it is alive, each show will stay a “rehearsal, a possibility of overcoming, a new cycle in the construction of a path, a mark on the cartography that is being built.”18 This is a result of a long lasting, always a bit changing and developing painstaking and radical research work of all involved. By no doubt Mónica Calle successfully searches the foundation of humanity and manages to bring her ideas closer to us than we could imagine.

17 See the announcement of the movie made for Lisbon & Sintra Film Festival, borrowed from: https://www.leffest.com/en/events/2017/an-essay-for-a-cartography (last visited: 10 october 2019)18 See the announcement of the show at Portugese Platform, borrowed from: https://portugueseplatform.pt/ensaio-para-uma-car-tografia/ (last visited: 10 october 2019)

Although dancers, especially those wor-king in improvisation, are well equipped

and acknowledge that somatic awareness is learned and deve-loped through repeated and intentional sensory experience of both internal and external realities, their collaborations require their attuning to sensory experience on which they can heighten the perception of themselves and the others. Especially in improvisation, dancers have to enact their openness and responsiveness. They have to be skilled and allow for movements and actions to “let go,” to find new and diffe-rent ways when something does not work. As experts in soma-tics and embodiment of various sensory experience, they are of key importance to disseminate their experience further. Choreographers of the three explored and presented examples in their various frames managed to create a space that main-tains transmitting a different experience, to make everyone alert to others, responsive and responsible. A creation of a form as a ground in which everyone involved could practice their ability to act in response to what they encounter, to revise in light of new information and the impulses this provokes. To extend performance agencies to the audience is for me the primal characteristic in the shift from audience to co-audience. I found such a transformation relevant, understanding it as a political act, an act of rebellion and resistance against the socio-political regime which we are living.

English language editing: Ivana Ostojčić

Jasmina Založnik is a dance dramaturg, writer, curator and producer from Ljubljana. She is part of Nomad Dance Academy network and cocurator of CoFestival.

CONCLUSION—

20 KRETANJA 32 | 19 jedNA zA SVe I SVe zA/jedNo

One for All and All for One, Together:

Jedna za sve i sve za/jedno:

02

Roberta Milevoj, Familija foto: damir žižić

Ana Kreitmeyer, Sve četiri za jedno foto: Silvija dogan

21MOVEMENTS 32 | 19oNe FoR ALL ANd ALL FoR oNe, TogeTHeR

ANA FAZeKAš

02Promišljati prisutnost feminizma na domaćoj izvedbenoj, osobito plesnoj, sceni znači postavljati više pitanja nego što se možemo nadati iznaći odgovora. Uopće artikulirati ta pita-nja, u spiralnom preispitivanju umjetničkih praksi općenito i radova koji su na našim pozornicama zaigrali u posljednjih par godina, znači pristati na vlastitu nedostatnost u pristupu, fragmentarnost, nedovršenost koju je nemoguće preboljeti i ranjivost kao inherentne kvalitete problematike, te se svako toliko sudariti s pitanjem je li i dokle je diskusija o feminizmu u ovom kontekstu, u kojemu se feminizam izrijekom goto-vo nikada ne spominje, uopće plodna i smislena. No takva ograničenja nikada nisu bila razlogom da se ne uhvatimo nemogućeg plesa. U uvjerenju da postoji interes i potreba za feminističkom misli, kao i živa, iako razlomljena tradicija, te akutni društveni imperativ feminističke borbe; često na istim bojnim poljima na kojima su neke bitke u povijesti izbore-ne; vrijedi lomiti se kroz feminističke perspektive, ispisivati doživljaje i misli, revidirati ih i varirati, osobito kada je riječ o sceni na kojoj faktički dominiraju žene. Kolektivnost, femi-nizam i ples isprepleteni su na načine koje ovdje neće biti moguće razmrsiti, no osobito u svjetlu nekolicine relativno recentnih predstava koje su i procesualno i tematski odre-đene kolektivitetom, ostaje potreba da se skiciraju punktovi diskusije, s nadom da će te krhotine možda biti šrapnel za neke buduće radove i polemike, ili nešto trajnije od krušnih mrvica, što će obilježiti putanju kojom se krećemo u umjet-nosti neprestanog nastajanja i nestajanja.

Projekt Dom Sonje Pregrad dio je njezina istraživanja uto-pije, čija je ključna dimenzija upravo kolektivno, horizontalno stvaralaštvo među jednakovrijednim članovima, odnosno čla-

nicama. Veza s utopijom značenjski je plodna u ovome kon-tekstu s obzirom na to da je feminizam u suštini utopijski projekt koji polazi od osmišljavanja radikalno drugačijeg svi-jeta, bitno određenog principima ravnopravnosti, jednakosti, solidarnosti i slobode. Ako feminizam iz vida gubi percepci-ju vlastitog cilja kao mogućeg ne-još mjesta, on postaje tek varijacija na duboko nepravedan svijet hijerarhije i individu-alizma koji sam po sebi nema etičku dimenziju, no razve-den od solidarnosti i društvene odgovornosti postaje iznimno destruktivna premisa društvene organizacije. Istovremeno, suvremeni kolektivistički diskurs u domaćem se kontekstu često formira upravo oko doma koji odlikuje patrijarhalno uspostavljena obitelj ili patriotski oko doma za koji su neki „spremni“ implicirajući prijetnju nasiljem te voljnost za žrtvu na oltaru šuplje ideologije. Upravo je značajnim dijelom iz potrebe da se pojam pročisti od fašistoidnog naboja niknuo Dom Sonje Pregrad pod tim imenom, bitno određen zajedniš-tvom i mekom bliskošću.

Prvotna je verzija Doma zaživjela u sklopu TASK-a te nije bila rodno monolitna zbog čega su neke sudionice varijaci-je izvedene na Improspekcijama sljedeće sezone, u kojoj su nastupale isključivo izvođačice, istaknule da je ženski postav rezultat slučajnosti. No bez obzira na eventualnu praktičnu ili logističku pozadinu kojom je Dom oblikovan kao predsta-va napučena isključivo ženama (Laura Barić, Valerija Cerovec, Teuta Gatolin, Lana Hosni, Ema Kani, Vilte Svarplyte i Josi-pa Štulić), ta je rodna dimenzija snažno rezonirala prilikom izvedbi te uvelike odredila značenje koje je predstava prenije-la. Prizivanjem privatnog političkog prostora par excellence te toposa ženske kreativnosti već u samome naslovu, uvodeći u vidu rekvizita elemente kućanstva koji su danas i asocijativno

Ana Fazekaš

Jedna za sve i sve za/jedno: bilješke o feminizmu u suvremenim plesnim kolektivnim praksama


i faktički vezani za nevidljivi i mentalni rad žena, te pudera-ste tonove kostimografije birane kao odraz prostora kapelice u Slavi Raškaj, predstava dobiva izrazito femininu kvalite-tu. Pritom nije riječ o uvijek promašenom esencijalističkom pristupu rodu, nego o afirmaciji marginaliziranih kvalite-ta koje se konvencionalno vezuju za ženskost, te njihovom uparivanju u ovom kontekstu s, povremeno divljim, proboji-ma kreativnosti. Rad lako stvara asocijativnu vezu s kultnim feminističkim tekstovima poput Vlastite sobe V. Woolf te teo-rijskog pregleda The Madwoman in the Attic autorica Gilbert i Gubar, koje se bave upravo pozicijom ženskog autorstva te prostorima ženske kreativnosti. Izvođačice Doma, redom mlađe generacije čija je pozadina u plesu ili novim mediji-ma, angažirane su na način da u izvedbu uključuju vlastite specifične prakse i izričaje istraživanjem modusa kontakta i interakcije, improvizacijom unutar zadane strukture. Mekoća pristupa te izvedbena ujednačenost sudionica stvaraju moćan rad koji neprestano balansira na samome rubu, ponekad se i posve rasplićući, crpeći snagu iz svoje bitne krhkosti1. Načel-no se isticalo da je rad uspio kada je zadržao smirenost i svje-žinu pogleda potrebnu da koreografirana improvizacija uvijek iznova zadrži spontanu kvalitetu, a manje uspio kada je počeo djelovati mehanički ili kada je previše zabrazdio u anksiozne afektivne izraze (kada je suviše potegnuo prema madwoman in the attic). Pa ipak, izvedba tjeskobe kreativnosti i kreativne tjeskobe te prepuštanje afektu, gotovo do acting outa, djeluje feministički afirmativno, pomalo retro, prizivajući afirmira-nje bijesa karakteristično za drugovalni feminizam.

Patrijarhalno je porobljavanje žena dijelom funkcioniralo upravo zahvaljujući nametanju nuklearne obitelji kao osnov-ne društvene ćelije u kojoj su primarno boravile međusobno izolirane žene, dok su muškarci slobodno ulazili u druge pro-store kolektiviteta i razmjene. Unutar patrijarhalnih uvjeto-vanosti, koje još uvijek određuju suvremeno bivanje u svijetu, žene su tijekom povijesti razvijale vlastite moduse interak-cije, podrške i prijenosa znanja, čak i bez vlastite sobe, štovi-še, upravo u zajedničkim prostorima, no dalekosežnost je tih praksi bila bolno ograničena2. Kolektivnost je upisana u femi-

1 Nešto je drugačiji naboj prisutan u drugim varijacijama Koreografije utopije, u kojima je Pregrad nastupala i kao izvođačica, ponekad sasvim nehotice izbacujući mehanizam iz ravnoteže snagom vlastite izvođačke persone. 2 zanimljivo je prisjetiti se da su, primjerice, za vrijeme drugog svjet-skog rata mali ženski kolektivi, kao važan dio pogonske sile otpora, do određene mjere mogli proći nezamijećeno pod krinkom okupljanja oko ženskih zanatskih aktivnosti, te da su općenito osnovni kanali borbe za rodnu ravnopravnost isprva stvarani u sličnim zajednicama i oko njih. No važno je napomenuti da domaća feministička povijest, za čiji je razvoj upravo kontekst oko drugog svjetskog rata, Narodnooslobodilačke bor-be i stvaranja Antifašističke fronte žena bio jednim od ključnih momena-

nistički projekt, kao i u društvenu teoriju i političku praksu, ne samo kao elementarna pretpostavka za svaki angažira-ni rad nego i kao jedan od konceptualnih temelja, građenih usuprot patrijarhalnom vertikalnom ustroju te umjetničkom kultu singularnog genija. Kolektivne umjetničke prakse opće-nito su se razvijale u polemičkom odnosu spram romantičke tradicije koja njeguje Autora kao jedan, jedinstveni i nepo-novljivi izvor umjetničke magije, kao božanskog posrednika koji stvara intuitivno, gotovo mistički, te time zavređuje oso-bit status. Kolektivne umjetničke prakse, s druge strane, već organski podcrtavaju dimenziju umjetničkog rada kao rada te raspršuju zaslugu i odgovornost među članovima zajednice kao načelno ravnopravnima. Radikalni je feminizam sedam-desetih, unutar kojega je bujala feministička umjetnička pro-dukcija, tako poticao okupljanje u ekskluzivno ženske grupe, stvaranje utočišta u kojima se progovaralo o iskustvima, često iskustvima zlostavljanja i opresije, te zajedničko stvaralaštvo uz izostanak prepoznatljivog imena Autora. Pa ipak, femini-stički se parakanon oblikuje oko pojedinačnih imena, čak i kada je riječ o velikim kolaboracijama3, što mora da je značaj-nim dijelom rezultat načina na koji se (izvedbena) umjetnost dokumentira, sistematizira i prenosi, ali i posljedica raz-mišljanja o umjetničkoj povijesti upravo u terminima kanona, koji je po svojoj prirodi erektiran i falogocentričan. Femi-nističkom se reorganizacijom misaonih puteva teži zahvatiti takav način percepcije u korist horizontalnom pristupu, no to probijanje ustaljenih obrazaca u svojim krajnjim konzekven-cama zahtijeva dug i kontinuiran rad bez prečica.

Predstava Sve četiri za jedno. Na rubu dodira i kaosa Ane Kreitmeyer, u suradnji s Martinom Tomić, Ivanom Pavlović i Petrom Chelfi, nikla je iz entuzijazma i frustracije inicija-tive Autonomija plesu te izvedbenim intervencijama u jav-ni prostor nazvanim Tjelovanje, dijelom inspirirana kultnim radom Huddle Simone Forti. Izvođenjem iskustva zajednič-kog (kolektivnog) napora, koji uvijek barem donekle zabrazdi u međusobno sudaranje i udaranje u zid, Sve četiri na scenu stavlja još nešto, znatno zavodljivije; snagu i nježnost veze među ženama. Djetinja kvaliteta odnosa koji oživljava na sce-

ta, za vrijeme socijalizma nije nosila naziv feminizam, za koji se smatralo da pripada zapadnjačkoj retorici. U čitavom periodu razvoja zapadnjač-kog drugovalnog feminizma kako ga razumijemo danas, kod nas je vla-dala prilično destruktivna demagogija, unutar koje se inzistiralo da je „rješenje klasnog pitanja” ujedno riješilo i „žensko pitanje”. Možda dije-lom u tom nasljeđu leži privid relativno skromne feminističke povijesti u domaćem i regionalnom kontekstu, te otpor prema feminističkom odre-đenju, koje se mijenja upravo s generacijama koje su snažnije nego ikada vezane za jezik i (pop-)kulturnu tradiciju koja nas zasipa iz SAd-a. 3 Poput, primjerice, Three Weeks in May Suzanne Lacy ili Womanho-use judy Chicago i Miriam Shapiro, u kojima su sudjelovale mnoge, naj-češće neimenovane, junakinje.


ANA FAZeKAš

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ni dirljiva je i iznimno lijepa, a neopterećena je interakcija među plesačicama, nabijena intuitivnom brižnošću, tihom ljubavlju i zaigranom posvećenošću, koja zaista pripada samo djetinjstvu, rijetko intenzivno emocionalno iskustvo za sve prisutne. U središtu pozornice jedan je element scenografi-je postavljen kao dežurno smetalo koje razbija prazninu te stvara potrebu da sve četiri paze jedna na drugu kako ne bi okrznule oštre rubove drvene konstrukcije. Povezanost i pri-jateljstvo među plesačicama te njihovo zajedničko iskustvo rada na sceni autentične su kvalitete koje izbijaju iz rada, a proizlaze dijelom izravno iz privatne sfere, te funkcionira-ju jednakovrijedno političkoj dimenziji rada, pa i noseći veći značaj od nje. Četiri umjetnice izvedbeno su ravnopravne te rezoniraju kao bešavna zajednica energetski se prelijevajući jedna u drugu.

Naša je plesna scena većinom napučena ženama, od umjetnica i koreografkinja, preko pedagoginja do studenti-ca, te je poznato da je takav rodni nesrazmjer u izravnoj vezi s načinom na koji društvo vrednuje, među ostalim i finan-cijski, određenu sferu djelatnosti. Stoga prisutnost eksklu-zivno ili dominantno ženskih kolektiva na pozornici ili iza nje nikada nije rezultat slučajnosti, iako nije nužno zamišlje-na kao konceptualna baza pojedinog projekta. Umjetnička je produkcija nužno određena rodnom dimenzijom tematski i estetski dokle je god društvo određeno binarnim konstrukti-ma, iako ta poveznica nije jednoznačna niti svodiva na razu-mljive zajedničke nazivnike. Možda bi i zazivanje feminizma bilo izraženije da na plesnoj sceni djeluje slična vrsta kompe-ticije kakva je svojstvena drugim poljima, na kojima domini-ra patrijarhalni, falogocentrični i naprosto falički diskurs. Sve četiri za jedno utjelovljuju odjeke borbe za autonomiju plesa, što će reći za sve investicije nužne da bi kreativna produkci-ja živjela i disala, a rodna je monolitnost postava jasan signal problematike na uzročno-posljedičnom križanju marginali-zacije domaće plesne scene.

Suvremeni je feminizam razgranat i razlomljen u frakcije među kojima vlada snažna međusobna tenzija te je u svojoj neoliberalnoj mutaciji izgubio na esencijalnoj kvaliteti kla-sne svijesti, horizontalne organizacije i solidarnosti u korist kapitalističkog vrednovanja (pseudo)individualnosti. Ne samo da je privatno političko već je političko privatno te svaka ima pravo na svoj individualni feminizam, čije zadanosti i gaba-rite određuje sama pod krovom ideje o rodnoj ravnopravnos-ti i osnaživanju žena. Istovremeno, iako je feminizam razvio populističku inačicu te, prema riječima Nine Power, usli-jed tendencije da može značiti bilo što, više ne znači ništa, tom se kontroverznom otvorenošću najviše postiglo unutar popularne kulture, dok naša umjetnička scena feministič-ku etiketu često odguruje kao zastarjelu ili ograničavajuću.

Retrospektivno, nije uspostavljen jasni kontinuitet femi-nističke umjetničke prakse u našoj povijesti, osobito ne na način da ta povijest bude dokumentirana, dostupna i pregled-na, što možda utječe na današnje ograđivanje i pregrađivanje od termina, unatoč snažnim ženskim autorskim ličnostima koje su tu istu umjetničku povijest obilježile. Često u govoru o feminističkoj kvaliteti pojedinog rada ili opusa umjetnice ističu da rad nije primarno ili samo feministički naglašavaju-ći da je njihova perspektiva šira od feminističkog predznaka. Pomalo je razočaravajuće da i dalje, čini se, vrijedi naglaša-vati da feministički fokus nije sužavanje misaonog horizon-ta, nego njegovo nužno širenje, s obzirom na to da on uvijek komunicira s dominantno patrijarhalnim univerzumom u kojemu se bori za postojanje te uključuje perspektive koje su iz tradicije isključene4. No vrijedi li se zapitati i koliko prin-cipi financiranja, kao dio aktualne političke dinamike, utječu na postojeći zazor prema feminističkoj odrednici i je li riječ o ustupku pretpostavci da feministički predznak, osobito kada je eksplicitno izražen, može djelovati obeshrabrujuće poten-cijalno zainteresiranoj publici? Feministička kritika danas je dio većine kurikuluma humanističkih i umjetničkih studi-ja te je feminizam možda u najvećoj mjeri normaliziran u akademskom diskursu, iako i ondje još uvijek bije plemenitu bitku za postojanje i širenje vlastitih dosega, što je u nače-lu pozitivna i ohrabrujuća tendencija. No možemo li pretpo-staviti da to djeluje odbojno, elitistički i kontraproduktivno u nekom drugom kontekstu? Nadalje, je li za feministički rad uopće neophodno da se takvim imenuje? Je li dostatno navezati se na neodređenu ideju osnaživanja te povećanja vidljivosti ženskog autorstva? Može li se kreativni čin žen-skog autorstva smatrati politički i feministički relevantnim već sam po sebi? Imenovanje je svakako važno i jezik djeluje

4 Na hrvatskoj sceni ne izostaje feministički interes, što je vidljivo u radu feminističkih portala poput neprežaljenog Mufa, Krila kao njegova nasljednika te VoxFeminae koji organizira i rastući feministički festival. Iznimno značajan rad ostvaruje Faktiv, čiji je aktivistički angažman po-nekad jedina brza i živa reakcija u javnom prostoru na zastrašujuće kon-zervativne tendencije aktualnog društveno-političkog sklopa, dok dulju tradiciju na području edukacije i izdavaštva drži Centar za ženske studije, koji je posljednjih godina pretrpio teške udarce po pitanjima instituci-onalne podrške. Usmjerene primarno na pitanja ekologije i održivosti, likovni novomedijski kolektiv Ljubavnice također su zanimljiva pojava, iako se ne bave izravno feminističkom ili rodnom problematikom, dok kustoski kolektiv WHW omogućuje projekte i gostovanja za feminizam značajnih umjetnica s područja likovnih umjetnosti, a značajan je i re-centni rad i uspjeh međunarodnog festivala fotografije pod nazivom or-gan vida. Nadalje, radovi pojedinih autorica (i ponekog autora) dotiču se feminističke problematike na različite načine te bi bilo teško i krajnje ne-zahvalno u ovome kontekstu pobrojati sva zaslužna imena, no nemogu-će je u tom raspršenom mnoštvu ne zamijetiti izostanak sustavnije prak-se koja se na polju izvedbenih umjetnosti konzistentno bavi feminizmom ili artikulira svoj rad s jasnom feminističkom sviješću, te ju takvom mož-da i imenuje.


u društvenom prostoru, no granice između poželjnog i kon-traproduktivnog inzistiranja na imenovanju lako se pretva-raju u minsko polje.

Umjetničke revolucije početkom dvadesetog stoljeća te ponovno šezdesetih godina obilježene su, osim feministič-kim valovima, i važnim zaokretima u plesnoj umjetnosti te velikim značajem artističkih kolektiva. Važnost kolektiva osobito snažno odjekuje kada je riječ o praksama koje nisu čvrsto institucionalno strukturirane ili podržane te se umjet-nici dijeljenih interesa prirodno roje zajedno radi razmjene i podrške, ali i radi mogućnosti bolje vidljivosti te snažnijeg učinka angažiranih radova i umjetničkog aktivizma. Para-lelno, razvoj modernog i postmodernog plesa spontano je utjelovio neke od feminističkih principa već otporom figu-ri koreografa te instrumentalizaciji ženskoga tijela, otvara-njem prema plesu kao ekspresiji i promišljanju koje zadržava osnovnu autonomiju tijela i uma koji pleše. Dok je revoluci-ja modernog plesa na početku dvadesetog stoljeća uvela slo-bodno i senzualno žensko tijelo, postmoderni je ples druge polovice prošlog stoljeća uvelike utjelovio androginu ili rod-no neutralnu ekspresiju koja je težila osloboditi žensko tijelo od tradicionalne objektivizacije. Postmoderni je ples također u većoj mjeri favorizirao kolektivni rad, što je moguće dove-sti u vezu s pomakom od afektivnog, nužno osobnog izra-za prema cerebralnijem, hladnijem pristupu promišljanja u

pokretu i pokretom U suvremenom suvremenom plesu vlada eklekticizam karakterističan za post-postmodernu umjetnost općenito, no snažnija se veza na našoj sceni održava s kasni-jom tradicijom, koja se odvaja i od već zastarjelog principa ženskog pisma te plesa kao emocionalnog izraza. Stoga bi se dalo pretpostaviti da se plesu želi pristupiti kao praksi onkraj roda, no ovaj ideal također pripada utopiji čije je odbljeske moguće transponirati u sadašnjost samo uz dubinsko promi-šljanje koje ništa od implikacija i reperkusija rodnosti ne uzi-ma zdravo za gotovo.

Ženski ansambl izvodi predstavu Familija, koreografki-nje Roberte Milevoj, inspiriranu istraživanjem zajednica slo-nova te njihovih fascinantnih i kompleksnih međuodnosa, emocionalnih veza i rituala. Na sjecištu svega što nas zbliža-va s tako drastično drugačijim bićima od nas gradi se narativ-ni luk unutar epizodične kompozicije predstave koja je vrlo tiha i polagana, a čiji se intenzitet akumulira u fokusiranoj komunikaciji među slonicama (Filipa Bavčević, Silvija Dogan, Antonia Dorbić, Ana Jelušić, Katarina Rilović, Sara Škrobe, Lana Šprajcer, Mia Zalukar). Plesačice su izrazom neutralne te se naboj stvara u kontaktu i napetoj pažnji koja među nji-ma postoji tijekom čitava trajanja predstave. Koreografkinja je izvan izvedbe u kojoj su plesačice gotovo neraspoznatlji-ve uslijed stapanja u konzistentnu izvedbenu smjesu; pokreti

Sonja Pregrad, Dom foto: Sara Moritz


ANA FAZeKAš

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kao da se razvlače i lijepe zadržavajući tešku i dirljivu tromost kretnji životinja koje su poslužile kao inspiracija i model.

Važno je razumjeti da je slonovsko društvo matrijarhalno i matrilinearno te da se odrasli mužjaci zadržavaju na margi-ni društva, odvajaju od njega ili stvaraju vlastite ekskluzivne zajednice s jasnom hijerarhijom, dok slonice čitav život žive u kolektivu u kojem se brinu jedna o drugoj te se zajednički brinu o potomstvu. Dodir je ključan za njihovu komunikaci-ju, uživaju u igri, izražavaju čitavu paletu emocija, a osobito se ističu snagom empatije te nevjerojatnom nježnošću koju pokazuju jedne prema drugima, dok je najsnažnija i najvažni-ja ljubav u slonovskoj zajednici ljubav majke prema mladun-četu. Stoga Familija, iako na prvi pogled možda (a možda i ne) bezrodna, odražava promišljanje o emocionalnim zajednica-ma, majčinstvu te međusobnoj podršci među ženama ponav-ljajući opsesivne teme feminizma koje nikada nisu izgubile na aktualnosti.

Iako su navedene predstave jasno strukturirane, pojedina izvedba uvelike ovisi o dijeljenoj energiji izvedbenog kolekti-va koja može radikalno izmijeniti značenje i dojam predstave. Iz izjava autorica i sudionica jasno je da postoji razlika između izvedbe koja je postigla optimalni željeni dojam i one koja to nije postigla, pri čemu se osjećaji autorica s jedne i suradnica s druge strane nerijetko razilaze, i to onda kada autorice nisu ujedno i izvođačice. Riječ je o izvedbenim radovima čija fra-gilnost možda nadilazi prosječnu ranjivost izvedbenog rada zbog relativne otvorenosti unutar zadanih gabarita te zbog primarne važnosti senzoričnog i visceralnog doživljaja dje-la, kojim je nemoguće sasvim upravljati, kao što ga je i teško pretočiti u riječi. Kolektivi ovih predstava imaju jasan dojam o tome koja je željena energetska nijansa idealna za rad, iako u stvarnosti sve varijacije, koliko god udaljene od ideala, čine totalitet značenja predstave u koju je otklon apriori ugrađen te je, štoviše, esencijalan da bi predstava disala. Zanimljivo je da sve navedene predstave, koje imaju poslužiti kao pri-mjeri kolektivnih radova koji pozivaju na feminističko raz-matranje, dijele opisanu otvorenost i ranjivost koja proizlazi upravo iz njihove kolektivne prirode. Također, sva tri spome-nuta rada imaju jasnu autorsku ukorijenjenost u jednoj osobi, autorici koncepta i koreografkinji, bez obzira na kolektivnost u procesu rada i izvedbe te zajedništvo kao bitno određujuću konceptualnu bazu radova. Razmišljanjem i razgovaranjem o radovima ističe se činjenica da je riječ o radu Sonje Pregrad odnosno Ane Kreitmeyer odnosno Roberte Milevoj. Takvim se zapažanjem implicira da postoji prepoznatljivi pečat indi-vidualne estetike, poetike, potencijalno politike, koji rad čini više radom jedne osobe, nego grupe, odnosno usmjerava nas na pretpostavku da je autorica jedna te da njezine suradnice svoj doprinos usklađuju s njezinom vizijom i poetikom. No u

tom je slučaju pitanje na čemu temeljimo uvid u spomenuti autorski pečat te koliko je upisivanje singularnog autorstva uvjetovano znanjima i informacijama koje postoje apriori i neovisno o samome radu. Nijedan rad ne nastaje u vakuu-mu te je nužno da ga struka kontekstualizira unutar posto-jećeg opusa, no zdravorazumski je pretpostaviti da i doživljaj rada, takoreći okaljan prethodnim znanjima i pretpostavkama o radu afirmiranijih autorica spram njihovih možda manje autorski eksponiranih suradnica, može biti manjkav, odu-zimajući mogućnost da se rad promatra kao bitan kolektiv-ni pothvat. Premisa je kolaborativnih praksi određeni uvid u praksu te osnovni senzibilitet umjetnica koje se pozivaju u proces, što je osobito lako kada je riječ o malenoj sceni poput naše, u kojoj su međusobna poznanstva, pa i suradnja, nei-zbježni. No važno je pitanje je li nam perspektiva manjka-va uslijed pretpostavljene percepcije autorske singularnosti spram investicije drugih suradnica, koja često nije ograniče-na na izvođačku ulogu, nego uvjetuje razvoj rada i konačni rezultat.

Zanimljivo je da se sva tri opisana rada bave idejom kolek-tivnosti, kolektiviteta, odnosno zajedništva i zajednica te je upravo promišljanje tih koncepata i iskustava u središtu svake pojedine predstave, kao početni impuls i idejno sidro rada. Ta činjenica svjedoči o potrebi za ne samo zajedničkim stvaranjem, podrškom i razmjenom nego i propitivanjem mogućnosti i ograničenja prostora zajedništva, kreiranjem privremenih utopija, utočišta, sigurnih mjesta, poput (i pose-bice) doma i obitelji, koja su rastrzana između društveno-evo-lucijske potrebe za promjenom i konzervativnog protuudara koji nas gura unatrag. U konačnici, iz pozicije recepcije i bez obzira na imenovanje ili istaknuta imena na plakatima, svi spomenuti radovi, uz brojne srodne koji bi bili vrijedni spo-mena, odzvanjaju borbenom snagom, ljepotom međusobne podrške i utopijskom nadom čije je privatno i političko zna-čenje neizmjerno.

Ana Fazekaš, diplomirala komparativnu književnost te ruski jezik i književnost na Filozofskom fakultetu Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, a trenutno je na poslijediplomskom doktorskom studiju književnosti, izvedbenih umjetnosti, filma i kultu-re. Područje djelovanja joj je prije svega kritika izvedbenih umjetnosti te teorija umjetnosti u kontaktu s feminističkom i queer kritikom te teorijom psihoanalize. Surađuje u nekoliko publikacija fokusiranih na umjetnost i kulturu te je urednica kulture u ELLE magazinu.

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Ana Fazekaš

One for All and All for One, Together: Notes on Feminism in Contemporary Collective Dance Practices

To examine the presence of feminism on the local perfor-mance, especially dance, scene means to ask more questions than one can hope to find answers. To even articulate these questions, in a spiral re-examination of art practices in gene-ral and the works performed on our stages in the past few years, means to accept one’s own insufficiency in approach, fragmentariness, incurable unfinishedness and vulnerability as the inherent qualities of the subject matter and every now and then collide with the question whether and how much is a discussion on feminism in this context even fruitful and sensible, since feminism is almost never even mentioned. However, such limitations were never a reason not to engage in this impossible dance. Believing that there is an interest and need for a feminist thought, as well as a living albeit fragmen-ted tradition and the acute social imperative of the feminist fight – often in the same battlefields where historical battles had already been won – it is worthwhile to fracture through feminist perspectives, write down experiences and thought, revise and vary them, especially since this is a scene in fact dominated by women. Collectiveness, feminism and dance are intertwined in ways impossible to untangle here, but especially in the light of a few relatively recent dance works which were both in terms of process and theme done collectively, the need remains to draft discussion points, hoping that the splinters might trigger future works and debates, or something more lasting than breadcrumbs to mark the trajectory we move along in this art of perpetual appearance and disappearance.

Sonja Pregrad’s project Home (Dom) is part of her explo-ration of utopia, whose crucial dimension is precisely the collective, horizontal creativity among equal members. The connection with utopia is fruitful in this context meaning-wise since feminism in its essence is a utopian project which sets out from designing a radically different world, fundamentally defined by the principles of justice, equality, solidarity and freedom. If feminism loses sight of the perception of its own objective as a possible not-yet place, it becomes a mere varia-tion on the profoundly unjust world of hierarchy and individ-ualism which in itself does not have an ethical dimension, but separated from solidarity and social responsibility it becomes an extremely destructive premise of social organisation. At the same time, the contemporary collectivist discourse in the local context often crystallises around the home, characterised by a patriarchally established family or patriotically revolving around the home for which some are ‘ready’, implying a violent threat and willingness to bring sacrifice to the altar of hallow ideology. It is mostly out of need to cleanse the notion of its fascist charge that Sonja Pregrad’s Home arose under this name, essentially defined by community and soft closeness.

The initial version of Home saw light as part of TASK and was not monolithic in terms of gender, due to which some participants of the variations performed the following year at Improspections – with only female performers – pointed out that the all-female cast was a matter of coincidence. However, regardless of the possible practical or logistic background that


shaped Home as a piece populated only by women (Laura Barić, Valerija Cerovec, Teuta Gatolin, Lana Hosni, Ema Kani, Vilte Svarplyte and Josipa Štulić), this gender dimension power-fully resonated in the performances and greatly defined the meaning conveyed by the piece. The very title, echoing the private political space par excellence and the topos of female creativity, introducing household elements as props still today associatively and factually related to the invisible and mental work of women, complete with sand-toned costumes reflecting the space of a chapel at Slava Raškaj, gives the performance an extremely feminine quality. Here it is not about the always erroneous essentialist approach to gender, but rather about the affirmation of marginalised qualities that are convention-ally associated with femininity, and their connection, in this context, with the occasionally wild outbursts of creativity. The piece easily creates an associative connection with the iconic feminist texts like V. Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and Gilbert and Gubar’s theoretical overview The Madwoman in the Attic, who focus precisely on the position of women’s authorship and spaces of female creativity. The performers of Home, stemming from dance or new media, mostly younger generation artists, were engaged in a way to include their own specific practices and expressions in the performance, exploring the modes of contact and interaction, improvising inside a fixed structure. The softness of their approach and the performative harmony help create a powerful piece which incessantly balances on the edge, sometimes completely untangling, drawing strength from its essential fragility1. In principle, the piece is consid-ered successful if it maintained calmness and freshness needed for the choreographed improvisation to keep its spontaneous quality over and again, and less successful if it started to seem mechanical or if it strayed off course into anxious affective expressions (leaning too much toward the madwoman in the attic). Nevertheless, the performance of anxiety of creativity and creative anxiety and surrendering to the affect, almost to the point of acting out, seems affirmative in the feminist sense, almost retro, echoing the affirmation of rage specific to the Second-wave feminism.

The patriarchal enslavement of women partly worked pre-cisely thanks to the imposed nuclear family as the basic social cell, housing primarily isolated women whereas men were free to enter other spaces of collectiveness and exchange. Within patriarchal conditions which still determine contemporary existence in the world, throughout history women have devel-

1 A somewhat different charge is present in other variations of the Choreography of Utopia (Koreografija utopije), in in which Pregrad was a performer as well, sometimes quite inadvertently derailing the mecha-nism off balance with the power of her performing personality.

oped their own modes of interaction, support and transfer of knowledge, even without a room of one’s own, moreover, precisely in common spaces, but the long-term reach of these practices was painfully limited2. Collectiveness was inscribed in the feminist project, as well as in social theory and political practice, both as an elementary assumption for any engaged effort and as one of the conceptual foundations, built despite the patriarchal vertical structure and the artistic cult of a sin-gular genius. Collective art practices in general evolved in a polemical relationship with the romantic tradition that fosters the Author as one, single and unique source of artistic magic, as a divine mediator creating intuitively, almost mystically, which earns him a special status. Collective art practices, on the other hand, already organically underline the dimension of artistic work as work and disperse the merit and the respon-sibility among the community members as essentially equal. The radical feminism of the seventies, when feminist artistic production blossomed, stimulated gathering in exclusively female groups, creating havens talking about experiences – often the experiences of abuse and oppression – and joint creativity without a recognisable Author’s name. Nevertheless, the feminist para-canon is shaped around individual names, even when large collaborations are concerned3, which must be partly a result of the way (performance) art is document-ed, systematised and conveyed, as well as the consequence of thinking about art history in the very terms of canon, which is in itself erected and phallogocentric. The feminist reorgani-sation of trajectories of thought strives to capture this manner of perception to the benefit of a horizontal approach, but this breaking of the customary moulds in their final consequenc-es demands a long and continuous work with no shortcuts.

The work All Four for One. On the edge of touch and chaos (Sve četiri za jedno. Na rubu dodira i kaosa) by Ana Kreitmeyer, in association with Martina Tomić, Ivana Pavlović and Petra Chelfi, sprang from the enthusiasm and frustration caused by the Keep Dance Autonomous initiative and the perform-ative interventions in public space named Bodying, partly inspired by Simone Forti’s iconic piece Huddle. Performing the experience of joint (collective) effort, which still at least to some degree swerves into collisions and hitting the wall, All

2 It is interesting to remember that, for instance, during the Second World War, small female collectives, as an important part of the driving force of resistance, to a certain point passed below the radar, masque-raded as gathering around female crafts and, generally speaking, the fundamental channels of fight for equality were at first created with the help and around similar communities.3 Such as, for example, Three Weeks in May by Suzanne Lacy or Wo-manhouse by judy Chicago and Miriam Shapiro, in which many, mostly unnamed, heroines took part.


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Four stages another thing, much more seductive – the power and gentleness of female relationships. The childish quality of relations embodied on the stage is touching and magnificent, and the unburdened interaction between the dancers, charged with intuitive care, quiet love and playful dedication, which indeed belong only to childhood, are a rarely intense emotional experience for many of the people present. At the centre of the stage one element of set design is placed as a nuisance, to break the void and create the need for all four to take care not to touch the sharp edges of the wooden structure. Connection and friendship between the dancers, their mutual experi-ence of stage work, are genuine qualities oozing from their work and partly directly from the private sphere, equal to the political dimension of work, even greater in significance. The four artists are equal in performance terms and resonate as a seamless community, energetically overflowing each other.

Our dance scene is populated to a large extent by women, from artists and choreographers to pedagogues and students, and it is a known fact that such gender imbalance is in a direct connection with how the society evaluates, also financially, a certain sphere of activity. In that respect the presence of all-female or predominantly female collectives on stage and behind it has never been a result of coincidence, although it is not necessarily meant as a conceptual basis of individual projects. Artistic production is by definition determined by the gender dimension thematically and aesthetically as long as the society is determined by binary constructs, although this link is neither singular nor reducible to understandable common denominators. Perhaps the invocation of feminism would also be more expressed is there was a similar type of competition on the dance scene as it exists in other fields, dominated by the patriarchal, phallogocentric and simply phallic discourse. All Four for One embody echoes of the battle for dance auton-omy, meaning for all the investments required for creative production to live and breathe, and gender monolithness of the cast is a clear sign of the issues anchored in the cause/consequence crossroads of local dance scene’s marginalisation.

Contemporary feminism is ramified and fractured into branches in a strong mutual tension. In its neoliberal muta-tion it lost its essential quality of class awareness, horizontal organisation and solidarity to the benefit of the capitalist value of (pseudo)individuality. The private is not only political, the political is private and each has the right to her own individual feminism, whose givens and measures she sets herself under the aegis of the idea of gender equality and women empower-ment. At the same time, although feminism has developed a populist version and, as Nina Power says, due to the tenden-cy to mean anything now means nothing, this controversial openness achieved the most in popular culture, while our

art scene often rejects the feminist label as dated or limiting. In retrospect, a clear continuity of feminist art practice in our history has not been established, especially not in the way to make this history documented, available and articu-lated, which might have an impact on today’s detachment and alienation from feminism, despite powerful female creative personalities who marked this very same art history. Often in discussions about the feminist quality of individual works or bodies of work artists point out that their work is not primarily or exclusively feminist, underlining that their perspective is broader than the feminist scope. It is a bit disappointing that one still seems to have to highlight that the feminist focus doesn’t narrow the cognitive horizon, but rather inevitably expands it, since it always communicates with the dominant-ly patriarchal universe in which it fights for existence and includes the perspectives excluded from tradition4. But is it worthwhile to ask also how much the funding principles, as part of the current political dynamics, influence the existing aversion towards feminism and is it a matter of conceding to the assumption that the feminist denomination, explicitly expressed, can seem discouraging to a potentially interested audience? Feminist criticism is today part of most curricula in humanities and art studies and feminism might be to a great extent normalised in the academic discourse, although it still wages a noble battle for existence and expansion of its own scope, which is – in principle – a positive and encouraging tendency. But can we assume that it seems repulsive, elitist and counterproductive in another context? Furthermore, does feminist work even need the denomination? Is it enough to relate to the vague idea of empowerment and increasing the visibility of female authorship? Can the creative act of female authorship be considered politically and feminist-relevant in itself? Denomination is definitely important and the language

4 Interest in feminism is present on the Croatian scene, which is evident from the work of feminist websites like the dearly missed Muf, Krilo as its successor, and VoxFeminae, which also organises a growing feminist festival. Faktiv creates significant work and their activism is sometimes the only quick and vibrant response in public space on the frightening conservative tendencies of the current socio-political bac-kground. The Centre for Women’s Studies has a long tradition of educa-tion and publishing, although in recent years it suffered difficult blows in terms of institutional support. Focusing mainly on the issues of envi-ronment and sustainability, the artistic new media collective Ljubavnice is another interesting occurrence, although their do not tackle the fe-minist or gender issues directly, while the curatorial collective WHW or-ganises projects and visits of visual artists important for feminism. Furt-hermore, the works of individual female (and some male) authors refer to feminist views in different ways and it would be hard and utterly un-rewarding in this context to list all the names of merit, but one cannot help but notice, in this scattered crowd, a lack of a more systematic pra-ctice that focuses on feminism in the field of performance arts or articu-lates its work with a clear feminist awareness, perhaps even denomina-ting it as such.


acts in social space, but boundaries between the desirable and counterproductive insisting on denomination easily turn into a mine field.

Artistic revolutions in the early 20th century and again in the sixties were, in addition to feminist waves of the same periods, marked by important breakthroughs in dance art and the large significance of art collectives. The importance of the collective echoes particularly loudly in terms of practices which are not strictly institutionally structured or support-ed and artists who share the same interests naturally flock together for exchange and support, but also for a possibility of better visibility and a more powerful impact of engaged works and artistic activism. Simultaneously, the development of modern and post-modern dance spontaneously embodies some of the feminist principles in its initial resistance to the figure of a choreographer and the instrumentalisation of the female body, opening to dance as an expression and exam-ination which maintains its fundamental autonomy of the dancing body and mind. The revolution of modern dance in the early 20th century introduced the free and sensual female body, whereas the post-modern dance in the second half of the previous century greatly embodied the androgynous or gender-neutral expression which strived to liberate the female body of traditional objectification. Post-modern dance has also to a large extent favoured collective work, which could be related to a shift away from the affective, necessarily personal expression to a more cerebral, colder approach to examination in and through movement. In contemporary contemporary dance there is eclecticism typical of the post-post-modern art in general, however a more powerful connection on our scene is maintained with later tradition, separated from the already dated principle of women’s writing and dance as an emotional expression. In that respect, assumptions could be made about an approach to dance as a practice beyond gender, but this ideal also belongs to utopia, whose flashes can be transposed into the present only with a profound examination which takes no gender implications and repercussions for granted.

An all-female cast performs the piece Family (Familija), choreographed by Roberta Milevoj, inspired by an exploration of elephant communities and their fascinating and complex relations, emotional relationships and rituals. On the cross-roads of everything that brings us close to such drastically dif-ferent creatures from us, a narrative arch is built in an episodic composition of a performance which is very quiet and slow, and whose intensity accumulates in a focused communication among the elephants (Filipa Bavčević, Silvija Dogan, Antonia Dorbić, Ana Jelušić, Katarina Rilović, Sara Škrobe, Lana Špra-jcer, Mia Zalukar). The dancers are neutral in their expression

and the charge is created in the contact and suspended atten-tion which never ceases between them throughout the perfor-mance. The choreographer is not included in the performance in which the dancers are almost indistinguishable from one another due to blending into a consistent performative mix; movements seem to expand and stick together, maintaining a heavy and touching inertia of the movement of the animals which served as inspiration and model.

It is important to bear in mind that the elephant society is matriarchal and matrilineal and that adult males stay on the margins of the society, detach from it or create their own exclusive communities with a clear-cut hierarchy, where-as female elephants spend their entire lives in collectives in which they take care of each other and raise offspring togeth-er. Touch is key for their communication, they enjoy playing, they express an entire array of emotions, and they particularly stand out with the power of empathy and incredible gentleness they treat each other with. The strongest and most important love in the elephant community is the love of a mother for her young. Therefore Family, although at first sight may (or may not) seem genderless, reflects an analysis of emotional communities, motherhood and mutual support among women, repeating the obsessive topics of feminism which have never lost their relevance.

Although the mentioned pieces are clearly structured, individual performances greatly depend on the shared ener-gy of the performance collective, which can radically change the meaning and impression of the performance. It is clear from the authors’ and participants’ statements that there is a difference between a performance which achieved the best possible desired impression and the one that did not, where

Sonja Pregrad, Home photo: Sara Moritz

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the feelings of the authors on the one hand and the co-work-ers on the other frequently differ, when the authors are not themselves performers. These are performance works whose fragility perhaps exceeds the average vulnerability of a per-formance work due to the relative openness inside the given scope and due to the primary importance of the sensory and visceral experience of the body, which can never be entirely manageable, just like it can hardly be translated into words. The collectives of these dance works have a clear impression about which tone of energy is ideal for work, although in reality all the variations, as far from the ideal as they may be, comprise the entirety of a piece’s meaning, in which detachment is built in a priori and is, moreover, essential for a performance to breathe. Interestingly, all the mentioned titles, which serve as examples of collective works inviting to feminist consider-ations, share the described openness and vulnerability stem-ming precisely from their collective nature. Also, all the three pieces are clearly anchored in one authorial personality, the concept author and the choreographer, regardless of the collec-tivity in the work process and performances, and togetherness as an essentially defining conceptual background. Thinking and talking about the pieces, the fact stands out that this is the work of Sonja Pregrad, Ana Kreitmeyer, Roberta Milevoj. Such perception implies that there is a recognisable stamp of individual aesthetics, potentially politics, which makes it more a work of one person than a group, i.e. it points us to the assumption that the author is one and that her collaborators harmonise their contribution with her vision and poetics. However, the question in this case is on what we found the insight into the mentioned creative stamp and how much is singular authorship conditioned by the knowledge and infor-mation existing beforehand and independently of the piece itself. No work of art is made in a vacuum and anyone pro-fessionally involved in art theory, critique or practice should contextualise it within an existing oeuvre, but it is reasonable to assume that our impression of a piece, so to speak smeared by previous knowledge and assumptions about the work of established artists and their perhaps creatively less exposed collaborators, could be flawed, stripping the piece of a possi-bility to be perceived as an essentially collective endeavour. The starting point of collaborative practices is a certain insight into the practice and the essential disposition of artists invited to take part in the process, which is particularly easy on a scene as small as Croatian, where acquaintances and collaborations as such are inevitable. However, it is important whether our perspective is flawed due to an assumed perception of creative singularity compared to other collaborators’ investment, often not limited to the performative role, but rather conditioning the evolution of a piece and the final result.

Interestingly, all the three described pieces focus on the idea of collectiveness, collectivity, togetherness and commu-nities, and it is the examination of these concepts and expe-riences that is in the centre of each performance, as the initial impulse and the conceptual anchor of a work. This fact testifies to the need not only for joint creating, support and exchange, but also for the questioning of the possibilities and limitations of the space of togetherness, for creating temporary utopias, haven, shelters, such as (and especially) home and family; torn between the socio-evolutional need of change and the conservative counter-strike that pushes us back. Finally, from the point of view of reception and regardless of the credits or prominent names on posters, all the mentioned works, next to many other similar worth mentioning, echo in feisty strength, beauty of mutual support and utopian hope whose private and political meaning is immeasurable.


Ana Fazekaš graduated in Comparative Literature and Russian Language and Literature from the Faculty of Huma-nities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, and currently attends a PhD course in Literature, Performance Arts, Film and Culture. Her field of activity is primarily criticism of perfor-mance arts and art theory in contact with feminist and queer criticism and psychoanalysis theory. She writes for several art and culture publications and is the editor of culture with ELLE magazine.

Beautiful monster of collaboration

To prekrasno čudovište suradnje

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31MOVEMENTS 32 | 19beAUTIFUL MoNSTeR oF CoLLAboRATIoN

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Zrinka Užbinec

To prekrasno čudovište suradnjeKasno je toplo ljeto. Sjedim vani, trljam si kosu i glavu da se razbudim. Potreba za proizvodnjom riječi još je uvijek na niskoj razini tjeskobe. Tako je lijepo.Savršen ugođaj za razmišljanje:

foto: zrinka Užbinec

32 KRETANJA 32 | 19 To PReKRASNo čUdoVIšTe SURAdNje

O suradnji.

Ne postoji ništa što bih mogla odstraniti od sebe a da bih govorila o suradnji. To je, na neki način, preintimna tema – moje umjetničko ja, moja sastavnica, moje čudovišno1 ja.

Pogledala sam oko sebe povezujući se s okolinom. Poma-gala sam sebi da ponovno postanem javna (ili politična?)2. U tom sam trenutku ugledala mačka boje otirača kako sjedi kraj mene i čisti si stražnje noge. Upitala sam ga: „Što ti misliš o suradnji?“ Nogu je digao visoko i pogledao me u čudu dok sam tiho govorila:

„Na ovoj kasnoljetnoj vrućini ustala sam i počela plesati breakdance, kao nekada.

Kolektivan doživljaj. Vježbala sam prekide u kombinaciji s plesom obogaćenim

otuđenjima3 objašnjenim u pokretima o kojima sam rasprav-ljala danima proizvodeći zbrke koje su se odzada projicirale na ekran. Ponekad. Često bi glasovi transkribirani u bilješ-kama utjelovljavali pokrete opisane riječima proizvedenima u raspravama pri donošenju odluka. O kasnim jutrima. Kola-teralne ozljede;

dvorane su se transformirale dok smo gledali filmove.Mnoga pitanja postajala su bilješke. Pokreti su nastali slu-

čajno, iz sreće, u kombinaciji sa zvukovima iz mašte, prevede-nima u misli oblikovanima disciplinom:

Zajedno.Plesali su neki.

1 Ideja čudovišnog tijela u suvremenoj umjetnosti, kako predlaže te-oretičarka bojana Kunst, kaže da se izvedbena tijela mogu shvatiti kao suvremena čudovišta iz nekoliko složenih razloga. jedan od njih je re-akcija na potlačen položaj tijela u zapadnoj kulturi u pogledu nevidljive rodne, rasne i društvene artikulacije. S druge strane, postoje opasne veze u sagledavanju tijela u smislu artikulacije na tehnološkom, ekonomskom i znanstvenom polju. Više u: bojana Kunst, “dangerous Connections” (2001), http://www2.arnes.si/~ljintima2/kunst/t-dc.html (zadnji pristup 14. listopada 2019.)2 „osobno je političko“ politički je argument korišten kao slogan studentskog pokreta i drugog vala feminizma krajem šezdesetih. Ista-knuo je važnost odnosa osobnog iskustva i širih društveno-političkih struktura.3 Pojam otuđenja pojavio se zahvaljujući istraživanju kojim smo se bavili u bAdco-u. Vježbali smo razumijevanje kako stroj vidi prostor i pokret uz pomoć softvera Whatever dance Toolbox (WdT). WdT pred-stavlja dugoročnu istraživačku suradnju interakcije računala i plesača, kojom se bave bAdco. i njemački dizajner sučelja, umjetnik daniel Tu-ring. dizajniran je kako bi pomogao razvoju, analizi i uvježbavanju ko-reografskog djela. Rad s podijeljenom pažnjom, razumijevanje važnosti svjesnog odlučivanja u plesnoj improvizaciji, pristup improvizaciji u smi-slu montaže, učenje kako se koristi tehnologija u svrhu analize i promje-na kvalitete pokreta samo su neki od praktičnih aspekata kojima smo se bavili uz pomoć WdT-a.

Jedan je duet izveden za poglede stisnut u poderane kostime. Štoviše, posuđene.

Veoma ponosna. Zbrka. Naglas prošaptana.“

Kolektivno uključuje povratne informacije: zapisane u bilješke, ojačane mislima prevedenim u pokrete, nauče-ne napamet, ponavljane redovito do vremena obilježenim premijerom.

„Toliko vremena provodeći vrijeme plešući za sebe i za druge. Sretnog, znaš“, rekla sam mačku, „ali ne u kombinaciji s pokretima koje su osmislili drugi, koje su proizvele njihove misli i bilješke i kasnonoćne rasprave i svađe koje su potom postale moje dok sam se pripremala za predstavu.“

Takva rijetkost.

„Sve su te metode u kombinaciji sa strategijama prerađe-nima u koreografije u kombinaciji s dramaturškim davanjem smisla zapele u glavi, procurile u ligamente, proizvele pokrete i tekućine. Udovi su odlučivali, osjećaj je omogućio.“

Osvrtanje. Na: doživljaje koji su se poigravali mislima koji su postali

bilješke, zatim metode spojene sa strategijama prerađenima u koreografije i dramaturško davanje smisla - prema plesu u obliku bilježaka - koreografija, kompozicija, stalna promjena, međuodnosi. Montaža.

„Prisvajanje“, naglasila sam.

Sve te metode u kombinaciji sa strategijama prerađeni-ma u koreografije postale su tekućina koju proizvodi tijelo. Eksplodirala sam ih i razasula u dijelove da vidim njihove međuprostore. Spojila sam ih nanovo i sastavila:

„miraž“, rekla sam.A zatim: „Oh, oprosti – kolaž.“

To je naprosto kinestezija - premošćivanje razgovora u pokret. Prema koreografiji.

To je naprosto kinestezija - dijalektička priroda svakod-nevnih proba. Tijelo koje može birati hoće li narušiti tuđu stabilnost, istražiti fluidni karakter kolektivnog identiteta. “Moja malena sloboda.”

Metode u kombinaciji sa strategijama prerađenima u koreografije nastalim na tijelu i u tijelu. „Mreža fragmenta-cija, potom konstitucija koja proizvodi začudne veze. Pokret, sretna misao, dobra proba, ritam suradnje.“


ZriNKA UžBiNec

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Kondenzacija elemenata prepoznatih kao poetika.

„Stvaranje plesa zajednički, kolektivno, tijelu daje čudo-višnost. Dok gledamo tijela u pokretu, ne gledamo samo izo-lirane pokrete plesa omeđene konvencionalno doživljenim tijelima, u kojima koža plesača postaje njihova granica prema okolini. Ples ujedno stvara mogućnost gledanja pokreta oslo-bođenog ograničenja jednog tijela, osobito ako koreografija uključuje više od jednog plesača. Tako ples postaje kombi-natorička igra ruku jednog plesača i nogu drugog, različi-tih prostornih orijentacija koje doprinose ritmu zajedničkog pokreta. Na kraju, pojedinačne kretnje i intenziteti koje stva-raju različiti dijelovi tijela grade dinamičnu mrežu pokreta. Kretnje se tako percipiraju van granica određenog tijela i nji-hove vezanosti za rod, raspadajući se i preraspoređujući na različite načine.“4

Svojim sam plesom nanovo povezivala i razmatrala pret-hodne odnose, proizvodila nova značenja. Razasula svoje kolektivno iskustvo na komade kako bih vidjela što je izme-đu. Sastavila vlastiti miraž - koreografski kolaž - raspored razasutih dijelova, re-produkciju, spoj ostataka, zajedničkih isprobavanja, stvaranja fizički nemogućih veza, umnožava-nja kroz rezove i frustracije. Proizvela iskrivljenja mjerila, „naizgled beskrajne mogućnosti za tjelesne transformacije: ljepotu, zaigranost, plodnost, život i stravu i užas svega toga, sve odjednom.“5

Pronašla pomoć u očiglednosti geste kolaža; a mi smo plesali kroz vrijeme.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Ušla sam u sobu i obratila se mačku:

„Dobrodošao u vođeni obilazak moje kolektivne prakse. Za tebe sam priredila eksplodirani prikaz. Vidjet ćeš razasu-te dijelove mog suradničkog stroja zalijepljene po zidovima, poput izložaka, poput ready-madeova. Izvoli, uđi.“

Duboko sam udahnula i počela mu govoriti:

„Prvi izložak govori o kolektivnoj praksi BADco.-a6, izvedbenog kolektiva iz Zagreba. Njegova sam članica već 19 godina. BADco. je kolektiv sastavljen od tri koreografa/ple-

4 Ulomak iz teksta koji sam napisala za magistarsku radnju iz kore-ografije i izvedbe u giessenu, Njemačka, pod naslovom Imploded Goo: Thoughts on Montage-like Choreography.5 Vlatka Horvat6 http://www.badco.hr/hr/home/

sača, dva dramaturga, jednog filozofa i producenta. Pojmovi, nadahnuća i misli koje sada dijelim s tobom jesu sediment našeg kolektivnog znanja.

Važno je za napomenuti da mi se čini nemogućim zaobi-ći poetičku i kolektivnu podsvijest kolektiva upisanu u moje plesačko tijelo. To znači da ću, ako zumiram, primijetiti toli-ko mnogo različitih upisa koji su oblikovali i preoblikovali moj ples tijekom godina – kolektivnu misao umnoženu kroz projekte, rasprave, pregovore, radionice, prijateljstva, nespo-razume i sporazume.

Dugo je to vremena – moje kolektivno iskustvo počinje davno, u vrijeme kolektivne koordinacije ekscene7 i break-dancea u Oktogonu8. Sada se širi, kroz nekoliko novih surad-nji s kolegama s CuP-a9. I opet, mi smo umjetnici iz različitih konteksta, no sličnih pristupa. Zajedno radimo i maštamo na putu prema još jednoj zajedničkoj praksi – fluidnoj konste-laciji – sustavu podrške – možda.

Katkada, to je vrijeme provedeno s prijateljima dok pro-turječno koristimo svoja tijela, dok kompozicijski osjećamo tuđa tijela, dok tečno pravimo smetnje u našem kolektivu.

Katkada je to paradoks u kombinaciji s brigom.Često je to zamjena identiteta kojoj želim pristupati

pažljivo.Znaš, stalno se zaljubljujem u mogućnosti. Vrtim se u

beskonačnom kaosu pokušavajući se prepoznati kompozicij-ski. Razasula sam se pa pronašla način da se nanovo sastavim – koreografirajući eksplodirane dijelove usvojene kolabora-tivne prakse – drugačije.

‘Imenovanjem objavljujem svoju prisutnost, tako potvr-đujem tko sam i što sam i kako želim da me drugi prepoznaju. Imenovanje sebe taktika je preživljavanja.’10

Proizveli smo mnogo povratnih informacija zapisanih u bilješkama, rasutih u mislima, prevedenim u pokrete nauče-

7 eksperimentalna slobodna scene (ekscena) nezavisna je organizaci-ja za promidžbu suvremenog plesa i drugih oblika izvedbenih umjetno-sti. (www.ekscena.hr)8 oktogon je gradski prolaz u središtu zagreba gdje se sastaju mladi-ći i djevojke koji plešu breakdance i vježbaju svoje pokrete još od počet-ka 1990-ih.9 Master iz koreografije i izvedbe (MA Choreography and Perfor-mance) međunarodni je magistarski studij koji su osmislili i organizira-ju Institut za primijenjene kazališne studije pri Sveučilištu u giessenu te odsjek za suvremeni ples na Akademiji za glazbu i izvedbene umjetnosti u Frankfurtu (Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Frankfurt am Main). (https://www.inst.uni-giessen.de/theater/)10 Anzaldúa, gloria e. To(o) Queer the Writer- Loca, escritora y chica-na; The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader (duke University Press, 2009), 166


ne napamet pa ponavljane redovito do vremena obilježenim premijerom.

Toliko vremena plešući za sebe i za druge.Sretnog, znaš.Volim ja to prekrasno čudovište suradnje.“

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Otvorila sam prozor. U daljini je lajao pas. Mačak je želio izići pa sam otvorila vrata. Provirila je biljka što mi je bio znak za početak izvedbe.

Vratila sam se i smjestila na pod. Sjela sam sebi zdesna, blago frknula nosom i nježno pomaknula nogu. Skočila sam i okružila glavom koncentrirajući se. Fokusirala sam se na unutarnji osjećaj tog pokreta. Omela sam se ipak čuvši vanj-ske zvukove pa sam brzo promijenila položaj kako bih poče-la nanovo.

Sama sam se sebi kolektivno osmjehnula.

Usta su mi bila ljepljiva -želim reći više.

Zrinka Užbinec plesačica je s interesom za koreografi-ju. Živi i radi na potezu Giessen – Zagreb što nepovratno utječe na njene umjetničke, ekonomske i emocionalne veze. Ključne riječi za njenu recentnu umjetničku praksu jesu: BADco., MA CuP / Justus – Liebig – Universität Gießen, Eksplodirani razmaz.


ZriNKA UžBiNec

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zrinka Užbinec, Eksplodirani razmaz foto: Marko Pejović

36 KRETANJA 32 | 19

ZriNKA UžBiNec

36

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To PReKRASNo čUdoVIšTe SURAdNjeKRETANJA 32 | 19

Zrinka Užbinec

Beautiful monster of collaborationSitting outside in the late summer warmth, I was rubbing my hair and head to wake up. The need to produce words was still on its lower anxiety level. So nice. A perfect setting to reflect:

Photo: zrinka Užbinec


About collaboration.There is nothing I can exclude from myself to be able to

talk about collaboration. In a way, it is a too-private-to-share thing - my artistic me, my composite, my monstrous1 me.

I looked around, connecting myself with my surroundings. I was helping myself to become public again (or political?)2. At that moment I saw a cat, the same colour as the mat, sitting next to me cleaning his hind legs. I spoke to him: “What do you think about collaborating?”

His leg was high up; he looked towards me in wonder as I started to speak in a low voice:

“In this late summer warmth, I got up and started to break-dance, like back in the days.

Collective experience. I practised interruptions combined with dance enriched

with alienations3 explained in movements discussed through days producing confusions projected on the screen from behind. On occasions.

Often voices transcribed in notes embodied in movements described in words spent with discussions, making decisions. Of late mornings. Collateral injuries;

studios were transforming while watching movies.A lot of questions becoming notes then again move-

ments done by accident, produced out of happiness, com-bined with sounds of fanciness, translated in thoughts done by a discipline:

1 The idea of the monstrous body in contemporary art, as proposed by theoretician bojana Kunst, means that performing bodies may be un-derstood as contemporary monsters for several complex reasons. one of them is a reaction to the suppressed position of the body in Western culture concerning its invisible gender, racial, and social articulation. on the other hand, there are dangerous connections in the understanding of the body concerning its articulation in the technological, economic, and scientific fields. See more in: bojana Kunst, “dangerous Connecti-ons” (2001), http://www2.arnes.si/~ljintima2/kunst/t-dc.html (last ac-cessed on october 14, 2019)2 “The personal is political” was a political argument used as a rallying slogan of student movement and second-wave feminism from the late 1960s. It underscored the connections between personal expe-rience and larger social and political structures. 3 It is due to the research we did in bAdco. that the notion of alie-nation appeared. In this research we practiced to understand how the machine sees the space and the movement with a set of software to-ols Whatever dance Toolbox (WdT). WdT is a long-standing resear-ch-oriented collaboration around computer-dancer interaction between bAdco. and german human-machine interface developer and artist da-niel Turing. It is designed to assist in generating, developing, analyzing and rehearsing choreographic work. Working with divided attention, un-derstanding the importance of conscious decision making in dance im-provisation, approaching improvisation in terms of montage, learning to use technology for the sake of analysis and change in movement quality are only some practical aspects that we addressed with the help of WdT.

Together.Movements danced by some. There was a duet performed for gazes squeezed in costumes

that ripped apart. They were borrowed even. I was proud.Confusion. Whispered out loud.”

Collective means feedbacks: written in notes augmented in thoughts translated in movements memorized by heart repeated on time marked by a premiere.

“So much time spending my time dancing for self and others. Happy, you know,” I said to the cat, “but not with movements done by others produced by their thoughts and notes and late-night discussions and quarrels becoming mine preparing for the show.”

So rare.

“All those methods combined with strategies reworked to choreographies combined with dramaturgical sense-making got stuck in my brain, leaking down to ligaments, producing movements and liquids. Limbs were deciding. A feeling - to”,

look back. At:experiences messing with thoughts that became notes,

then again methods combined with strategies reworked to choreographies, combined with dramaturgical sense-mak-ing - towards dance in the form of notes - choreography, composing, continuous changing, interrelating. Montaging. “Becoming my own.”

All these methods, combined with strategies reworked to choreographies that stayed inscribed, became a liquid produced by a body. I exploded them in parts to see the in-between. I glued them again to compose:

“a mirage”, I said. Then: “Oh pardon - a collage.”

It›s simply kinesthetic - to create a bridge between those conversations and the body and the dance. Towards choreography.

It’s simply kinesthetic - the dialectical nature of everyday rehearsing. The body that can choose to shake the stability of others, to explore the fluctuating character of collective identity. “I feel this as liberty.”

Methods combined with strategies reworked to choreog-raphies made on the body and in the body.


03ZriNKA UžBiNec

“A matrix of fragmentations, together with constitutions, producing strange connections. A movement, a happy thought, a good rehearsal, the rhythm of collaborating.”

The condensation of elements recognized as poetics.

“Making dance together, collectively, gives monstrosi-ty to the body. While watching bodies in movement, we do not merely watch isolated dancing features, enclosed within the conventionally perceived bodies, in which the skin of the dancer becomes their borderline concerning the surroundings. Dance also creates a possibility of watching a movement that is liberated from the limitations of a single body, especially if the choreography includes more than one dancer. In that way, dance becomes a combination game of one dancer’s arms and another dancer’s legs, of various spatial orientations contribut-ing to the rhythm of a joint movement. Eventually, individual intensities of movements produced with various bodily parts construct a dynamic network of the movement. Movements are perceived outside of limitations of the specific body and its boundedness to gender, disintegrating and redistributing themselves in different ways.”4

In my dance, I made connections, reflected previous relations to produce new meanings. I exploded my collec-tive experience in parts to see the in-between and made the choreographic collage. A choreography, an arrangement of parts, set of fragments, a re-production, a composite of lefto-vers, combined tryouts, us being together making: physically impossible connections, multiplications, cuts and fusions, distortions of scale and space, “seemingly endless possibilities of bodily transformation: beauty, playfulness, fecundity, life and horror of that, conjured all at once.”5

I found a help in the obviousness of the gesture in collage;while we danced through time.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

I entered the room and turned towards the cat saying:

“Welcome on a guided tour through my collective practice. I made an exploded view for you. You will see exploded parts of my collaborative machine glued on the walls, like exhibits, like ready-mades. Please, enter.”

4 This is a fragment from the text I wrote as my master thesis for MA Choreographie und Performance, giessen, germany under the name Imploded Goo: Thoughts on Montage-like Choreography.5 Vlatka Horvat

I took one long breath and started to speak:

“The first exhibit speaks about a collective practice of BAD-co.6, a performance collective based in Zagreb. I am part of this collective for already 19 years now, a collective of three choreographers/dancers, two dramaturges, one philosopher, plus the company’s production manager. Notions, inspirations and thoughts, shared now with you, are sedimentation of this collective knowledge.

It is essential to say that it seems impossible to bypass the poetic and collective unconscious inscribed by the collective, in my dancing body. What I mean is, if I zoomed in, I would notice so many different inscriptions that shaped and reshaped my dance over years - the collective thought multiplied by projects, discussions, negotiations, workshops, friendship, misunderstandings and understandings.

It’s been long - my collective experience goes years back, in the time of the collective coordination of ekscena7 and break-dancing in Oktogon8. It is now branching out in several other collaborations with my peers in CuP9. In this new constella-tions, we are again artists coming from different backgrounds with similar approaches. We are spending time together, work and fantasize together heading towards yet another collective practice together - towards a fluid constellation - a support system - maybe.

Sometimes, it is the time spent with friends, using our bodies contradictorily, feeling their bodies compositionally, glitching our collective appearance fluently.

Sometimes, it is a paradox combined with care. Very often is an identity confusion which I want to treat

with care. I am continually falling in love with the possibility, you

know. While being in constant chaos, I’m trying to recog-nize myself compositionally. Eventually, I found a way to glue myself - choreographing exploded pieces of collaborative practice - differently.

6 http://www.badco.hr/en/home/7 experimental Free Scene (ekscena) is an independent organization established to promote contemporary dance and other forms of perfor-ming arts. www.ekscena.hr 8 oktogon is an urban passageway in central zagreb where b-boys and b-girls where meeting and practicing their moves already in early 1999ties. 9 Choreography and Performance is an international master’s degree designed and organised by the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies at giessen University and the department for Contemporary dance at the Academy for Music and Performing Arts in Frankfurt (Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Frankfurt am Main). https://www.inst.uni-giessen.de/theater/


distracted hearing sounds from outside and decided to make a quick change in the position to start anew.

With a collective smile.

My mouth was sticky - I want to say more.


Zrinka Užbinec is a dancer with interest in choreography. They live and work between Zagreb and Giessen, which ines-capably influences their artistic, economic and emotional relationships. The keywords for their recent artistic practice are BADco., MA CuP / Justus – Liebig – Universität Gießen, Exploded Goo.

‘Naming is how I make my presence known, how I assert who and what I am and want to be known as. Naming myself is a survival tactic.’10

We did so much feedbacks written in notes scattered in thoughts translated in movements memorized by heart repeat-ed on time marked by a premiere. So much time spending my time dancing for self and others.

Happy, you know.I love my beautiful monster of collaboration.”

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

I opened the window. There was a dog barking. The cat wanted to go outside so I opened the door for him. The plant peeped through. That was a cue to start my dance.

I got back and placed myself on the floor. I was sitting on the right side of myself, made a little twitch with the nose and a soft change with the leg. I jumped and made a circle with my head to concentrate a bit, focusing on the inside. I got

10 Anzaldúa, gloria e. To(o) Queer the Writer- Loca, escritora y chica-na; The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader (duke University Press, 2009), 166

zrinka Užbinec, Exploded Goo photo: Marko Pejović

40 KRETANJA 32 | 19 KoLeKTIVNo TjeLoVANje

Collective Bodying:

Kolektivno tjelovanje:

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grafika ekscena autor: damir gamulin gamba

Tjelovanje foto: jelena Mihelčić

41MOVEMENTS 32 | 19CoLLeCTIVe bodYINg

NiNA GoJić

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¬ NG: Na lokalnoj plesnoj sceni po-stoji kontinuitet samoorganizacij-

skih praksi u plesu, u nastojanjima da se poboljšaju rad-ni uvjeti i zagovara rješavanje problema prostornih resursa, a onda i druga za to vezana pitanja. Ako se mo-žemo složiti da je Ekscena prva inicijativa koja je skupila scenu na horizontalan način, zanimaju me vaša osobna iskustva djelovanja u tom području. Možete li se prisje-titi momenata društveno-političkog konteksta i unutar plesne scene u kojima se omogućilo da se to dogodi?

¬ SB: Oko Ekscene su se skupili ljudi zbog vlastitih speci-fičnih okolnosti: završetka studija ili potrebe da se samoe-duciraju, ali svi su ti ljudi odnekud došli, a tako možemo ići unatrag do Milane Broš i početka suvremenog plesa u Jugo-slaviji. Ali da, to smo tada svjesno artikulirale i samoorgani-zirale se u horizontalnom smislu, svatko je bio dobrodošao da sudjeluje u procesu.

¬ AK: Činjenica je da su tada postojala dva ansambla, a od nas nekoliko, koji smo bili izvan toga, u jednom se trenutku stvorila kritična masa jer smo shvatili da druge nemamo i da, ako nisi bio u jednom od ta dva ansambla, na neki način nisi nigdje. Nemaš gdje trenirati, gdje vježbati, gdje raditi. Do toga je došlo iz čiste potrebe da opstanemo kao plesačice na sceni. I onda se kucalo od vrata do vrata.

EKSCENA—

¬ SB: Važno je da to nije bila samo nužnost, bilo je potrebe i prije, ali mislim da se kritična masa skupila jer je to htjela pod svojim uvjetima: samoeducirati se, kreativno surađiva-ti, udruživati se i postaviti uvjete za autorski i politički rad.

¬ SP: Neki su djelovali unutar scene u ansamblima ili u njima podučavali ili bili u podmladcima. Činjenica je da su se neki educirali vani pa se vratili s drugim znanjima ili dru-gom idejom statusa plesa jer su bili u nekim drugim kon-tekstima. U Europi početkom dvijetisućitih već je postojalo nekakvo znanje o samoorganizaciji, o ideji plesača kao au-tora, a ne koreografa i ansambla. A sjetila sam se i one MI2, protoMamine liste na kojoj smo svi bili, koja je isto okupila određenu kulturnu zajednicu.

¬ SM: Sjećam se te liste, u to sam vrijeme živjela u Nür-nbergu i sjećam se da sam dobivala informacije iz kom-pletnog, uvjetno rečeno, NGO sektora. To je, ako pričamo o širem društveno-političkom kontekstu, bilo vrijeme uzdiza-nja NGO sektora u Hrvatskoj: novci od Sorosa, organizacija i provođenje raznih inicijativa, te se u tom valu i Ekscena krenula formirati. Sjetila sam se i Rijeke devedesetih kada se Senka Baruška vratila iz Engleske, isto tako i Žak Valen-ta, kada u Rijeci uopće nije postojao suvremeni ples, ali je postojala potreba da se nešto radi te im je iz čiste nužnosti bilo samorazumljivo da će započeti nešto novo. Kucanje na

Nina Gojić

Kolektivno tjelovanje: o samoorganiziranim inicijativama i borbama zagrebačke plesne scene Razgovor sa Selmom Banich, Anom Kreitmeyer, Silvijom Marchig i Sonjom PregradNa razgovor pozvala Nina Gojić


vrata postojećim institucijama nije bila opcija. Naravno da je nedostajalo svijesti i artikulacije modela, ali de facto smo svi skupa bili u dvorani i jedni druge podučavali, jedni s drugi-ma radili. Kad sam se vratila u Zagreb 2002., Ekscena je već bila formirana, a prije toga su bile informacije s MI2 liste. Ekscena je bila vezana za Mamu i što se tiče prostora i što se tiče informacija, koristili smo resurse.

¬ SB: Krajem rata počelo je financiranje civilnog društva, od 1994. kada su se počele intenzivnije osnivati ljudskopra-vaške organizacije, a onda i druge. Ali sigurno je da su oni imali resurse koji su nama, koji smo došli niotkuda, bili ko-risni i na raspolaganju. I svi smo visili u Mami, fizički smo bili tamo i koristili njihov server za prvu Eksceninu mai-ling listu. Tad se osnovao i Clubture (2002.), na različitim su punktovima već postojale različito organizirane formalne i neformalne inicijative i grupe. To je i početak Saveza za centar za nezavisnu kulturu i mlade (2006.), ono što je da-nas Savez udruga Operacija Grad. Ekscena je osnovana 2001. Ideja je otpočetka bila da bude neformalna i, iako je morala biti formalizirana kao udruga, da to bude samo zbog papira. Uvijek je postojala ideja da se ta platforma razmnožava, da je uvijek otvorena i da svatko može, s obzirom na vlastite afinitete i potrebe, preuzeti bilo koju ulogu u njezinom radu: od edukacije do koordinacije programa, od autorskog rada do operative, i da može godišnje predlagati neki program. I tako je doista bilo.

¬ SP: Vratila sam se 2005. kad je Ekscena već bila u pu-nom jeku, ali ono što mi se uvijek činilo je da je Ekscena na neki način hakirala sistem financiranja. Kad sam došla, skužila sam da je već unutar tadašnjeg Gradskog ureda za kulturu, koji je imao drugi sastav nego danas, postojao pro-stor za financiranje malih umjetničkih organizacija, postojao je model za financiranje platforme, dakle mladih plesača i autora, a toga nije bilo prije. Imam osjećaj da ste vi hakirale taj prostor i zanima me kako ste to napravile jer se meni to čini kao jedan od strukturalnih ključeva za ono što je poslije bilo moguće.

¬ SB: Tad su već bile oformljene i prve umjetničke organi-zacije, imala si PC Talu, BADco. i Llinkt!

¬ AK: Tala se formirala godinu – dvije prije, 2000. godine. ¬ SB: To je već bio momentum. Ekscena je to umnožila jer

su se u njoj okupljali svi koji su imali potrebu da se koriste platformom i rade, a i da, zbog toga što ima neke resurse, mogu osnovati svoju umjetničku organizaciju.

¬ AK: To se tako i dogodilo. ¬ SM: Na početku smo prijavljivali projekte preko Ekscene,

ali je nikada nismo navodili kao producenta. ¬ SP: A Ekscena je stvarno bila ideja dijeljenja resursa. ¬ SB: Čini mi se da si u pravu kad kažeš da je to bio mo-

ment hakiranja za otvaranje prostora svim dotad nepozna-

tim subjektima, odnosno novoj generaciji plesnih umjetnica i umjetnika. Da, postojalo je nekoliko umjetničkih organi-zacija, ali Ekscena je pokrivala puno širi prostor i stvorila je nešto poput generatora.

¬ AK: Važan je bio moment samoedukacije. Nijedna umjet-nička organizacija nije to imala niti ju je to zanimalo, a ovo je bilo žarište i resurs da se može prijaviti projekt ili bilo koji tip programa.

¬ SM: Bazična je infrastruktura bila dvorana tadašnjeg Centra za kulturu i obrazovanje Zagreb, odnosno dvije dvo-rane kojima smo se mogli koristiti. To je današnje Pučko otvoreno učilište.

¬ AK: Ne znam precizno, ali prije toga niste mogli dobi-ti prostor za rad, a da Grad Zagreb sufinancira taj kultur-ni centar, troškove čistačice, grijanja. To je bila promjena financiranja.

¬ SB: Mislim i da je važno spomenuti da se tijekom prve godine Ekscene premrežilo jako puno ljudi. Počelo je kao bottom-up, ali su se premrežili gotovo svi na domaćoj, a onda i internacionalnoj sceni u različitim programima. Uvijek je bila ideja, što se tiče internacionalnih suradnji, da to budu umjetnice i umjetnici koji su prepoznali što je Ekscena u smislu njezine političnosti i odluke da se samoorganizira, a iz toga je proizašla i umjetnička perspektiva, koja je od toga neodvojiva.

¬ SP: I lokalno mislim da je važno što smo radili program preko Clubturea za decentralizaciju plesne scene.

¬ AK: U Eksceni pamtim dvorane pune ljudi. Radionice, treninzi, mi se izmjenjujemo: radiš, drugi put vodiš trening, pa bude neki program… Ali baš nas je bilo puno.

¬ SB: I nije bilo toga da je netko podmladak, a netko full cast. Toga u dvorani nije bilo. U odnosu na današnju per-spektivu, tamo se nije išlo da bi se steklo institucionalno obrazovanje. Ona nije bila supstitut za školu. Ekscena je nu-dila vrstu edukacije i samoedukacije koja se može gledati kao kontrainstitucionalizacija edukacije u polju plesa. Nikad nije postojala namjera da se rad Ekscene institucionalizira, da postane akademija ili veliki internacionalni festival. Ideja je bila da osnažujemo jedni druge. Bilo je svega, i puno po-grešaka i propusta, ali mislim da je bilo i puno podrške koju smo jedna drugoj davale.

¬ AK: Apsolutno. ¬ SP: Mislim da sam MI2 listu spomenula obzirom na to

da nisam bila tu pa puno tih stvari nisam doživjela fizički, ali bilo mi je važno da ljudi šalju informacije, da razgovara-ju jedni s drugima, da imaju glasove. Jer tu nisu više samo Mirna Žagar, Darko Kolar i Snježana Abramović koji šalju informacije i otkuda dolazi govor o plesu, nego je to nefor-malna mailing lista. To je početak interneta i odjednom puno više ljudi ima glas, više je ljudi umreženo i po meni je to bio


NiNA GoJić

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trenutak emancipacije: shvatila sam da bih i ja mogla govoriti u tom kontekstu. Ako si plesač i imaš interes, to te stavlja u prostor da govoriš.

¬ SM: To je najvažnije, da te interes stavlja u polje tog go-vora, a ne neka legitimacija izvana. Meni je Ekscena defini-tivno bila iskustvo općeg obrazovanja kao budućeg čovjeka i umjetnice jer smo si međusobno dali podršku da postavimo standarde i istražujemo što znači horizontalna struktura, što znači samoorganiziranje, koji su prioriteti, koji problemi na-staju kad se to stvarno postavi i otvori, kako se s tim nosimo, što znače preuzimanja odgovornosti za vlastite poteze… Te su četiri godine tijekom kojih sam sudjelovala u koordina-cijskom odboru bile jako formativne.

¬ AK: Meni je isto bilo važno za sve inicijative kasnije i upravo su na tim vrijednostima krenule i dalje se nastavljale. Ekscena je bila ključna u mojem vrijednosnom formiranju i pokazala mi je da postoji i drugačije funkcioniranje, pa čak dala osjećaj digniteta koji do tad nisam imala baš zato što je bila nehijerarhijski formirana. Nije mi to nitko drugi trebao dati, nego je došlo iznutra. A to osjećam i u svim drugim ini-cijativama, samo s drugim sadržajima i idejama.

¬ NG: Što je iskustvo Ekscene značilo za osnivanje Zagrebačkog plesnog centra? Iako je to potpuno dru-ga priča o institucionalizaciji kojoj Ekscena nikad nije stremila, zanima me jesu li prakse i iskustva iz Ekscene bili relevantni za to što se institucionalizira u doma-ćem plesu?

¬ SB: Tad smo bile aktivne u Radnoj skupini za hitnu ra-zradu strategija razvoja, financiranja, predstavljanja i dis-tribucije suvremene plesne umjetnosti u gradu Zagrebu pri UPUH-u. Krenule smo se baviti ne samo ZPC-om, nego op-ćenito uvjetima rada od 2007. kad je radna skupina osnovana. Bili su uključeni i drugi akteri, a uglavnom se postavljalo pitanje financiranja, pitanje prostora (gradskih prostora i ka-zališta), a između svega toga i pitanje Zagrebačkog plesnog centra.

¬ AK: U to smo vrijeme izdali Brošuru1 2008. koja je kon-tekstualizirala suvremenu plesnu scenu u Zagrebu. To je bio prvi takav dokument kojim se analiziralo stanje na suvre-menoj plesnoj sceni u Zagrebu te dao uvid u položaj i mar-ginalizaciju plesne umjetnosti. Bili smo intenzivno angaži-rani i problematizirali smo proces samog otvaranja ZPC-a i netrasparentnost cijele te situacije, kao i problematičnost modela postavljanja.

¬ SB: Možda smo bile preskromne da kažemo da ćemo vo-diti ZPC samoupravljački kao što smo to kasnije zagovarale u inicijativi Autonomija plesu.

1 Tekst brošure dostupan na: http://autonomijaplesu.upuh.hr/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/bros%CC%8Cura-2008.pdf

¬ SM: Osim toga, imali smo druge prioritete. Iako ne mo-žemo svoju umjetničku praksu odvajati od političke i jed-no nužno povlači drugo, prije svega smo bile mlade plesne umjetnice. Zanimljivo je pitanje zašto se Pogon uspio usu-staviti kao javno-civilno partnerstvo, a Ekscena, tj. naša ple-sna zajednica, nikad nije. Osim što smo se bavile kulturnim politikama, prvenstveno smo bile u dvorani i proizvodile umjetničke radove. Nismo preuzimale ničije modele, nego smo radile iz autentičnih potreba, a to je bila potreba za sred-stvima za umjetnički rad.

¬ SB: Ne zaboravimo i to da svaka institucionalizacija iza sebe ima dekade predrada. Pitanje je u što bi se takav pokušaj pretvorio i je li bilo moguće u Hrvatskoj 2009. uspostaviti samoupravljački sistem unutar jedne gradske institucije.

¬ NG: U tom je kontekstu zanimlji-va pozicija UPUH-a kao strukovne udruge koja je u ključnom momen-tu preuzela na sebe ulogu posred-

ničkog tijela koje će i pozvati na bojkot ZPC-a. Koliko je odluka da se djeluje u strukovnoj udruzi došla kao nuž-nost, taktička odluka ili posljedica iskustava od ranije? I što vam se čini sad, nakon dvije godine od bojkota, kako komentirate odaziv, je li to ujedinilo neke aktere, razjedinilo neke druge?

¬ SP: Zanimljivo je kad je UPUH postao mjesto mogućnosti takvog djelovanja, jer to nije bio otpočetka. A s vremenom, i u odnosu na situaciju oko ZPC-a, bio je ključan čimbenik kolektivnog djelovanja.

¬ AK: Od preuzimanja, 2005. ¬ SM: To se dugo kuhalo jer je je riječ o tijelu koje je bilo

nemoguće pomaknuti, nije bilo reizbora svake 4 godine predsjednik bi bio jedan i to je trajalo godinama, dok se nije dogodio momentum na koji je utjecalo više aktera na sceni. Pokrenuo se reizbor i tada je odabran novi upravni odbor i nova predsjednica, Snježana Abramović, koja je ostala dva mandata.

¬ SB: Htjela bih spomenuti da se 2010. dogodio prvi veliki rez u javnom financiranju (tad je plesna scena strukovnim udrugama organizirala protestno zauzimanje Gradskog ure-da za kulturu), zatim se 2011. dogodio drugi veliki rez, a po-tom 2012. i skandalozni treći kad se zamračilo 11 milijuna kuna. Brošuru smo izdali 2008. i tad imali prvo Odbrojavanje za ZPC. Iduće godine najesen, gotovo istovremeno, otvara se ZPC i pripremaju prvi rezovi za 2010. Inicijativu Autonomija plesu, plenume, a zatim i poziv na bojkot ZPC-a treba gledati u tom kronološkom slijedu, iz historijske perspektive. Odno-sno kao nastavak samoorganiziranja umjetničke zajednice u borbi za dostojanstvene radne uvjete i otpor politici reza.

PREMA AUTONOMIJI

PLESU—


¬ SM: UPUH je postao to tijelo zbog činjenice da su lju-di angažirani oko pitanja ZPC-a također bili aktivni i u UPUH-u. Ono što ne razumijem je da postoje ljudi koji su izašli iz UPUH-a zbog poziva na bojkot, ali nisu bili u stanju ili životnim situacijama ili nisu imali snage sami preuzeti angažman i ponuditi alternativu, odnosno raditi zajedno sa ili suprotno od. Pri biranju novog upravnog odbora uopće nije bilo preglasavanja i bilo je jasno da će se na kraju spro-voditi njihov stav jer je upravo njima plesna zajednica dala mandat. Zbog čega se ostatak plesne zajednice nikad nije htio politički angažirati, to je pitanje za njih.

¬ AK: U početku je bio plenum, a onda se dosta logično pokazalo da trebamo imati dvije linije borbe i zagovaranja i da je dobro da djelovanje bude formirano s više strana. Bilo je logično da bude prisutno i strukovno udruženje i da se pritisak tako može vršiti snažnije. To je bila taktička odluka. Svi smo bili i po skupštinama i u radnoj skupini. UPUH uvi-jek ima to mjesto, to je strukovno udruženje i treba se baviti tim pitanjima.

¬ SB: Prvo su se održavali sastanci članova zajednice u ko-joj su bili i članovi UPUH-a i članovi PULS-a, a početkom 2016. osniva se Plenum Zagrebačkog plesnog centra koji, za razliku od struke, uključuje i sve druge kojima je to u intere-su jer se radi o javnom dobru koje, ne samo da treba koristiti društvu već društvo njime treba upravljati. ZPC je s vreme-nom postao simboličko mjesto koje je u sebe uspjelo apsorbi-rati jako puno političkog, simboličkog kapitala. Odraz onoga što se događa našem gradu, zajednici i umjetničkoj praksi.

¬ SP: Nisam odgovorila na pitanje o tome što meni pred-stavlja Ekscena, a otud vučem repliku na ovo što si pitala i na razmišljanje o tome gdje smo sad nakon bojkota. Ekscena je prva otvorila mogućnost, mjesto i praksu samoudruživanja za tu grupu ljudi slične dobi i interesa. To tad nije bila cijela struka. Kad se dogodilo prevrtanje UPUH-a, otvorio se pro-stor djelatnosti i opet je to bila grupa od 10 –15 ljudi poimen-ce sa sličnim političkim interesima i diskursom, koji su se aktivirali i nešto radili od 2007. Tada se diskurs samoorgani-ziranja digao na diskurs cijele scene, preko liste UPUH-a se o tome razgovaralo i svaki je član zajednice dobivao sve te in-formacije. Dijalog se proširio na razinu cijele scene i preko te su se liste odvile rasprave ljudi različitih političkih, kultur-nih i estetskih pozicija i to nije uvijek bilo lako, ali se otvorio širi prostor komunikacije unutar plesne scene. Jedan je od razloga zašto sam se odlučila vratiti u Hrvatsku postojanje Ekscene kao prostora unutar kojeg i ja mogu nešto raditi. Mi-slim da je važno razmišljati generacijski. Mi sad razgovaramo o dugačkom periodu samoorganizacije, u kojem su neki ljudi isti, neki su bili uključeni pa nisu, neki novi se uključuju, neki su sad jako mladi i ne uključuju se ili će se uključivati. Čini mi se da se razgovori o svim tim pitanjima vode preko

liste UPUH-a. A kad se dogodilo pripajanje ZPC-a ZKM-u, svi su se aktivirali i na sastanku je bilo 400 ljudi. S jedne je strane bila radna grupa UPUH-a kao sindikat, tijelo koje nije institucija niti struktura moći, što opet ima veze s time da se mi ne organiziramo prema nekoj instituciji, prema neče-mu, nego oko miniemancipacija i omogućavanja našeg rada.

¬ SB: I tad smo bili politički, a onda i ekonomski blokirani, stalno smo morali piliti po tome da je to što radimo suvreme-ni ples, a sad i ovo što ti radiš, netko bi rekao da to nije ples, kužiš koliko je to nazadno, da se čak i danas to prožimanje različitih praksi tako teško probija i legitimira.

¬ SP: A u kontekstu u kojem živimo pitanje je toga da je npr. u Kulturi promjene bilo više vizije za razvoj suvremenog plesa, i da se tamo počela misliti edukacijska i produkcijska platforma, da je postojao netko unutar institucije tko ima produkcijsko-organizacijske kapacitete, tko je htio misliti tako, ili Mirna Žagar, kao netko tko je vodio ZPC u tom tre-nutku ili sada, mogao se dogoditi uzlet. A među nama, i to je mjesto na kojem smo sad, to se ne događa jer nema vizije kulture, produkcije kulture, rada u kulturi koji bi imao dru-gačiju viziju, ali za koju nama treba još neki kapacitet.

¬ SB: Ne sjećam se kad se u nekom drugom polju rada u kulturi išlo sa zahtjevom samoupravljanja resursima za rad. To je vrlo visoki zahtjev i makroemancipacija, ići i onkraj onoga što se smatra tvojom nadležnošću kao umjetnice ili radnice u kulturi. Mislim da je to proizašlo iz cijelog konti-nuteta samoorganizacije na ovim prostorima.

¬ SP: Vraćanje diskursa direktne demokracije i naše pri-stajanje na to je, među ostalim, i tekovina blokade. Plenum je nastao tako da su se uključili ljudi koji nisu bili članovi UPUH-a, ali su bili interesno vezani za izvedbenu umjetnost, a UPUH je bio taktički izbor ako ste se htjeli zalagati za jav-no-civilno partnerstvo, samoupravljanje, upravno tijelo od više članova, i sve to što nismo uspjeli.

¬ SB: To je također potvrdilo da je na razini strukovne udruge, koja je formalnija od udruge ili umjetničke organi-zacije, moguće raditi po načelima samoorganizacije, samo-upravljanja i horizontale. Što znači da ima volje i moglo bi se tako upravljati bilo čime.

¬ NG: Za koje od zahtjeva inicijative Autonomija plesu smatrate da se treba nastaviti aktivno zalagati?

¬ SM: Zahtjev za poboljšanjem uvjeta rada plesne scene, financijskih i infrastrukturalnih, naravno, i dalje je prisutan i za njega se treba zalagati, kao i za priznavanje značaja plesne zajednice unutar kulture i društva, simbolički i materijalno. Konkretan zahtjev uspostave autonomne institucije za ples u Hrvatskoj i dalje je prisutan. Naša sadašnja i buduća nastoja-nja idu u tom smjeru.


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¬ NG: Čini mi se da su i Futur drugi i Antisezona nastavci prakse samoupravljanja kao u Eksceni i Autonomiji plesu, ali se ne bazira-

ju samo na zagovaračkom aktivizmu nego pokušavaju uspostaviti i praksu samokuriranja. U Futuru drugom je možda opet zaživio duh Ekscene u raznovrsnosti sa-držaja koji se nudio, od radionica i diskusija do samoe-dukacijske i prezentacijske prakse i ad hoc aktivnosti i izvedbi. I Futur drugi i Antisezona pokazuju kako in-tenzivne, obimom manje inicijative opet nastavljaju postojeći kontinuitet samoorganizacije.

¬ AK: Ljepota Futura drugog bila je u tome što se način na koji smo funkcionirali i djelovali kao Upravni odbor, kao i sve ovo što smo nabrojali do tog momenta, preveo i u polje programa, odnosno sadržaja. Nije samo ostao na zagovara-nju i političkom djelovanju već je tu praksu otvorio tako da svi članovi sami rade program. Svi mi kreiramo. Članovi Upravnog odbora su ga na neki način moderirali. To narav-no ne može opstati bez podrške, tj. može jednokratno, ali onda treba prostorna, financijska i sistemska podrška da bi se to moglo održati. Bez drugih kapaciteta i resursa ne mo-žeš dalje, ali pokazano je da je moguće. Inicijative su do tad bile zagovaračke, imali smo jedan cilj, a ovo je proželo cijelu zajednicu. Stvorili smo program na tim istim vrijednostima. Bila je to i Ekscena u svojim počecima, ali sada govorim o dvjema strukovnim udrugama i široj zajednici. To je bio prvi i jedinstveni događaj na sceni.

¬ NG: Zanimljiva mi je teza iznesena u opisu online projekta Autonomija plesu2 koja kaže da „ dolazi do ra-slojavanja zajednice i gubitka interesa za političku ho-mogenizaciju, a s druge strane izraženi individualizam, kompetitivnost i gubitak interesa za doista komunalne prakse su rezultat sistemskih uzroka i upravljanja za-jednicom odozgo”. Puno smo razgovarale o tome koji su to sistemski uzroci i upravljanje odozgo, ali sam naišla i na pitanje o tome postoji li i dalje želja za zajednicom ili trebamo nastaviti kao niz individua. Čini mi se da je ovdje odgovor jasan.

¬ SM: Da. Nije želja nego nužnost. Iluzija je da to ne postoji. ¬ SB: Kažemo, bilo je onih koji nisu bili aktivni. Svi su bili

aktivni, ali pitanje je na koju stranu i s kojim ciljem. Čini mi se da smo često gledali na to tako da smo mi bili angažirani, a ovi koji se nisu pojavili nisu angažirani. Oni su itekako an-gažirani, samo s drugom agendom. Neki s vrlo konkretnom, neki misle da nemaju agendu, ali, u biti, apolitična pozicija ne postoji.

2 Online projekt Autonomija plesu dostupan na adresi: http://auto-nomijaplesu.upuh.hr/

FUTUR DRUGI I TRANSGENERA-CIJSKO PITANJE

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¬ SP: Oko Futura se aktiviralo jako puno ljudi, i onih koji nisu bili aktivni unutar Upravnog odbora UPUH-a, zato što se pojavio resurs prostora. Resursi koji se povremeno pojav-ljuju čine da se veći dio zajednice aktivira, kao što se aktivi-ralo s mogućnošću autonomnog ZPC-a, zatim oko Futura, i kao što bi se aktivirali oko npr. otvaranja nekog gradskog kazališta prema ozbiljnijoj programaciji plesa, ili kad bi se u Gradskom uredu za kulturu pojavila osoba koja bi mislila kulturu drukčije.

¬ SM: Mislim da je u čitavom nizu aktivnosti posljednjih 20 godina postojala činjenica da zapravo probijamo puteve za vlastitu generaciju da bismo stvorili uvjete, razbili stare paradigme i posložili nove kako bismo mogli djelovati, ali ne čini mi se da smo ikada razmišljali isključivo o tome, nego, dapače, uvijek uključivo. Razmišljam o tome je li iluzija da generacijski možeš voditi neku borbu i u tome biti inkluzi-van. Pokušavam shvatiti na koji nas način sada mladi kole-ge doživljavaju i uključuju se, odnosno ne uključuju. Sad ne pričam o Antisezoni koja je druga priroda inicijative, nego npr. o Futuru drugom i o tome jesu li su se oni tamo osjetili uključenima ili ne. Mislim da smo se u borbama o kojima smo danas razgovarale trudile biti inkluzivnima i da je to jako bitno.

¬ AK: Koliko god je scena sad drugačija od dvijetisućitih, uvjeti se nisu puno promijenili i mladim ljudima je možda čak i teže, baš zato što ne postoji nešto etablirano, ne postoji nešto novo, budžet se ne proširuje… Postoji samo novi val potreba i želja, ali nemamo velike ansamble ili projekte u kojima će se i na kojima će se ti ljudi moći zaposliti. Zanima me hoće li se za 20 godina dogoditi neka mijena. Činjenica je da ih ne čekaju dobri uvjeti, na neki je način čak i puno zahtjevnije nego onda.

¬ SP: Sad na sceni imamo sve veću grupu ljudi za koje su se stvari značajno promijenile. Oni svi izlaze s Odsjeka za ples, a to podrazumijeva jedan identitet i status, odnos prema tome što je ples, koji je drukčiji nego što je bio za sve nas do prije 5 godina kad se Odsjek osnovao. Pritom to nije jedina stvar. Jedan dio tog identiteta mi ne dijelimo, kao što ne di-jelimo niti dio tih generacijskih i egzistencijalnih pitanja jer naravno da smo s 40ak godina, koliko god bili prekarni i ne živimo od umjetnosti koju radimo, ipak na drugom mjestu od nekog tko ima 25 godina i diplomirao je ples. Razumijem da unutar zajednice postoje različite pozicije, ali me i dalje zanima koji su specifični resursi i hoće li postojati neko novo mjesto zajedništva.


¬ NG: Je li Antisezona jedno takvo moguće mjesto novog zajedništva?

Koje su njezine specifičnosti u odnosu na prakse o ko-jima smo govorile i kako se njome nastoji promovirati, prakticirati i misliti solidarnost i komunalnost?3

¬ SP: Specifičnost Antisezone je da je to druga vrsta samo-organizacije. Kao što je Ekscena bila mjesto za generaciju koja je imala neke druge potrebe, mi smo sad generacija umjetni-ca aktivnih na sceni, i umjetnički i kulturno-politički, a koje unutar te opet prekarne situacije traže prostorni resurs za nastavak djelovanja jer je to trenutno nužda. Kad se izgubio Futur drugi i kad je postalo jasno koji je obim posla boriti se za neki prostor, a i s obzirom na to što se dogodilo sa SC-om i ZPC-om, ostala je potreba za prostorom, crnom kutijom u kojoj se može gledati ples.

¬ AK: Pokušavamo razviti kontinuitet, a ne dati jednokrat-na rješenja. Ne tražimo prostor za premijeru, nego pokušava-mo stvoriti dugotrajnije resurse. Drago mi je misliti Antise-zonu kao pogon i kontinuitet: za nas, za druge, za nove uvjete.

¬ SP: Na taj način Antisezona predstavlja praktično, in-dividualno i kolektivno, rješenje naših potreba za mjestom realizacije predstave ove godine. Dakle, to nije ista vrsta ak-tivizma kakva je bila u Futuru drugom ili Autonomiji plesu ili Eksceni. Ono što u ovom trenu i sljedećih godinu dana možemo raditi je da s jedne strane realiziramo vlastiti rad, a s druge proizvodimo diskurs o plesu i vidljivost plesa. To su stvari koje Antisezona misli kao kolektivno dobro, a poku-šava naći i neki omjer praktične koristi, tj. resursa koji nam može omogućiti da djelujemo kao umjetnice. U razgovoru o tome kako kurirati Antisezonu razmišljale smo kako bi mo-gla biti inkluzivna za što više ljudi. Odlučile smo da ne želi-mo mi biti kuratorice, da ne biramo ljude, a nemamo resurse da otvorimo taj proces svima. Mislim da je to specifičnost Antisezone. I to da smo srednja generacija koreografkinja koja njeguje praksu samoudruživanja, samoorganizacije, di-rektne demokracije u donošenju odluka i prakticiranja svih tih tekovina koje plesna scena iza sebe ima, a ne pokušava etablirati jednu kompaniju, jedno ime.

¬ SM: Antisezonu čini savez od nas 5 umjetnica koje po-kušavaju misliti programaciju i produkciju. Nasljeđe dosa-dašnjih spomenutih akcija sastoji se u tome da pokušavamo jedna za drugu, iz naših odnosa, stvoriti estetsko-politički kontekst za naš rad, a ovo„anti” najviše se odnosi na odmak od etabliranih praksi kojima se slijedi jasna hijerarhija odlu-čivanja odozgo, estetskih prosudbi izvana, postavljanja oče-kivanja i selekcije. Mi se protivimo takvim tradicionalnim

3 za opsežan intervju Luje Parežanina s pokretačicama Antisezo-ne: Anom Kreitmeyer, Silvijom Marchig, Sonjom Pregrad, Ivom Nerinom Sibila i zrinkom šimičić Mihanović,vidi https://www.kulturpunkt.hr/content/pogon-za-nas-za-druge-za-novo

ANTISEZONA—

obrascima i trudimo se pronaći nove. To je neprekinuti rad i nasljeđe svih naših dosadašnjih borbi. Za razliku otada, sada imamo iskustvo, priznanje struke i zajednice, publiku, kon-takte i mrežu suradnika. Bitno mi je ovo izgovoriti jer pone-kad nam se čini da imamo tako malo i da se vrtimo u ukrug već 20 godina, ali ovo nabrojano zapravo je jako, jako puno. Antisezona je gesta udruživanja upravo tog našeg simbolič-kog kapitala. Ona je model samokuriranja i programacije koji želi misliti dalje od puke prezentacije plesa, a nadam se da je i ostatak plesne zajednice može doživjeti i prihvatiti kao integralni doprinos sceni.

¬ SB: Nisam bila uključena u Antisezonu i nisam nažalost ništa uspjela popratiti, ali čini mi se da je jako važno da se nakon Futura drugog i nakon promjene Upravnog odbora dogodilo nešto što nasljeđuje i nastavlja principe o kojima smo razgovarale i što se jako jasno pozicionira u odnosu na druge komodificirane prakse. Problem prostora u Zagrebu nikad nije bio veći nego što je danas.

¬ AK: Zanimljivo je kako uvijek nalazimo nove načine, iznova i iznova. Kad je samoorganizacija za nas praksa pre-življavanja, nema nam druge nego stvarati kontekst uvaža-vanja, prepoznavanja, vrednovanja i podržavanja, svih ovih 20 godina.

VREMENSKA CRTA DOGAĐANJA NA KULTURNOJ SCENI

KOJI SE SPOMINJU U INTERVJUU—

1990. – prve inicijative za plesnu samoedukaciju u Rijeci1994. – osnivanje prvih postratnih ljudskopravaških i dru-

gih organizacija civilnog društva u Hrvatskoj1996. – osnivanje Udruge plesnih umjetnika Hrvatske1999. – osnivanje Multimedijalnog instituta (MI2) 2000. – osnivanje Plesnog centra Tala i umjetničke organi-

zacije BADco.2001. – osnivanje umjetničke organizacije LLINKT!2001. – osnivanje Eksperimentalne slobodne scene, plat-

forme za edukaciju i istraživanja u izvedbenim umjetnostima

2002. – osnivanje saveza udruga Klubture / Clubture, parti-cipativne mreže organizacija koja radi na osnaživa-nju nezavisne kulturne scene

2006. – „Poziv na preuzimanje” koji je organizirala Ekscena u sklopu programa FAQ-u

2006. – osnivanje Saveza za centar za nezavisnu kulturu i mlade, danas Saveza udruga Operacija Grad

2006. – novo vodstvo UPUH-a, na mjesto predsjedni-ce Upravnog odbora dolazi Snježana Abramović Milković

2008. – izdavanje Brošure o stanju plesne scene u Hrvatskoj


NiNA GoJić

04

2009. (travanj) – blokada Filozofskog fakulteta u Zagrebu, širi se na druge fakultete i sveučilišta, studenti upravljaju fakultetima plenumom i principima direktne demokracije

2009. (listopad) – otvorenje Zagrebačkog plesnog centra u Ilici 10, centrom upravlja Hrvatski institut za pokret i ples na čelu s Mirnom Žagar

2010. – prvi veliki rez u javnom financiranju, plesna scena organizira protestno zauzimanje Gradskog ureda za kulturu

2011. – drugi veliki rez u javnom financiranju2012. – treći veliki rez, nestaje 11 milijuna kuna2013. – pokretanje Odsjeka plesa pri Akademiji dramske

umjetnosti u Zagrebu2016. (svibanj) – prvi plenum ZPC-a, početak inicijative

Autonomija plesu!2016. (listopad) – novo vodstvo UPUH-a, na mjesto pred-

sjednice Upravnog odbora dolazi Ana Kreitmeyer2016. (listopad) – odluka o pripajanju Zagrebačkog plesnog

centra Zagrebačkom kazalištu mladih2017. (siječanj-ožujak) – tri mjeseca bojkota ZPC-a na poziv

Upravnog odbora UPUH-a2017. (svibanj) – Tjelovanje, 24-satni protestni ples protiv

gradske politike prema plesnoj umjetnosti2018. (svibanj-lipanj) – otvaranje Futura drugog, prostora za

ljude i ples, s podrškom festivala Platforma HR2018. (kolovoz) – gašenje Kulture promjene u Studentskom

centru2019. (siječanj) – lansiranje online projekta Autonomija

plesu 007-0172019. (ožujak-studeni) – pokretanje inicijative Antisezona

koja se održava u pet blokova

Selma Banich, umjetnica iz Zagreba. Njezina se umjetnička i društvena praksa temelji na procesualnom, istraživačkom i aktivističkom radu, a politički je nadahnuta anarhizmom i radikalnim feminizmom.

Nina Gojić, uglavnom dramaturginja, uglavnom na nezavi-snoj sceni. Piše tekstove o izvedbi i za izvedbu, kolektivno radi plesne i devised kazališne predstave, suradnički razvija istraživačke, procesno orijentirane formate i znatiželje.

Ana Kreitmeyer, plesna umjetnica, članica kolektiva BADco., jedna od organizatorica Antisezone. Interes za tijelo provodi kroz različite prakse, od izvođačke do koreografske, od peda-goške do društvene. Silvia Marchig, plesna umjetnica, osnivačica umjetničke organizacije Kik Melone, jedna od organizatorica Antisezo-ne, dugogodišnja entuzijastica eksperimentiranja unutar ple-snih i izvedbenih praksi u svrhu probijanja granica postojećih modela kreacije, produkcije i prezentacije umjetnosti. Tako-đer i nastavnica klasičnog baleta u Umjetničkoj školi Franje Lučića u Velikoj Gorici. Sonja Pregrad, plesna umjetnica sa interesom za istraživanje i aktivaciju različitih tjelesnih praksi i izvedbenih formata, kao i onih suradničkih i organizacijskih. Sa Zrinkom Šimičić Mihanović vodi inicijativu i festival Improspekcije, s Mari-nom Petković umjetničku organizaciju Četveroruka te je jed-na od organizatorica suradničkog projekta Antisezona.

Ana, Sonja, Selma, Silvia i Nina članice su inicijative Auto-nomija plesu!

Futur II foto: Mia Stark

Antisezona foto: Tara Ivanišević

48 KRETANJA 32 | 19

NiNA GoJić

48

04

KoLeKTIVNo TjeLoVANjeKRETANJA 32 | 19

¬ NG: On the local dance scene the-re is continuity of self-organising practices in dance, in an effort to

improve working conditions and advocate for spatial resources issues to be solved, followed by other related matters. If we could agree that Ekscena is the first ini-tiative that gathered the scene horizontally, I am inte-rested to hear about your personal experiences in this area. Can you remember moments from the socio-po-litical context and inside the dance scene that made this possible?

¬ SB: Ekscena helped gather people of their own specif-ic conditions: the finalisation of their studies or a need to self-educate, but all these people came from someplace, which could trace us back to Milana Broš and the onset of contemporary dance in Yugoslavia. But yes, we conscious-ly articulated it back then and self-organised horizontally, everybody was welcome to take part in the process.

¬ AK: The fact remains that there were two companies and among several of us, who were outsiders, a critical mass grew at some point, we realised we had no other option. If you weren’t part of one or the other company, in a way you were nowhere. Nowhere to train, to rehearse, to work. This came from a simple need to survive as dancers on the scene. And then we knocked on every door.

EKSCENA—

¬ SB: It is important to say that this was more than just bare necessity, the necessity had existed even before, but the critical mass gathered because they wanted to do this their way: self-educate, collaborate creatively, join and establish conditions for creative and political work.

¬ SP: Some people were active on the scene in companies, or they taught in companies, or they were junior members. Some of them went abroad to study and then came back with different knowledge or a different idea about the status of dance, since they experienced a different context. In Europe in the early 2000s there already was a certain knowledge about self-organisation, the idea of a dancer as an author, not a choreographer and company.

That was the time of an NGO sector blossom in Croatia: funds are raised from Soros’s Open Society Foundations for civil sector financing in the post-war ex-Yugoslav countries, human rights initiatives are established and the independent cultural scene works on connecting in different networks and platforms. Some of these initiatives possessed resources which they were willing to share with the independent dance scene, such as physical and online space, which was also of use to the Ekscena platform.

¬ SB: The idea has always been to make Ekscena informal and, although it had to be formalised as an association, for bureaucratic reasons. We have always wanted the platform to

Nina Gojić

Collective Bodying: Of Self-organised Initiatives and Struggles of Zagreb’s Dance SceneInterview with Selma Banich, Ana Kreitmeyer, Silvia Marchig and Sonja PregradInterviewer: Nina Gojić


expand, to remain always open and that anyone can, accord-ing to their inclinations and needs, take any role in its work: from education to programme coordination, from creative work to operations, and that they can propose a programme on an annual basis. And that is how it actually was.

Apart from dancers’ self-education, Ekscena also introduced innovations into the system of financing small artistic organisa-tions, especially those focusing on emerging dancers and authors. In the early 2000s, when Ekscena was established, other artistic organisations arise, such as Tala, BADco. and Llinkt!.

¬ SB: That was already a momentum. Ekscena multiplied it, since it gathered all those with a need to use the platform and work and, because of its resources, since it could help them establish an artistic organisation of their own.

¬ AK: That was exactly what happened. ¬ SM: At the beginning we applied our projects for fund-

ing through Ekscena, but we didn’t credit it as the producer. ¬ SP: And Ekscena really was about sharing resources. ¬ SB: It was a moment of hacking to open up a space to

all unknown subjects, to a new generation of dance artists. Yes, there were several artistic organisations, but Ekscena covered a much broader space and created something like a generator.

¬ AK: Self-education was an important point. No artistic organisation had that or was interested in that, and this was the focal point and a resource open to any project or type of programme.

¬ SB: I believe it is also important to mention that very many people connected in the first year of Ekscena. It start-ed as a bottom-up approach, but almost everyone on the lo-cal scene networked, followed by the international scene in different programmes. As far as international collaborations are concerned, there was always an idea to connect artists who recognised what Ekscena was in the political sense and the decision to self-organise, resulting in an artistic point of view, inseparable from the rest.

¬ SP: Locally I think it matters that we implement-ed a programme through Clubture for the dance scene’s decentralisation.

¬ AK: In Ekscena I remember full auditoriums. Work-shops, training sessions, we exchanged: you work, the next time you lead a training session, then a programme arrives… There were really so many of us.

¬ SB: And it never happened that someone was a junior and someone a full cast. That never happened in the studio. Com-pared to today’s point of view, one didn’t go there to obtain institutional education. It wasn’t a substitute for a school. Ekscena offered another sort of training and self-training which could be perceived as counterinstitutionalisation of education in the field of dance. There was never any intention

of institutionalising Ekscena’s work, to make it an acade-my or a large international festival. The idea was to empower each other. Many things happened, mistakes and errors, but I think there was a lot of selfless support we gave each other.

¬ AK: Absolutely. ¬ SM: To me as a future human and artist, Ekscena defi-

nitely was a general education experience, because we sup-ported each other to set standards and explore what hori-zontal structure meant, what is self-organisation, what are the priorities, what problems arise when something like this is really set up and opened, how to cope with them, what does it mean to take responsibility for one’s own actions… The four years I spent on the coordination board were ex-tremely formative.

¬ AK: To me it was also important for all the future in-itiatives. These values were our cornerstone and ramified from that point. Ekscena was key in forming my values and showed me that different structure is possible; it even gave me a sense of dignity which I hadn’t had before, precisely because it was structured non-hierarchically. No one else was supposed to have given me that, it had to come from inside. And that is what I feel in all the other initiatives, only with different content and ideas.

In 2009, after a long process of negotiation and advocacy, the Zagreb Dance Centre opens under the management of the Croatian Institute of Movement and Dance. A task force was established to that aim at the Croatian Dancers Association (UPUH), which opened the question of dance resources, starting from the non-transparent processes which led to the opening of the Zagreb Dance Centre, but also in relation to the state funding of dance art in Croatia.

¬ SB: Perhaps we were too modest to say that we would manage the ZDC in a self-governing manner, like we later promoted in the Keep Dance Autonomous initiative.

¬ SM: Besides, we had other priorities. Although we cannot separate our dance practice from our political practice and one necessarily entails the other, we were first and foremost emerging dance artists. It would be interesting to examine why Pogon has managed to establish itself as a public-civil partnership and Ekscena, i.e. our dance community, hasn’t. Apart from focusing on cultural policies, we were primarily in the studio, producing works of art. We never borrowed other people’s modes, we rather acted out of authentic needs, and that was the need for funds for artistic activity.

¬ SB: Let’s not forget that every institutionalisation re-quires decades of preparations. The question is what would such an attempt turn into and would it be possible in Croatia in 2009 to establish a self-governing system within a city-owned institution.


04NiNA GoJić

When rumours about a possible merger of the Centre and the Zagreb Youth The-atre began to spread, early in 2016, a series of plenums were organised, gat-hering the dance community and the

broader community interested in the matters of public good and its management. Simultaneously, the professional association UPUH, after reorganisation, became an important player in the organisation of activity and dance scene’s standpoint on the ZDC situation. Early in 2017, after the ZDC was formally annexed to the Zagreb Youth Theatre, UPUH invited everyone on a three-month boycott of the Centre. Many dance artists joined the boycott, cancelled collaborations and refused to acknowledge the new management with their work.

¬ SB: Let me just add that in 2010 the first big cut in public funding took place (the dance scene and professional asso-ciations organised a protest takeover of the City Office of Culture), followed by another big cut in 2011, and then the third came in 2012, with the scandalous disappearance of 11 million kuna. We issued a brochure in 2008 and had the first ZDC countdown. The next autumn, almost at the same time, the ZDC opened and the first cuts scheduled for 2010 were prepared. The Keep Dance Autonomous initiative, plenums and the call for boycott of the ZDC should be seen in that chronological order, from a historical point of view. More accurately, as a continuation of self-organisation of the ar-tistic community fighting for dignified working condition and resistance to austerity measures.

¬ SP: I didn’t answer the question about Ekscena means to me, and it comes with the answer to this question and thoughts on where we are now after the boycott. Ekscena was the first to open this possibility, a place and self-union-ising practice for this group of people and interests. Back then it was not the entire profession. When turmoil ensued at UPUH, a space for activities opened and again it was a group of 10-15 people with similar political interests and discourse, who became active since 2007. The self-organisation discourse rose to the level of the discourse of the entire scene, it was discussed through UPUH’s list and every member of the com-munity got all the information. The dialogue spread to the en-tire scene and thanks to the list the discussion attracted peo-ple from different political, cultural and aesthetic positions, which was not always easy, but it opened a broader space for communication on the dance scene. One of the reasons why I decided to return to Croatia was the existence of Ekscena as a space where I too can do something. I believe it is important to think in generational terms. We are now talking about a long period of self-organisation, in which some people are the same, some were included, but left, some new got included, some are now very young and aren’t but will be included. The

TOWARDS THE KEEP DANCE

AUTONOMOUS INITIATIVE

—

discussions about all these issues lead through UPUH’s list. And when the ZDC was annexed to the ZYT, everyone woke up and the meeting was attended by 400 people. On the one side was UPUH’s task force as a union, a body which is neither an institution nor a power structure, which is again due to the fact that we are not organised as an institution, but rather as a mini-emancipation, which makes our work possible.

¬ SB: Back then we were politically and economically blocked, we had to keep insisting that what we are doing is contemporary dance, and now the thing you’re doing, some would say it isn’t dance at all, you see how backward all this is, even today for a combination of different practices it is hard to get prominence and legitimacy.

¬ SP: And in the context we live in it is a matter why, for instance, Culture of Change didn’t have a better vision for the development of contemporary dance, what would happen if a training and production platform had sprung from there, if there had been someone in the institution with capacities for production and organisation, someone who had wanted to think like that, Mirna Žagar as someone who managed the ZDC then or now, an upswing could have happened. And between us, this is where we are now, this hasn’t happened yet because there is no vision of culture, of cultural produc-tion, cultural work with a different vision for which we need other capacities.

¬ SB: I don’t remember any other occurrence in the field of culture where a demand for self-governing in terms of work resources was made. This is a very big demand and macroemancipation, reaching beyond what is considered your authority as an artist or a cultural worker. I believe this stemmed from the entire continuity of self-organisation in these areas.

¬ SP: Going back to the direct democracy discourse and our agreement to it is, among other things, a legacy of the blockade. The plenum was structured to include people who were not UPUH members, but had an interest in performing arts, and UPUH was a tactical choice if you wanted to advo-cate for public-civil partnership, self-government, a man-aging body of several members and all the other things we didn’t manage to achieve.

¬ SB: This also confirmed that on the level of a professional association, which is more formal than an association or and artistic organisation, it is possible to work according to the principles of self-organisation, self-government and hori-zontality. Which means that there is will and anything could be managed that way.

¬ NG: Which of the demands of the Keep Dance Au-tonomous initiative do you think should be actively promoted?


¬ SM: The demand for improvement of work conditions on the dance scene – financial and infrastructural, of course – is still present and should be advocated for, as well as the acknowledgment of the dance community’s significance in culture and society, both symbolically and materially. A specific demand for an autonomous institution for dance in Croatia is still present. Our current and future efforts strive in that direction.

¬ NG: I have a feeling that both Futur drugi and Antisezona continue the self-governing pra-ctice like Ekscena and Keep Dan-ce Autonomous, but they are not

based only on advocating activism, but are rather trying to establish a self-curating practice. Futur drugi per-haps sparked the spirit of Ekscena again in terms of the diversity of content, from workshops and discussions, to self-education and presentation practice, to ad hoc activities and performances. Both Futur drugi and An-tisezona demonstrate how intense but smaller initiati-ves carry on with the existing self-organisation continuity.

¬ AK: The beauty of Futur drugi was that the way how we worked and acted as a board of directors, as well as all we said before, translated into the field of programmes, or content. It went beyond promotion and political activity, it opened the practice for members to make a programme of their own. We all create. The board members in a way moderated it. This, of course, cannot survive without support, i.e. it can for a short while, but it needs spatial, financial and systemic support to keep living. Without other capacities and resources you can-not move on, but it is proven possible. So far the initiatives were promotional, we had only one goal, and this infused the entire community. We created a programme based on the same values. Ekscena was similar in its beginnings, but now I’m talking about two professional associations and the broader community. This was the first and unique event on the scene.

¬ NG: I find the hypothesis expounded in the descrip-tion of the online project Keep Dance Autonomous1 interesting, it says that “the community is being torn apart and there is a lack of interest in political homog-enisation, while on the other hand expressed individ-ualism, competitiveness and a lack of interest in truly communal practices are a result of systemic patterns and top-down community management.” We discussed

1 The online project Keep dance Autonomous is available at: http://autonomijaplesu.upuh.hr

FUTUR DRUGI AND THE

TRANSGENERA-TIONAL ISSUE

—

a lot about which are these systemic patterns and top-down managements, and I also stumbled across a ques-tion whether there is still a desire to create a commu-nity or we should carry on as individuals. The answer seems to be clear.

¬ SM: Yes. It was a necessity rather than a wish. It would be an illusion to say that it doesn’t exist.

¬ SB: Again, there were those who weren’t active. Everyone was active, but on different sides and with different goals. We seem to have often perceived ourselves as engaged and those who didn’t come as not engaged. They were very much engaged, but with a different agenda. Some with a very spe-cific agenda, some who thought they didn’t have one, but in fact there is no such thing as a non-political agenda.

¬ SP: Futur engaged many people, including those who weren’t active in the board of UPUH, because the spatial re-source appeared. When resources appear occasionally, a larg-er part of the community seems to activate, as they activated with the possibility of an independent ZDC, with Futur, or as they would activate, for instance, if a city theatre opened the doors to a more serious dance programming, or if at the City Office of Culture a person appeared with different ideas about culture.

¬ SM: I believe that throughout the past 20 years we have been treading the path for our own generation to create conditions, break old paradigms and establish new ones to be able to act. But nevertheless I don’t have a feeling that we ever thought about it in exclusive terms, we have always been inclusive. I am thinking about whether it is an illusion to pull up a generational fight and be inclusive at the same time. I’m trying to comprehend how younger colleagues now perceive us and get or don’t get engaged. Now I’m not talking about Antisezona, a different nature of the initiative, but for instance about Futur drugi and whether they felt included or not. I believe that in those battles we talked about today we tried to stay inclusive and that this really matters.

¬ AK: As much as the scene is now different from how it was in the 2000s, the conditions haven’t changed dras-tically and emerging artists might have it even harder pre-cisely because there is nothing established, nothing new, the budget doesn’t grow… There is only a new wave of needs and desires, but we don’t have large companies or projects to be able to employ people. I’m interested to see whether a change will come in 20 years’ time. The fact remains that the con-ditions are not good, in a way it is much more demanding than before.

¬ SP: Currently the scene has a larger group of people to which things changed significantly. All of them are fresh graduates from the Department of Dance, and this implies an identity and a status, a stand on what dance is, different


04NiNA GoJić

from the one five years ago when the Department was estab-lished. This is not the only thing. One part of this identity we don’t share, and we don’t share some of these generational and existential issues because at 40, as precarious we may be and not living off our art, we are still in a different position than someone who is 25 and a recent dance graduate. I un-derstand that there are different positions within the same community, but I’m still interested in specific resources and a new place of community.

¬ NG: Is Antisezona perhaps one such possible new community?

What are its specific qualities in relation to the practi-ces we discussed and how does it promote, practice and perceive solidarity and communality?2

¬ SP: It is specific for another sort of self-organisation. Just like Ekscena was a place for a generation that had oth-er needs, we are now a generation of artists active on the scene, both artistically and culturally and politically, seeking a spatial resource in this precarious situation to continue our activity as this is currently a necessity. When Futur drugi extinguished and when it became clear how demanding it is to fight for a space, and given all the things that happened to the SC and ZDC, the need for space remained, a black box in which one can watch dance performances.

¬ AK: We are trying to develop continuity and not resort to short-term solutions. We are not looking for a space for a premiere, we are trying to create long-term resources. I am happy to think of Antisezona as machinery and continuity: for us, for the others, for new conditions.

¬ SP: In that respect, Antisezona represents a practical, individual and collective solution to our needs for a place to stage performances this year. Therefore, it is not the kind of activism of Futur drugi or Autonomy to Dance or Eksce-na. What we can do right now and in the year to come is to implement our activities and, on the other hand, produce a discourse on dance and the visibility of dance. Those are the things Antisezona perceives as collective good, while it is also trying to find a ratio of practical use, i.e. a resource mak-ing it possible for us to act as artists. Discussing how to cu-rate Antisezona, we pondered how to make it more inclusive. We decided we didn’t want to be curators, to choose people, and we didn’t have the means to make this process accessible to everyone. I believe that this is the specific quality of Anti-sezona. And that we are a good generation of choreographers

2 For a comprehensive interview by Lujo Parežanin with the founders of Antisezona: Ana Kreitmeyer, Silvia Marchig, Sonja Pregrad, Iva Nerina Sibila and zrinka šimičić Mihanović, see: https://www.kulturpunkt.hr/content/pogon-za-nas-za-druge-za-novo

ANTISEZONA—

who foster the practice of self-unionising, self-organisation, direct democracy in decision-making and practicing all the traditions of the dance scene without favouring any company or any name.

¬ SM: Antisezona is an alliance of us five artists who are trying to focus on programming and production. The legacy of all the aforementioned actions consists in trying to create an aesthetic-political context for our work, for each other, out of our relationship. This ‘anti’ refers mainly to a detachment from the established practices following a clear hierarchy of top-down decision-making, external aesthetic judgments, setting expectations and selection. We oppose such tradi-tional patterns and strive to find new ones. This is ongoing work and the legacy of all our previous battles. Unlike before, now we have experience, acknowledgment from the profes-sion and the community, audience, contacts and a network of collaborators. It is important to say these things because sometimes it seems like we have done very little and keep running in circles for the past 20 years, but listing all of this in one place is in fact quite a lot. Antisezona is a gesture of unifying our symbolical capital. It is a model of self-curating and programming beyond the mere presentation of dance and I hope the rest of the dance community can experience and accept it as an integral contribution to the scene.

¬ SB: I wasn’t included in Antisezona and unfortunately couldn’t follow it, but it seems really important after Futur drugi and the change of the board of directors to have some-thing to continue the principles we discussed and clearly po-sitions itself in relation to other commodified practices. The issue of space in Zagreb has never been bigger than today.

¬ AK: It is interesting how we always find new ways, over and again. Since self-organisation is a survival practice, there is no other solution than to create a context of respect, ac-knowledgment, valuation and support, throughout all these 20 years.

TIMELINE OF EVENTS ON THE CULTURAL SCENE MENTIONED IN THIS INTERVIEW

—1990 – first initiatives for self-education in dance in Rijeka.1994 – establishment of the first human rights and other

civil society organisations in Croatia1996 – establishment of the Croatian Dancers Association1999 – establishment of the Multimedia Institute (MI2)2000 – establishment of the Dance Centre Tala and BADco.

artistic organisation2001 – establishment of LLINKT! artistic organisation2001 – establishment of the Experimental Free Scene, a

platform for education and research in performing arts


2002 – establishment of the Clubture associations alliance, a participative network of organisations empower-ing the independent cultural scene

2006 – ‘Invitation to Takeover’ organised by Ekscena as part of the FAQ programme

2006 – establishment of the Alliance for the Centre of Independent Culture and Youth, today’s Operacija grad Associations Alliance

2006 – new management of UPUH, Snježana Abramović Milković taking over the chair of the board position

2008 – brochure on the state of the Croatian dance scene issued

2009 (April) – blockade of the Zagreb Faculty of Humani-ties and Social Sciences, spreading to other faculties and universities, students run the faculties through plenums and direct democracy principles

2009 (October) – opening of the Zagreb Dance Centre in Ilica 10, the Centre is managed by the Croatian Institute of Movement and Dance, chaired by Mirna Žagar

2010 – first big cut in public funding, the dance scene organises a protest takeover of the City Office of Culture

2011 – second big cut in public funding2012 – third big cut, 11 million kuna missing2013 – establishment of the Department of Dance at the

Zagreb Academy of Dramatic Art2016 (May) – first ZDC plenum, the beginning of the initia-

tive Keep Dance Autonomous!2016 (October) – new management of UPUH, Ana Kreit-

meyer becomes chair of the board of directors2016 (October) – decision on annexing the Zagreb Dance

Centre to the Zagreb Youth Theatre2017 (January-March) – three months of boycotting the

ZDC to the invitation of UPUH’s board of directors2017 (May) – Bodying, a 24-hour protest dance against the

city policies on dance art2018 (May-June) – opening of Futur drugi, a space for peo-

ple and dance, with the support of the Platforma HR festival

2018 (August) – closing down of Culture of Change at the Student Centre

2019 (January) – launch of the online project Keep Dance Autonomous 007-017

2019 (March-November) – establishment of the Antisezona initiative arranged in five sections


Selma Banich is an artist from Zagreb. Her artistic and social practice is based on process-oriented, research and activist work and politically she is inspired by anarchy and radical feminism.

Nina Gojić is mainly a dramaturge, mainly on the independent scene. She writes texts for and about performance, collecti-vely creates dance and devised theatrical performances, and collaboratively develops research, process-oriented formats and curiosities.

Ana Kreitmeyer, dance artist, member of BADco. collective, one of the organisers of Antisezona. An interest in the body took her through different practices, from performance to choreography, from teaching to social issues.

Silvia Marchig, dance artist, founder of Kik Melone artistic organisation, one of the organisers of Antisezona, a long-time enthusiast in experimenting with dance and performance practices with the aim of moving the boundaries of existing modes of creativity, production and presentation of art. Also teaches classical ballet at the Franjo Lučić School of Art in Velika Gorica.

Sonja Pregrad is a dance artist with an interest in research and activation of different physical practices and performance formats, including both collaborative and organisational. With Zrinka Šimičić Mihanovićshe manages the Improspections initiative and festival, and with Marina Petković she manages the Fourhanded artistic organisation. She is also one of the organisers of the Antisezona collaborative project.

Ana, Sonja, Selma, Silvia and Nina are members of the initiative Keep Dance Autonomous!

Keep dance Autonomous photo: from thepress

54 KRETANJA 32 | 19 KRoz KIK MeLoNe; o zAjedNIšTVU

Through Kik Melone; On Collectivity

Kroz Kik Melone; O zajedništvu

05

55MOVEMENTS 32 | 19THRoUgH KIK MeLoNe; oN CoLLeCTIVITY

TArA ivANišević

05Od prvog puta kada sam vidjela izvedbu Kik Melone, pretpre-mijeru Glečera, vjerna sam gledateljica i počasna sudionica njezinih radova. Pozivana sam na probe, davala sam komen-tare o radu, raspravljala sam s drugima o njihovim mišljenji-ma o izvedbi Kik Melone koju su vidjeli, družila se uz kavu ili piće s cijelim ili dijelom njezinog kreativnog tima, držala letak Najtužnijeg komada. Ikad. doma na svojoj polici, ležala u krevetu budna razmišljajući o kreativnim implikacijama toga što njezini radovi proizvode, dijele i uzrokuju i ušla odjevena s perikom preko lica u jezero.1 Najnoviji susret s njom ovaj je tekst, koji nudim kao djelomični osvrt na Kik Melone u kon-tekstu njezine kolektivnosti.

Raspon koji sam si zadala u namjeri da ograničim duljinu i opširnost teksta razdoblje je od 2015. do 2019. godine i slje-deći radovi: Glečer, Glečer extended, Horror Vacui, Najtužni-ja metoda. Ikad., Najtužniji komad. Ikad. i Melone patafizika. Isključeni, ali ozbiljno razmotreni radovi su Ms Fox Invited Ms Cat for Tea and a Chit-Chat One Late Late Afternoon Last Summer i Glečer polimorf.

Prije razmatranja kolektivnosti kroz određene primjere, neophodno je odgo-

voriti na pitanje kako općenito definiram kolektivnost za potrebe ovog teksta, i zašto pojam ne želim koristiti naizmje-nično s riječju kolektiv. Online rječnička baza Hrvatski jezični portal definira kolektivnost kao „svojstvo onoga što je kolek-tivno“,2 kolektivno kao „na način kolektiva, kao kolektiv“,3 a

1 Fotografiranje za promotivni materijal Horror Vacui.2 Vidi: hjp.znanje.hr/index.php?show=search_by_id&id=eltlWR-c%3d&keyword=kolektivnost (zadnji pregled: 15. 11. 2019.)3 Vidi: hjp.znanje.hr/index.php?show=search_by_id&id=el-tlWRY%3d&keyword=kolektivno (zadnji pregled: 15. 11. 2019.)

KOLEKTIVNOST—

kolektiv kao „grupu ljudi okupljenu na nekom zajedničkom projektu, poslu, zadatku, promoviranju neke ideje“.4 Definicije nisu dostatne, stoga pojam uspostavljam i opisujem uz pomoć vlastitog iskustva, razabiranja i mišljenja. Kolektivnost je svoj-stvo koje može biti prisutno u raznim situacijama, iskustvima i osjećajima. Moguća prisutnost kolektivnosti ne ovisi o tome je li primijećena, imenovana, definirana, shvaćena, prima li pažnju, osjeća li se ili ne osjeća. Može biti različitih kvaliteta za pojedinačne osobe unutar iste situacije. Nije isto što i kolek-tiv, koji kada se koristi, svrstava osobe unutar određenog skupa iskustava, vrijednosti i međusobnih uloga u skupinu osoba koje se doživljavaju kao različite od osoba izvan kolektiva. Drugim riječima, kolektiv je grupa ljudi u kojoj kolektivnost može ili ne mora biti prisutna.

S obzirom na to, Kik Melone može se shvatiti i kao kolek-tiv i kao formalna društvena oznaka unutar koje određeni ljudi zajedno rade i kolektivnost postoji. U ovom tekstu usredoto-čujem se na kolektivnost Kik Melone, istovremeno razumije-vajući da Kik Melone može i ne mora biti viđena kao kolektiv.

Na službenoj razini, Kik Melone, u punom nazivu Autorska radionica kre-

acija, ilustracija i koreografija Melone, umjetnička je organi-zacija osnovana 2008. godine. Osnivačica i osnivač su vizualni umjetnik, ilustrator i autor stripa Igor Hofbauer i plesna umjet-nica Silvia Marchig. Područje rada organizacije je plesno, likov-no, primijenjeno likovno, umjetničko oblikovanje i

4 Vidi: hjp.znanje.hr/index.php?show=search_by_id&id=eltkUb-c%3d&keyword=kolektiv (zadnji pregled: 15. 11. 2019.)

KIK MELONE—

Tara Ivanišević

Kroz Kik Melone; O zajedništvu

foto: Tara Ivanišević


multimedijalno stvaralaštvo. Adresa organizacije je u Zagrebu.5

Na razini samoidentifikacije, Kik Melone je umjetnički projekt koji „djeluje kao suradnička izvedbena skupina koja [...] stvara na intersekciji plesa, kazališta, performansa, filma i eksperimentalne glazbe [te svoju izvedbenu praksu] teme-lji na eksperimentu, često se poigravajući sa žanrovskim ele-mentima kako bi propitala razne aspekte performativnosti i teatralnosti. Polazište svake kreacije je u tjelesnoj izved-bi otvorenoj utjecajima realnog vremena u kojemu se izvo-di, a suradnički, odnosno suautorski i suizvođački pristup čini srž umjetničke vizije“. Njezina tri autorska usmjerenja su „ekstravagantni izvođački potezi, citati klasičnog plesnog, dramskog i teatarskog vokabulara, ironijski pomaci i višesloj-ni dramaturški eksperimenti čime dekonstruira suštinske aspekte performativnosti“, „pročišćavanje izvedbe i izvođenja sve do trenutka iscrpljivanja svih elemenata koji čine izvedbu izvedbenom, ostavljajući u prostoru samo izvođače i njihovu reakciju na realno vrijeme, a tragajući za susretom izvedbe i javnosti na duboko intuitivnoj razini“ i „metodologija kolek-tivne multimedijske i multižanrovske izvedbenosti, sidrene u prostornosti i kontekstu nekazališnih prostora u kojima nastaju i gdje se izvode“.6

Na praktičnoj razini, Kik Melone je skupina ljudi, umjet-nica i umjetnika, koji zajedno rade, stvarajući umjetnička djela koja su, nakon određenog razvojnog razdoblja, dostup-na publici. Umjetnice i umjetnici rade u različitim i pone-kad višestrukim medijima, poput plesa, izvedbe, vizualne umjetnosti i zvuka. Skupina ljudi koja zajedno radi nije fik-sna – broj osoba, pojedinci i kombinacije ljudi mijenjaju se s obzirom na projekt – osim Silvije Marchig, koja je prisutna u svim produkcijama Kik Melone. Proces rada, barem što se tiče razdoblja 2015. – 2019., sastoji se od zajedničke želje za suradnjom ili pozivom Silvije Marchig na suradnju, vreme-na provedenog stvarajući i razvijajući umjetnički sadržaj bilo zajedno ili odvojeno, višestrukih razina razrađenih interesa i ciljeva, pozivanja na probu i traženja povratne informaci-je, pri kraju procesa, od osoba kojima se vjeruje, ograniče-nja postavljenih slabom dostupnošću izvedbenih prostora i malim budžetom, oglašavanja i, naposljetku, izvedbe.

Međutim, razina koju nazivam mogućom perceptiv-nom, ona je na kojoj se kapacitet Kik Melone za kolektivnost otkriva. Kao izraženo suradnički projekt, njezina sama pre-misa i godine djelovanja – raznolika umjetnička ulaganja u različitim kombinacijama umjetnica i umjetnika, zajedno s posvećenošću eksperimentiranju i otvorenošću za istraživa-

5 Vidi: www.min-kulture.hr/default.aspx?id=82&kazid=438 (zadnji pregled: 14. 11. 2019.)6 Vidi: kikmelone.hr/o-nama (zadnji pregled: 16. 11. 2019.)

nje prostora između žanrova, medija, umjetničkih interesa, oblika zajedništva i donošenja odluka – proizvele su radove, prakse i pokušaje koji su puni različitih kolektivnosti vrijed-nih primjećivanja, dokumentiranja, referiranja i, prvenstve-no, doživljavanja ako je to moguće. Teško je u radovima koje obrađujem ne primijetiti koliko su elementi suradnje i zajed-nički provedenog vremena ključni za razvoj premise, sadr-žaja i konačne izvedbe radova, što ih čini magnetima za kolektivnost.

U pročišćenom prostoru nalaze se pia-nino, boce, stolne lampe i barem jedan

balon, smješteni sa strane. Ana Horvat je u blizini pianina, dok su pavleheidler, Silvia Marchig i Sonja Pregrad u raznim dije-lovima prostora. Publika je smještena u razini izvođačica i izvođača na stolicama uz jedan od zidova. Svjetla su prigušena, ali sve je vidljivo. pavleheidler, Silvia i Sonja se kreću, pojedi-načno i zajedno. Spajaju se i razdvajaju. Oslanjaju se na prostor, drže jedni druge, govore, pjevaju, manipuliraju svjetlom, bilo koristeći prozore ili stolne lampe. Ana prolazi prstima po balo-nu, radi s bocama koje su djelomično napunjene vodom, koristi dodatne predmete i svira pianino, proizvodeći zvučnu kulisu. Izvedba traje više od sat vremena i zadržava se nakon što završi.

Iako nije sasvim ogoljen od svojih performativnih sadrža-ja, Glečer nema reprezentacijskog značenja. Platno je prazno, možda čak i dovedeno u pitanje, i puni se složenim sustavom pokreta, bivanja i samoodnošenja. Naslov je ilustrativan, ali ne utječe na odluku da takvi elementi ostanu minimalni radi poticanja alternativnih oblika bivanja u prostoru performa-tiva. Kao gledateljica, povremeno sam se uhvatila u figura-tivnom tumačenju sadržaja, brzo ga odbacujući i vraćajući se onome što je zapravo rad.

U odsustvu mnogih elemenata koji inače tvore izvedbu, ono što ostaje i generira se je kolektivnost koja bi se mogla opisati kao inherentna. Praiskonsko svojstvo zajedništva koje proizlazi iz imanja tijela, svijesti, provođenja vremena s odre-đenim drugima u istom prostoru u isto vrijeme, s moguć-nošću i iskustvom približavanja i udaljavanja od nekoga ili nečega, poznavanja kako položiti svoju težinu tijela i pokreta na težinu pokreta i tijela koji nisu tvoji, kako odgovoriti na ono što se razvije iz toga te kako upotrijebiti svojstva koja su se akumulirala u vlastitom tijelu, uz svojstveno osobno razu-mijevanje, crpeći iz instinktivnog, umjesto tehničkog i vir-tuoznog. Kolektivnost u tome da netko pokušava govoriti iz mjesta različitog od informacijskog i kognitivnog i da netko drugi pokušava to čuti na sličan način. Kao i elementi rada, kolektivnost rada izbjegava opisivanje, ali ipak ulazi i izla-zi iz fokusa, ima svoj ritam i teksturu i u trenucima je goto-vo poznata.

GLEČER—


TArA ivANišević

05

Isti je prostor za prva četiri sata – ste-penicama gore, do prelaska praga i ulaska unutra. Sljedećih osam sati je negdje

drugdje, u razini zemlje, gdje je prostor veći i prostraniji, ali nije na istom mjestu. Treći i zadnji prostor, za preostalih osam sati raspoređenih u dva dana, stepenicama je dolje, s hladnim podom i pregradnim zidom. Pri ulasku, osoba koja je unutra ustaje i diskretno napominje da ima čaja i kolačića, dijela gdje publika može ostavljati poruke u obliku pisama i mogućnost izlaska i ulaska u bilo kojem trenutku. Sjesti se može bilo gdje, s opcijom stolice. Svjetla su dovoljno prigušena da akomodiraju laptop spojen na projektor koji prikazuje sliku uređivača teksta u kojem izabrana sudionica ili jedna od izvođačica ili izvođača u slučaju neprisutnosti sudionice ispisuje tekst. U prostoru se nalaze i drugi predmeti poput knjiga, iako ne samo to. pavle-heidler, Ana Horvat, Silvia Marchig i Sonja Pregrad su prisutni – kreću se, dijele, proizvode zvukove, leže na podu, tiho su, čitaju iz knjige, piju ili prave čaj, odlaze u kut, plešu, povezuju se, dijele pisma, čitaju pisma u sebi, ustaju kako bi pisali i općenito su u odnosu i bivaju tijekom tih četverosatnih dnev-nih blokova.

Kao što ime prigodno najavljuje, radi se o proširenom ili radije protegnutom nastavku Glečera, sastavljenog od kom-pleksne skupine elemenata koji se sjedinjavaju oko bazične premise koja ostaje ista od Glečera, iako se manifestira drukči-je. Vrijeme se proširilo do izvedbe u trajanju, zvuk se proširio dalje od propozicije instrumenata i predmeta koji proizvode zvukove – Ana je jednako izvođačica pokreta kao i pavlehe-idler, Silvia i Sonja – intuitivni ulasci u odnose ambiciozno su prošireni na knjige, hranu, pisanje i tehnologiju, uloge su proširene da uključuju, osim izvođačica i izvođača, pomaga-čice zvane Majke Glečera, što nudi proširene alate za razvoj odnosa između izvođačica i izvođača i publike. Novi element živog pisanja uveden je kao neposredan oblik teksta namije-njenog kao povratna informacija, osvrt ili jednostavno sadr-žaj koji prati rad.7

Kao što kombinacije različitih materijala tvore glečer, tako različiti elementi Glečera extended tvore kolektivnost koja ovisi o njihovoj cjelini. Ona je radikalna kolektivnost, moć-na, ali istovremeno široko razvučena kroz mnogo sadržaja i dijelova. Trajanje od pet dana u blokovima od četiri sata i pro-mjena mjesta održavanja dvaput uvodi izdržavanje i potre-bu za ekstremnim izvedbenim fokusom, što uvodi umor koji naposljetku uvodi kompleksnost sastavljenu od mijenjajućih

7 Naziva Writing Xposed, projekt je eksperiment živog pisanja s po-kušajem poticanja novih oblika odnosa između plesnih izvedbi i pisanih refleksija. Facilitatorica je Iva Nerina Sibila, a spisateljice su, osim Ive Ne-rine, Ana Fazekaš, Ivana Ivković, Maja Ležaić, Mila Pavičević i jasna ja-sna žmak. Vidi: kikmelone.hr/pdf/writingexposed-kikmelone.pdf (zadnji pregled: 14. 11. 2019.)

GLEČER EXTENDED

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strategija, energija, odnosa i radnji koje se kontinuirano sku-pljaju i šire ispred publike, a djelomično i zajedno s njom. Publika, sa svoje strane, može slobodno ulaziti i izlaziti, što znači da osoba može doći peti dan na jedan sat, time vidjevši samo završni fragment rada, ili dolaziti svaki dan i posvjedo-čiti mnogim transfiguracijama rada. Prilika za toliko oprečna iskustva stvara kolektivnost koja može doseći obje krajno-sti vrlo širokog raspona. Mnogostruki načini na koje je jezik uveden – putem živog pisanja, pisanja pisama, čitanja knji-ga naglas, govora – unosi slojeve mogućnosti za figurativno i kognitivno razumijevanje, zamutivši granicu između poi-gravanja s tim i upadanja u to, ali i dalje u nastojanju da se ostane uronjeno u „duboku vremenu“.8 Projekcija uživo ispi-sanog teksta mogla bi biti slika, ali jednako je toliko, ako ne i više, skupina simbola koji traže promatračice i promatra-če da ih interpretiraju ako mogu. Anino aktivno sudjelova-nje u pokretu proširuje što je moguće, očekivano i događa se u području pokreta – time čineći vidljivom kolektivnost između izvođačica i izvođača – u kojem su izvedbena ravno-teža i horizontalnost postignute između suvremenih plesa-čica i plesača različitih kvaliteta i glazbenice. Sa svom svojom kompleksnošću, rad stoji čvrsto i uvjerljivo, ojačan zajednič-kom energijom, trudom u trajanju, izvedbenim intenzitetom i uzajamnim ulaganjem. Ugošćena kolektivnost zahtjevna je za raspoznavanje, ali nagrađuje doživljavanje, svjedočenje i razmišljanje o njoj.

Ljudi se skupljaju u predvorju u razgo-voru i čekanju. Zatvorena vrata se otva-raju, Umberto Lancia izlazi i počinje

uvoditi ljude u skupinama od petero, uvijek zatvarajući vrata iza sebe. Tijekom zajedničkog čekanja u međuprostoru opisuje što slijedi – ulazak u gotovo mrkli mrak i vođenje do dodije-ljenog mjesta za sjedenje. Ako je potrebno, moguće je izaći istim putem tijekom izvedbe. Prednja vrata međuprostora se otvaraju i dogodi se opisano, sa svjetiljkom u Umbertovoj ruci. Nakon što je publika smještena i više-manje ravnomjerno raspoređena po redovima sjedala, vrata se zatvaraju po zadnji put, ostavljajući sve u mraku.

Najupečatljiviji i neposredno očigledan element rada Horror Vacui je to što se većinom odvija u gotovo potpunoj odsutnosti svjetla. Izvođačice i izvođači Marko Gutić Mižima-kov, Umberto Lancia, Silvia Marchig, Iva Nerina Sibila i Jasen Vodenica – za koje je moguće znati da su prisutni samo na

8 „duboko vrijeme“ pojam je koji se pojavljuje u romanu znanstvene fantastike Potopljeni svijet, autora jamesa grahama ballarda, objavljenog 1962. godine. Kik Melone izravno se referira na knjigu, koja je prisutna kao predmet tijekom Glečera i Glečera extended. Pojam duboko vrijeme također se povezuje uz koncept geološkog vremena.

HORROR VACUI

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temelju najavnog materijala, budući da se zapravo ne može vidjeti tko je tko –prvo polako prođu kroz i preko sjedećih mjesta, između i preko publike, u tišini ili ispuštajući zvuko-ve, dok im pramenovi duge, divlje kose prekrivaju lica. Ono što slijedi je niz događaja i bljeskova privremenog osvjetljenja – netko je na ljestvama, netko pomiče projektor za dijapozi-tive, netko pleše na pozornici, netko pušta projekciju tamne vode na središnjem platnu i tako dalje. Josip Maršić je u blizi-ni, zadužen za glazbu. U jednom trenutku pale se radna svje-tla i događa se naizgled privatni razgovor između izvođača. U nekom drugom trenutku, Umberto zahtijeva da publika iza-đe, označavajući kraj izvedbe.

Nedostatak osvjetljenja uzrokuje radikaliziranu nevidlji-vost koja se može razumjeti iz višestrukih uglova. S umjetnič-ke strane, to je jaka gesta koja zaklanja individualne tehničke i umjetničke vještine izvođačica i izvođača na osnovnoj, vizu-alnoj razini, također ih ogoljevši od identiteta i identifikacij-skih obilježja. Tijekom najmračnijih dijelova rada, nije nužno moguće pobrojati svih petero izvođačica i izvođača. S politič-ke strane, rad potencijalno odražava kulturnu klimu ne samo 2017., godine u kojoj je Horror Vacui imao svoju premijeru i zadnju izvedbu, nego i trenutne 2019., u kojoj se Art kino Grič, prije toga loše održavano bez plana renovacije, zatvo-rilo, što je za rad koji je napravljen in situ za taj prostor, vrlo značajna promjena.

Spomenuta radikalizirana nevidljivost stvara neuobiča-jenu situaciju za doživljavanje kolektivnosti. Oslanjanje na vlastito iskustvo s izvedbenim formatom otežano je za izvo-đačice i izvođače, ali i publiku, iako na različite načine – izvođačice i izvođači nemaju osvijetljenu pozornicu s koje će izlaziti i na koju će ulaziti, njihovi pokreti se ne vide i nisu prepoznati kao određeni (osobni) stil ili kvaliteta, ne percipira ih se na primarno vizualnoj razini, niti mogu primiti zaslu-ge za pojedine dramaturške odluke. Umjesto toga oblikuju se alternativne strategije uz koje se pojavljuje kolektivnost. Izvo-đačice i izvođači dijele radnju i prisutnost na gotovo zadružni način, dok tehnička vještina i umjetnički nagon nisu odsutni, nego se manifestiraju na drukčiji način. Kolektivnost izvođa-čica i izvođača podržana je povjerenjem koje je nužno kada se radi u mraku, ali i kada se općenito zajedno radi – povjere-nje da će se jedna osoba pobrinuti za drugu i obrnuto, iako su načini provjere smanjeni, ako su uopće prisutni. Kolektivnost publike povezana je s dijeljenom neizvjesnošću koja dolazi uz manje poznatu umjetničku odluku i zajedničkim pristankom cijele publike na propoziciju rada. Preklapajući se na mjesti-ma, ove kolektivnosti dijele zajednički prostor ili stvaraju tre-ću kolektivnost vezanu za odnos između izvođačica i izvođača i publike, gdje oni koji znaju više imaju odgovornost prema onima koji ne znaju.

Dvodnevna konferencija organizirana oko tema i materijala koje je Kik Melone razvila za svoj rad koji je tada bio u nastajanju, Najtužniji komad. Ikad. i u

pripremi za desetu godišnjicu njezinog osnivanja. Online obra-zac za registraciju sadrži kviz koji utvrđuje koji rad Kik Melone je osoba, pitanje oko toga kakvu vrstu kave osoba preferira te obaveznu kotizaciju u obliku materijala koji su objavljeni na stranicama bloga Kik Melone prije početka konferencije. Tužna sesija, Tužnija od tužne sesije, Jako tužna sesija i Najtužnija sesija. Ikad. služe kao označitelji konferencijskih blokova u kojima se govor, izvedba, sudjelovanje i neočekivano dogode. Sudionice i sudionici konferencije mogu promatrati, postavljati pitanja, izravno se izvedbeno uključiti i još toga. Osim ključnih govornica i govornika Marka Gutića Mižimakova, Umberta Lancije, Silvije Marchig, Ive Nerine Sibile i Jasena Vodenice, panelistice i panelisti Mila Čuljak, Nataša Govedić, Pavle Heid-ler i Angela Rawlings također sudjeluju. Najavljen Josip Maršić nije mogao doći. Ponuđen oblik konferencije služi kao nježan, ali jasan okvir iz kojeg raznovrsne izvedbene situacije, novi materijali i kolektivnost izranjaju.

Oblik konferencije poziva na zaigrano i ozbiljno razumi-jevanje. Kava se pije dok se akreditacije izrađuju i imena i radovi koje su osobe dobile u kvizu zapisuju na njih. Nakon toga, netom prije službenog početka konferencijskog bloka, svi ulaze u prostor gdje će ili sjesti ili uzeti mikrofon i najaviti teme kojima će se baviti tijekom sesije. Najavljeni materijali sadržajni su i slojeviti, istovremeno puni zaigrane (samo)iro-nije i duboke tuge. Uz razvoj svakog bloka razvija se i izvedbe-na situacija u kojoj se sudionice i sudionici aktivno uključuju u pokret i govor, aktivno nastavljaju slušati i gledati ili osta-ju tihi, ali uglavnom podržavajući promatračice i promatrači.

Toliko otvoren, ali definiran format koji omogućuje sudjelovanje, bez da ono djeluje obavezno, nerazvijeno ili kao da rad ne može funkcionirati bez toga teško je postići, što čini ovaj rad vrijednim pažnje. Ključne govornice i govornici dolaze pripremljeni s temama i materijalima koje su razvi-jali zajedno i s otvorenošću da ih dijele na način koji ostav-lja mjesta za vanjske doprinose. Kolektivnost svojstvena ovoj grupi ljudi nastavlja se iz Horror Vacui u ovaj projekt, tran-sformirajući se zajedno s materijalima i interesima grupe. Osnažena radom na novom projektu nakon završetka prijaš-njeg, kolektivnost koju dijele ostavlja dojam da može izdržati teška pitanja, sumnju u sebe i riskantne odluke – elemente kojima je dopušten ulaz u proces rada zajedno s uspješnim eksperimentima i inspirativnim improvizacijama. Kolektiv-nost dodatno osnažuje razumijevanje što različiti procesi tre-baju i dijeljenje izvan grupe. pavleheidler, suautor Glečera i Glečera extended, nije sudjelovao ni u jednom dijelu radnog procesa koji je doveo do Najtužnije metode. Ikad., ali je dole-

NAJTUŽNIJA METODA.

IKAD.—


TArA ivANišević

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tio iz inozemstva kako bi bio panelist na konferenciji, nesluž-beno potvrdivši sponu i vjerojatnu prisutnost kolektivnosti koja postoji izvan kontinuirane umjetničke suradnje. Ostale sudionice i sudionici, koji nisu prije toga radili s Kik Melone, ali su vjerojatno upoznati s njezinim radom, također su se pridružili, ponudivši vlastiti doprinos razvoju kolektivnosti koja je već bila prisutna, ali u stanju dobrovoljne preobrazbe. Kolektivnost prisutna tijekom konferencije je prolazna, jer uključuje kombinacije osoba koje vjerojatno neće ponovno surađivati, u najmanju ruku ne u ovom formatu, što ne uma-njuje njezin značaj i utjecaj, nego možda čak i dodaje.

Dovedena na pozornicu s dva reda sto-lica okrenutih prema praznom gledalištu od preko tisuću sjedala, publika sjeda na stolice i mehanizam zastora kojim ruku-

je izvođač u smeđem radničkom odijelu, zatvara ih ... te ponov-no otvara. Tisuće sjedala više nije prazno, sada sadržavajući rogatu figuru, osobu u šljokičasto-crvenom, nekoga okrenutog prema ogledalu koje drži u ruci, dvoje u radničkim odijelima koji izgledaju kao tehnička podrška i puno prostora. S lijeve strane, blizu pozornice, ali zapravo ispod nje, Josip Maršić stoji pokraj svoje radne površine. Ono što slijedi je dugačak i intenzivan kontinuitet pojedinačnih i zajedničkih izvedbi, od kojih su neke djelomično prekrivene daljinom ili panelom, a neke blizu, na pozornici ili u bočnim prostorima. Hrpe papira glasno šuškaju, izrazito duge ljestve se okreću, bradavice svi-jetle u crvenoj i bijeloj boji, priče se prepričavaju preko mikro-fona, telefon zvoni, prostor se zapalio, a uprava se ne odaziva...

Tema rada deklarativno je najavljena u nazivu, nježno predlažući u kojem bi se smjeru pažnja publike mogla usmje-riti. Monumentalna scenografija privlači pažnju na svoju veličinu i razna područja aktivnosti, tražeći fokusiran i pro-širen pogled, bilo odvojeno ili istovremeno. Petero izvođačica i izvođača, Marko Gutić Mižimakov, Umberto Lancia, Silvia Marchig, Iva Nerina Sibila, Jasen Vodenica, i glazbenik, Josip Maršić, ispunjavaju prostor, dok su udaljenosti između njih guste i pune prisutnosti i pažnje.

Kolektivnost koju dijele izvođačice i izvođači jednako je gusta i ispunjena, oslonivši se na sve umjetničke resurse i materijale koji su se skupili tijekom radnog procesa. Pokre-ti, geste i teme, osim što komuniciraju ono što jesu, suptilno spominju materijale, procese i umjetničke odluke koje nisu preživjele do konačnog oblika izvedbe, ali postoje u prosto-ru oko izabranih elemenata Najtužnijeg komada. Ikad. Osim dijeljenja rada, izvođačice i izvođači dijele sve što nisu isko-ristili, uključujući ono što se dogodilo tijekom proba, ali ne i na premijeri i u drugoj izvedbi. Oni dijele propuštene prilike, kompromise, neodgovorena pitanja, neizvjesnosti, ali i snagu,

NAJTUŽNIJI KOMAD.

IKAD.—

prisnost, vrijeme i suradnju. Prisutna kolektivnost razotkri-va se u svakom od njih pojedinačno u izrazitim, personalizi-ranim inačicama koje i dalje čine cjelinu prepoznatljivu kao kolektivnost Kik Melone unutar ovog rada i grupe autorica i autora. U odnosu na publiku, kolektivnost se doima snaž-nom, ali i pomalo zatvorenom. Bilo zbog veličine prostora i udaljenosti unutar njega ili zbog toga koliko osobna i pone-kad neprobojna tuga može biti, kolektivnost je primjetljiva, ali se opire dodatnom oblikovanju.

Egzofizičarka Iva Nerina Sibila vodi publiku sporednim putem do spored-nog ulaza u izvedbeni prostor. Niz

crnih figurica ljudskog oblika prati ih kroz vanjske i unutarnje prostore. Svaka osoba u publici dobiva po jednu figuricu za sebe uz objašnjenje što su i koja im je strana prednja. Unutar prostora publika bira hoće li sjesti na strani sa stolicama ili strani s jastučićima na podu. Patafizičarke i patafizičari Marko Gutić Mižimakov, Umberto Lancia, Silvia Marchig i Jasen Vodenica su na pozornici, dok se egzofizičarka Iva Nerina pridružuje publici. Satie se pušta u različitim inačicama, dok patafizičarke i patafizičari prolaze kroz elemente koreografije, improvizacije, filma, manipulacije predmeta, pjevanja i, uz pomoć egzofizičarke, premještanja publike s njihovih sjedećih mjesta u redove sjedala koji se otkriju na otprilike polovici rada, prije toga skrivenih iza zastora. Satie se nastavlja kroz drugu kompoziciju, dok se zrcala pomiču, filmovi na filmskoj traci puštaju u loopu i tijela bacaju i podižu sa zemlje sve do zadnje filmske projekcije na velikom, bijelom platnu, nakon čega rad završava.

Gnossienne No. 1 Erika Satiea, koji se pušta u različi-tim stilski eklektičnim obradama tijekom prvog dijela rada, toliko obilježava Melone patafiziku da može poslužiti kao baza za opisivanje kolektivnosti koja lebdi oko i unutar rada i njegovih autorica i autora. Melodija koja se ponavlja i pušta u loopu može sugerirati kontinuitet kroz ponavljanje, dok njezini različiti stilovi mogu označavati različita tumačenja istog elementa. Šetnja do izvedbenog prostora i cijela izved-ba drže publiku u laganom odnosu s crnim figuricama ljud-skog oblika, koje se također ponavljaju svojim nizanjem i jednolikošću. One se mogu razumjeti kao simbol dijeljenog iskustva publike, koji im rad doslovno daje, tj. posuđuje. Na samom početku izvedbe, koreografija se sastoji od zajednič-ke sekvence hodanja, stajanja, čučanja i ležanja na podu, koja se nekoliko puta ponovi. Patafizičarke i patafizičari u sklo-pu svojih kostima imaju vizual šake koja pravi oblik – svaki noseći različit oblik na sebi. Filmske trake, koje kao predmet izgledaju isto i kada projicirane imaju istu kvalitetu slike, sadrže različite scene, što je još jedan primjer ponavljanja s varijacijama.

MELONE PATAFIZIKA

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Kolektivnost poprima taj oblik – svaka patafizičarka i patafizičar naizgled imaju svoju kolektivnost koja ih prati. Te kolektivnosti su slične i u međusobnom su odnosu, ali i razli-čite kada se uspoređuju. Za razliku od Najtužnijeg komada. Ikad., koji također ima individualne izvođačke kolektivnosti, koje vibriraju slično, kolektivnosti Melone patafizike djeluju kao da su na različitim frekvencijama, iako i dalje dijele pre-poznatljiv uzorak i zajedništvo. Prostor, pokreti, rad i teme su dijeljeni, bez obzira na individualne interese i razumije-vanja. Vrijedno je također spomenuti kako Iva Nerina preuzi-ma različitu ulogu u Melone patafizici u odnosu na prijašnje radove, ali i dalje održava povezanost s grupom u novom obliku. Dosljednost koju ova grupa autorica i autora ima u izmještanju publike na različite načine u različitim radovima održana je početnom šetnjom prema izvedbenom prostoru i promjenom mjesta za sjedenje i perspektive, što je kolektiv-nost koju izvođačice i izvođači i publika koja ih vjerno pra-ti kroz radove dijele i na koju se obje strane mogu osloniti.

Ponovni prolazak kroz ove radove radi pisanja o njima podcrtao mi je složenost njihovih sadržaja, pristupa, radnih pro-

cesa i toga kako se gledaju. Izabrani radovi i opisane kolektiv-nosti samo su dio cjeline koju čini Kik Melone, što znači da prostora za daljnju analizu i promatranje i dalje ima puno, bilo kroz kolektivnost ili izvan nje. Završavam s mišlju da uvijek ima još toga za podijeliti, ali sa stvarnošću da se o nekim stva-rima pisalo.

Tara Ivanišević vizualna je umjetnica s određenim intere-som za suvremeni ples. U vlastitim radovima izvodi, piše i stvara pokretne i statične slike koje razmišljaju o sebi i svo-joj okolini. U tuđim radovima voli osjetiti intenzitet, vidje-ti dobro izveden koncept i doživjeti nešto što još ne može opisati.

ODLOMAK RASTANKA

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MeLOnePatafIZIKa

Horror Vacuivizual: Marko gutić Mižimakov

Melone patafizika16mm c/b film still: jasen Vodenica

62 KRETANJA 32 | 19

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KRoz KIK MeLoNe; o zAjedNIšTVUKRETANJA 32 | 19

Ever since the first time I saw a Kik Melone performance, Gla-cier at its pre-premiere, I have been a loyal spectator and hono-rary participant of its works, having been invited to rehearsals, given feedback, argued with others about their opinions on the Kik Melone performance they saw, hung out over coffees and drinks with (parts of ) the creative team, kept a flyer of The Saddest Piece. Ever. on my shelf at home, lain awake in bed thinking about the creative implications of what these works were producing, sharing and causing and went into a lake fully clothed wearing a wig over my face.1 My latest engagement with it is this text, in which I am offering a partial review of Kik Melone within the context of its collectivity.

The boundaries I have set in order to limit the length of this text are the time frame from 2015 to 2019 and the following works: Glacier, Glacier Extended, Horror Vacui, The Saddest Method. Ever., The Saddest Piece. Ever. and Melone Pataphysica. Omitted, but seriously considered, are Ms Fox Invited Ms Cat for Tea and a Chit-Chat One Late Late Afternoon Last Summer and Glacier Polymorph.

Before considering collectivity though specific examples, the question of how

I generally define collectivity for the purpose of this text, and why I do not want to use it interchangeably with the word collective, presents itself as necessary to answer. While dicti-onaries such as the online version of Cambridge say that colle-ctivity is “the experience or feeling of sharing responsibilities, experiences, activities, etc.” and offer enjoyable examples such

1 Photoshoot for Horror Vacui’s promotional material.

COLLECTIVITY—

as “it simply doesn’t make sense to talk about individuality if you don’t have a sense of collectivity” and “women’s collectivity can be used as a basis of cooperation, for sharing tasks, or giving mutual support”2, which could serve as good springbo-ards, I prefer instead to define it through personal experience, deduction and opinion. Collectivity is a property which may be present in various situations, experiences and feelings. It may be present regardless of it being noticed, named, defined, understood, paid attention to, felt or not. It may have different qualities for different people within a same situation. It is distinct from collective, which, when used, marks a specific group of people, within a specific set of experiences, values and roles between them, into a unit that is distinguished as different from those outside of the marked collective. In other words, a collective is a group of people where collectivity may or may not be present.

With that written, Kik Melone can be undestood as both a collective and a formal social marker under which certain people work together and collectivity exists. In this text I am focusing on Kik Melone’s collectivity, while acknowledging they may or may not be seen as a collective.

On a formal level, Kik Melone is an artistic organization founded in 2008

by visual artist, illustrator and comic book author Igor Hofbauer and dance artist Silvia Marchig. Its areas of activity

2 See: dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/collectivity (ac-cessed: 14th November 2019)

KIK MELONE—

Tara Ivanišević

Through Kik Melone; On Collectivity


include dance, fine arts, applied arts, artistic figuration and multimedia creation. It is based in Zagreb.3

On a self-identifying level, Kik Melone is a project that “functions as a collaborative performative group that works on the intersection of dance, theatre, performance, film and experimental music [and bases] their practice on experimen-tation, often playing with genre elements so as to question various aspects of performativity and theatricality. The starting point of all their works is physical performance open to the influences of real time it occurs in and sharing authorship and performing are the cornerstones of their artistic vision”. Its three artistic trajectories are comprised of “extravagant per-formative procedures, classical dance and theatre vocabulary citation, ironic detachment and multilayered dramaturgical experimentation that deconstruct the essential aspects of performativity”, “cleansing the performance and performing until exhausting all the elements that make the performance performative, letting the stage be occupied only by perform-ers and their reaction to real time, seeking the meeting point of performance and the public on a deeply intuitive level” and “a methodology of collective multimedia and multigen-re performativity, grounded in spatiality and the context of non-theatre spaces which they are made and performed in”.4

On a practical level, Kik Melone is a group of people, art-ists, who work together, creating artistic pieces that are, after a certain time period of production, available for an audience to witness. The artists work in different and sometimes several media, such as dance, performance, visual art and sound. The group of people who work together is not fixed, neither in number nor in specific individuals and combinations, except for Silvia Marchig, who is present in all of Kik Melone’s pro-ductions. The work process, as far as the 2015–2019 period is concerned, consists of a mutual desire to collaborate or an invitation from Silvia Marchig to collaborate, time spent cre-ating and developing artistic material whether together or separately, various levels of elaborated interests and goals, soliciting feedback towards the end of the process from trusted individuals, limitations set by performance venue availability and low budgets, promotion and finally, performance.

It is, however, on the level which I dubbed possible percep-tual, that Kik Melone’s capacity for collectivity reveals itself. As a distinctly collaborative project, its very premise and years’ worth of projects – varied artistic inputs in different art-ist combinations, coupled with a dedication towards exper-imentation and an openness to explore the cracks between genres, media, artistic interests, forms of togetherness and

3 See: www.min-kulture.hr/default.aspx?id=82&kazid=438 (acces-sed: 14th November 2019)4 See: kikmelone.hr/about-2 (accessed: 14th November 2019)

decision-making – generated works, practices and attempts that are filled to the brim with different qualities of collectivity that are worth noticing, documenting, referencing and, first of all, experiencing if possible. In the works I’m covering, it is difficult to overlook how crucial the element of collaboration and time spent generating content together is for the premise, content and execution of the pieces, making them magnets for collectivity.

The otherwise clean space contains a pia-no, bottles, table lamps, and at least one

balloon off on the side. Ana Horvat is near the piano, while pavleheidler, Silvia Marchig and Sonja Pregrad are in various points of the space. The audience is seated on chairs along one of the walls, on the same level as the performers. The lights are dim, but everything is visible. pavleheidler, Silvia and Sonja move, individually and collectively. They come together and come apart. They lean on the space, they hold each other, they speak, sing and they manipulate light, whether by using the windows or the table lamps. Ana runs her hands across the balloon, works with the bottles that are partially filled with water, with additional items and plays the piano, producing the soundscape. It lasts for over an hour and lingers on after it finishes.

Although Glacier isn’t fully stripped of its performative contents, it is bare in representational meaning. The canvas is blank, perhaps even brought into question, and is being filled up with a complex system of movement, being and (self-)relating. Its title is illustrative, but does not distract from the decision to keep such elements to a minimum, so as to facil-itate alternative forms of being in a performative space. As a spectator, I occasionally caught my mind filling parts of it with figurative meaning, only to discard it and get back to what the piece was actually about.

With many of the elements that make up a performance absent, what’s left and generated is a collectivity that might be described as inherent. A primordial sense of togetherness that comes from having a body, a cosciousness, having spent time with specific others in the same space at the same time, with the ability and experience of moving closer and further apart from someone or something, knowledge on how to place the weight of your body and movement on the weight and movement of a body that isn’t yours, as well as how to respond to the developments that come out of that and how to utilize the properties you have accumulated in your body, with your distinct understanding, drawing from the instinctual, rather than the technical and virtuosic. The collectivity in someone attempting to speak from a place unlike the cognitive and informational and someone else attempting to hear it in a similar way. Just like the piece’s elements, the collectivity that

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comes with it avoids description, but nonetheless comes in and out of focus, has its rhythm and texture and is at moments almost familiar.

The space is the same for the first four hours – up the stairs, until you cross the threshold and enter it. The eight hours

after it are somewhere else, on ground level, where the space is bigger and vast, but not on the same location. The third and remaining space, for the last eight hours spread across two days, is down the stairs with a cold floor and a divider wall. When entering, a person from inside gets up to discreetly say there is tea and cookies, an area with a letter writing set open to written messages from the audience and the choice to leave and come back at any moment. The invitation is to sit anyw-here, with the option of a chair. The lights are dim enough to accommodate a laptop hooked on a projector showing an image of a text editor and text as it is being written by a chosen par-ticipant or any of the performers in case the participant is absent. There is an assortment of other items in the space, notably books, but not only. pavleheidler, Ana Horvat, Silvia Marchig and Sonja Pregrad are there – moving, sharing, making sounds, being quiet, lying on the floor, reading out of a book, drinking or making tea, going into a corner, dancing, relating, giving out letters, silently reading letters, getting up to write and generally engaging and being for the duration of the daily four hour blocks.

As the name aptly announces, it is an extended or rather stretched continuation of Glacier, with a complex set of ele-ments which come together around its core premise, which remains the same as in the original, although manifesting a bit differently. Time is expanded into the realm of dura-tional pieces, sound is expanded beyond the propositions of instruments and items producing sound – Ana is as much of a performer of movement as pavlehiedler, Silvia or Sonja – intuitive relating is ambitiously expanded to include rela-tionships with books, food, writing and technology, roles are expanded to include, besides performers and audience mem-bers, helpers called Mothers of Glacier, which offers expanded tools for relations between the performers and the audience. A new element of live writing is introduced, as an immediate version of text meant as feedback, a review or simply content that follows a piece.5

5 Called Writing Xposed, the project is an experiment of live writing with an attempt to facilitate new forms of relation between dance per-formances and written reflections. Its facilitator is Iva Nerina Sibila and its writers, including Iva Nerina, are Ana Fazekaš, Ivana Ivković, Maja Le-žaić, Mila Pavičević and jasna jasna žmak. See: kikmelone.hr/pdf/writin-gexposed-kikmelone.pdf (accessed: 14th November 2019)

GLACIER EXTENDED

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Much like the combination of various materials that form a glacier, the different elements of Glacier Extended form a collectivity that depends on their unity. It is a radical collec-tivity, powerful but at the same time spread thin across several threads. Its duration of five four-hour blocks spanning five days and changing locations twice introduces endurance and a need for extreme performative focus, which in turn intro-duces fatigue, which finally introduces complexity made up of shifting strategies, energies, relations and actions, that con-tinuously contract and expand in front of, and partly, with the audience. The audience, on their part, is free to enter and exit at any moment, which means they may stay for one hour on the fifth day, seeing only an ending fragment of the work, or come every day, witnessing the many transfigurations of it. An opportunity for such contrasting experiences creates a collec-tivity that is able to reach both ends of a very wide spectrum. The multiple ways in which language is introduced – through live writing, letter-writing, reading out of a book and speak-ing – adds layers of opportunities for figurative and cognitive understanding, muddying the line between playing with it and falling into it while still attempting to stay immersed in “deep time”.6 The projection of live-written text may be an image, but it is just as much, if not more, symbols that ask viewers to interpret them if they know how. Ana’s active participation in movement, without pronouncedly remaining in the role of a musician, expands what is possible, expected and happening in that area, which makes visible the collectivity between the performers, where performative balance and horizontality is achieved between contemporary dancers of different qualities and a musician. With all of its complexity, the piece stands firmly and convincingly, fortified by a collective energy, dura-tional effort, performative intensity and mutual investment. It houses a collectivity that is difficult to discern, but rewarding to experience, witness and think about.

In the lobby, people gather in conversa-tion and wait. A closed door opens, Umberto Lancia comes out and begins

guiding people in, in groups of five, always closing the door behind them. As they wait together in an intermediate space, he describes what comes next – entering into a nearly pitch black space and reaching their assigned seating place. If they need to, they are able to go out the same way. The front door of the intermediate space opens and exactly that happens, flashlight in hand. Once the whole audience is inside, more

6 ‘deep time’ is a term that appears in the 1962 science fiction novel The Drowned World, written by james graham ballard. Kik Melone dire-ctly references the book, which is also present as an object during both Glacier and Glacier Extended. The term deep time is also tied to the concept of geologic time.

HORROR VACUI

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or less evenly spaced out throughout the rows of seats, the doors close one last time, leaving them in the darkness.

The most striking and immediately evident element of Horror Vacui is that most of it is performed in next to none light. The first thing performers Marko Gutić Mižimakov, Umberto Lancia, Silvia Marchig, Iva Nerina Sibila and Jasen Vodenica – which you must trust are there based only on the performance announcement or leaflet, because you cannot actually see who it is – do, is slowly climb through and over the seating space, between the audience, over them, either in silence or while emitting low sounds, while clods of long, wild hair cover their faces. What follows after is a series of events and flashes of temporary illumination – someone on a ladder, someone manipulating a projector for positive film, someone dancing on the stage, someone playing a projection of dark water on the front screen and so on. Josip Maršić is nearby, working the music. At some point, there is a sequence with working lights and seemingly private conversations between the performers. At another point, Umberto is demanding the audience leaves, signalling the end of the piece.

The lack of illumination creates a radicalized invisibility which can be understood from multiple angles. Artistically, it’s a strong gesture which obstructs the performers’ individual technical and artistic skill on its base, visual level, additionally stripping them of identity and identifiable markers. During the darkest parts of the piece, it may not be possible to account for all five of its performers. Politically, there may be reflections on and of the cultural climate of not only 2017, the year in which Horror Vacui both premiered in Zagreb and had its last performance, but also of the current 2019, in which the Grič Cinema, previously poorly kept and in need of renovations, is now closed, which is, for a piece that was made in situ, a quite relevant development.

The mentioned radicalized invisibility creates an unor-thodox situation in which to experience collectivity. It makes it difficult for both the performers and the audience, but in different ways, to fall back on familiarity with the perform-ative format – the performers do not get to come in and out of the stage, have their movements be seen and recognized as whichever (personal) style or quality, be perceived on a primarily visual level or take credit for specific dramaturgical actions. Instead, alternative strategies form and a collectivi-ty emerges out of it. Action and presence is shared between performers in an almost communal way, while technical skill and artistic instinct aren’t absent, but manifest different-ly. The collectivity between the performers is supported by a trust that is necessary when operating in the dark, but also generally when working together – trust for one to be taking care of the other and vice versa, although there are reduced ways, if any, to check. The collectivity of the audience connects

to the shared experience of uncertainty coming from a less familiar artistic decision and the collective agreement of all the members of the audience to accept the proposition of the piece. Overlapping in places, these collectivities share a mutual space or create a third collectivity related to the relationship between the performers and the audience, where those that know more have a responsibility towards those that do not.

A two-day conference organized around the topics and materials developed by Kik Melone for its at the time pie-ce-in-process, The Saddest Piece. Ever.,

in preparation of its 10th anniversary. There is an online regi-stration form that includes a quiz to determine which Kik Melone piece a person is, as well as a question about what type of coffee they prefer and an obligatory registration fee in the form of blog post material posted on Kik Melone’s website prior to the conference itself. Sad Session, Sadder than Sad Session, Very Sad Session and Saddest Session. Ever. serve as markers for conference blocks in which talk, performance, participation and the unexpected happen. Conference parti-cipants are free to spectate, ask questions, directly engage performatively and more. Apart from the keynote speakers Marko Gutić Mižimakov, Umberto Lancia, Silvia Marchig, Iva Nerina Sibila and Jasen Vodenica, panelists Mila Čuljak, Nataša Govedić, pavleheidler and Angela Rawlings also participate. The announced Josip Maršić could not make it. The proposed format of the conference serves as a gentle but clear frame around which varied performative situations, new materials and collectivity emerge.

The format of the conference invites both whimsical and serious interpretation. Coffee is drank as accreditations are made and names and performances that people got in the quiz are written down on them. Once that is done, just in time for the official beginning of the conference block, everyone enters the conference area, where they either sit down or take the microphone in order to announce the topics they will be covering during the session. The announced materials are substantial and layered, while also containing playful (self-)ironies and deep sadness. As each block develops, so do the performative situations in which participants actively join in movement and speaking, actively continue listening and viewing or remain silent, but mostly supportive spectators.

Such an open but defined format that facilitates participa-tion without feeling obligatory, underdeveloped or unable to function without it is difficult to achieve, making this piece worthy of attention. The keynote speakers come prepared with topics and materials they’ve been developing together and with an openness to share them in a way that leaves room for outside intervention. The collectivity specific to this group of

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people follows them from Horror Vacui to this project, trans-forming as the materials and their interests do. Strengthened by working on a new project after finishing a previous one, the collectivity they share seems to be able to endure probing questions, self-doubt and risky decisions – elements which are granted entry into the process by the group, alongside success-ful experiments and satisfying improvisations. Additionally strengthening the collectivity is an understanding of what dif-ferent processes need and the sharing beyond the group. pav-leheidler, who had co-authored Glacier and Glacier Extended, didn’t participate in any of the work processes leading up to The Saddest Method. Ever., but flew in from abroad to participate in the conference as a panellist, informally confirming a link and likely presence of a collectivity that exists beyond con-tinuous artistic collaboration. Other participants, who hadn’t previously worked with Kik Melone, but were likely familiar with its work, were also able to join and joined, offering their own contribution to the development of the collectivity that was already present, but in a state of voluntary transformation. The collectivity present during the conference was transient, as it included combinations of people that weren’t likely to collaborate again, at the very least in that format, however, that doesn’t take away from its significance and impact and might even add to it.

Led onto a stage with two rows of chairs aligned to face an empty seating space of over a thousand seats, the audience

sits down on the chairs and the mechanism of the curtains, operated by a performer in drab colours, momentarily draws them closed... in order to open them again. The thousand seats are no longer empty, instead containing a horned figure, a

THE SADDEST PIECE. EVER.

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person in sparkly red, someone facing the mirror in their hands, two people in drab clothes that look like technical support and a lot of space. On the left side, close to the stage, but in fact under it, Josip Maršić stands next to his workstation. What follows is a long and intense continuity of individual and collective performances, both partly obscured by distance or a panel and close on the stage and in the side areas. Clumps of loud paper shuffle, an extremely long ladder rotates, nipples flash in red and white, stories are told over the microphone, a telephone rings, the space is on fire and the management isn’t responding...

The theme of the piece is declaratively announced in the title, gently suggesting in which direction the audience’s atten-tion may be pointed. The monumental scenography draws attention to its size and various areas of activity, requesting both focused and general attention, whether separately or simultaneously. The five performers, Marko Gutić Mižimak-ov, Umberto Lancia, Silvia Marchig, Iva Nerina Sibila, Jasen Vodenica, and the musician, Josip Maršić, fill up the space, the distances between each of them thick with presence and attention.

The collectivity shared between the performers is equally thick and full, relying on all the artistic resources and materials that were accumulated during the work process. Movements, gestures and themes, besides communicating what they are, subtly speak of materials, processes and artistic decisions which didn’t make the cut of the performance, but exist in the space around the chosen elements of The Saddest Piece. Ever. Besides sharing the piece, the performers share everything they didn’t get to use, including what had happened during rehearsals, but not on the premiere or second performance. They share missed opportunities, compromises, unanswered questions, uncer-tainties, but also strength, familiarity, time and collaboration. The present collectivity reveals itself in each of them individ-ually in distinct, personalized versions that still make a whole that is recognizable as the collectivity of Kik Melone within this piece and group of authors. In relation to the audience, the collectivity feels strong, but contained. Whether that’s due to the size of and distances in the performance space or how personal and impenetrable sadness can be, the collectivity is in any case noticeable, but not really pliable.

Exophysician Iva Nerina Sibila guides the audience towards the performance space through an alternative path and

entrance. On the way, that includes exteriors, small black figu-rines in the shape of the human form line parts of the path – the same ones she gives to each of the audience members with an explanation of what they are and which side is their front. Once inside, the audience is free to sit either on the side

MELONE PATAPHYSICA

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The Saddest Peace. Ever.photo: Marko gutić Mižimakov


lined with chairs or the one lined with cushions on the floor. Pataphysicians Marko Gutić Mižimakov, Umberto Lancia, Silvia Marchig and Jasen Vodenica are already on the stage, while exophysician Iva Nerina joins the audience. Satie plays in various renditions, as the pataphysicians go through ele-ments of choreography, improvisation, film, object manipu-lation, singing and, with the help of the exophysician, shifting the audience out of their sitting places into the rows of seats that reveal themselves behind a curtain which opens at about halfway of the piece. Satie continues through a different com-position, while mirrors are moved, films on film stock played in loops and bodies thrown on and picked up from the ground, right up to the final film projection on a big, white screen after which the piece finishes.

Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 1 playing in various stylistically eclectic cover versions during the first part of the piece marks Melone Pataphysica in a way that allows that to serve as a base to describe the collectivity which hovers around and within the piece and its authors. The same melody playing continuously in a sort of loop may suggest continuity through repetition, while different styles could signify variable interpretations of the same element. The same may be said about the collectivi-ty of Melone Pataphysica. The walk towards the performance space and all of the performance has the audience in light interaction with the black human figurines, which are also repeating due to their uniformity and number. The figurines may be understood as a symbol of the shared experience of the audience, literally given to them, lent, by the piece. Once in the space, movement begins with a shared choreography of a repeating and developing sequence of walking, standing, kneeling and laying down on the floor. The four pataphysi-cians each have a visual of a hand making a shape, as part of their costume, achieving another repetition with variations. The loops of film, visually similar as objects, each with the same quality of the picture once projected, but with slightly different events and motives displayed, are another example of repetition with variation.

Collectivity takes on that shape – each pataphysician seems to have their own collectivity that follows them, mutually in relation and similar, but distinctive. Unlike in The Saddest Piece. Ever., where there are also individual collectivities, but ones that vibrate similarly, these collectivities feel to be each on a different frequency, but still sharing a recognizable pat-tern, much like the different stylistic renditions of the same Satie piece. The group shares the space, the movements, the piece and the themes, with each person having their own pro-nounced interests and understanding. It is worth noting how Iva Nerina takes on a different role in Melone Pataphysica, in comparison to the previous pieces, but maintains a connection with the group in the new format. The consistency which this

group of authors has in shifting the audience in different ways throughout different pieces, is maintained here, both with the initial guided walk towards the space and the change of seating and perspective, offering a collectivity between them and the audience that feels familiar and comforting, while still different each time.

Re-experiencing these works for the purpose of writing about them under-lined their complexity in content, met-

hod, work process and viewing. The chosen pieces and described collectivities are only a part of the whole that makes up Kik Melone, which means there is still ample room for further analysis and observation, within the scope of its collectivity and outside it. I finish with the thought that there is always more, but with the reality that some of it has been written about.


Tara Ivanišević is a visual artist with a certain interest in contemporary dance. In her own works she performs, writes and creates moving and static images that think about them-selves and their surroundings. In the works of others, she enjoys feeling intensity, seeing well-executed concepts and experiencing something she cannot describe yet.

PARTING PARAGRAPH

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The Saddest Method. Ever. photo: Tara Ivanišević

68 KRETANJA 32 | 19 dAN KAdA SU PoToMCI SUSReLI dIVoVe

The Day the Successors Met the Giants

Dan kada su potomci susreli divove...

06

69MOVEMENTS 32 | 19THe dAY THe SUCCeSSoRS MeT THe gIANTS

ivA NeriNA SiBilA

06Peti ansambl eksperimentalni je edukacijski i izvedbeni pro-jekt, prvi ovakvog tipa u Hrvatskoj, u kojem su se u partner-sku mrežu spojili Grad Rijeka, HNK Ivana pl. Zajca, Centar za odgoj i obrazovanje Rijeka i Udruga Down 21. Koordina-torice programa su autorica i izvođačica, majka, radnica u kulturi i obrazovanju te predsjednica udruge Down 21 Mila Čuljak, edukacijska rehabilitatorica Nataša Bačić te drama-turginja Nataša Antulov.

Edukaciju u području glume vode glumice s angažmanom u HNK-u Ivana pl. Zajca, izvedbene umjetnice te predavačice na studiju Gluma i mediji Jelena Lopatić i Aleksandra Stoja-ković Olenjuk te glumac Gradskog kazališta lutaka u Rijeci i predavač na studiju Gluma i mediji Damir Orlić. Radionicu glasa vodi licencirana predavačica Lessac metode i docentica na studiju Gluma i mediji Valentina Lončarić, a pokreta dan-ceability edukatorica i izvođačica Helvecia Tomić. Radionicu kostimografije vodi inženjer tekstilne tehnologije i profesor izobrazbe krojača u Centru za odgoj i obrazovanje Anto Vra-njić, a radionicu grafičkog oblikovanja voditelj knjigovežačke radionice Milan Dundović.

Program financira Europski socijalni fond u sklopu poziva „Umjetnost i kultura za mlade”, a dio je programskog pravca Kuhinja projekta Rijeka 2020 Europska prijestolnica kulture.

° ° °

¬ Iva Nerina Sibila: Zašto i kako je pokrenut Peti ansambl?

¬ Nataša Antulov: U matičnom kazalištu – Hrvatskom narodnom kazalištu Ivana pl. Zajca u Rijeci smo, baveći se dekonstrukcijom pojma „narodno“ kazalište, pokušali vidjeti tko je sve isključen iz pozicije gledanja i proizvodnje kazali-šta. Nakon održane radionice s drugačije sposobnim mladim ljudima, koji su kasnije postali dio Petog ansambla, javio mi se neugodan osjećaj da tim radionicama institucije na neki način peru svoju odgovornost po pitanju vlastite inkluzivne politike. Svaka inkluzija postane humanitarni eksces koji se naglašava u aplikacijama za financiranje, ali dugoročne stra-tegije razvoja institucije i inkluzivnih praksi nema. Skupina BADco. prije nekoliko je godina imala projekt koji je na-zvala Institucije treba graditi i meni je, zajedno s Jelenom Solarić koja je tada bila ravnateljica Hrvatske drame, postalo izuzetno važno razumijevanje toga što znači graditi jednu takvu javnu instituciju; s kime je potrebno surađivati, kome je potrebno dati vidljivost, koga je potrebno osnažiti itd. In-timno gledajući, nisam mogla prihvatiti nevidljivost svojih sugrađanki i sugrađana i njihovih obitelji. Na poziv Jelene Tondini koja je tada radila za projekt Rijeka 2020 EPK prijavi-li smo projekt jednogodišnje edukacije na natječaj Europskog socijalnog fonda, Grad Rijeka bio je nositelj projekta, a HNK Zajc, Centar za odgoj i obrazovanje i Rijeka 21 partneri na projektu. Paralelno s time s Milom Čuljak i Jelenom Lopatić radila sam Milinu predstavu Down, by law, predstavu o nje-zinom iskustvu majčinstva i rođenja Borisa koji ima Downov sindrom. Tako je započela izgradnja tima koji se proširio na Helveciju Tomić, Aleksandru Stojaković Olenjuk, Valentinu

Dan kada su potomci susreli divove...Razgovor s Natašom Antulov, dramaturginjom HNK-a Ivana pl. Zajca u Rijeci, jednom od pokretačica riječkog inkluzivnog suradničkog projekta Peti ansambl i Helvecijom Tomić, edukatoricom danceability metode

Iva Nerina Sibila

Peti ansambl foto: dražen šokčević


Lončarić, Natašu Bačić, Damira Orlića, Antu Vranjića, Mi-lana Dudova.

¬ I.N.S: Što je na osobnom i profesionalnom planu značilo biti dijelom autorsko-edukatorskog kolektiva Petog ansambla?

¬ N. A: Svi uključeni u ovaj projekt ljudi su s vrlo kom-pleksnim privatnim i profesionalnim životima. Počevši od kolegica i kolega iz Centra za odgoj i obrazovanje koji ne prihvaćaju stvari onakvima kakve jesu i pritom se poprilič-no pankerski bore za svoje učenike, njihova buduća radna mjesta, njihov osjećaj samopoštovanja, pa do nas umjetnica i umjetnika koji želimo doprinijeti njihovoj borbi uz pomoć disciplina u kojima djelujemo.

Naša je strategija bila ta da vidimo jedni druge, vidimo kad smo nervozni, vidimo kad smo tužni, vidimo kad smo pretrpani raznim obavezama i pritom znamo da svi dajemo sve od sebe. I ta spoznaja da dajemo sve od sebe i da nam je nedvojbeno stalo do Petog ansambla čini to da preskačemo osnovnu prepreku u svakom radnom odnosu, a to je konstan-tno dovođenje u pitanje nečije motivacije i radne sposobno-sti. Mi se time ne bavimo. Bavimo se time kako da olakšamo jedni drugima, kako da se osjećamo dobro jedni s drugima. I kako da brinemo jedni za druge.

¬ I.N.S: A na koji je način ovaj rad utjecao na vas osobno? Koje su se transformacije dogodile na nekom intimnom planu spram pojma izvedbe, prijenosa znanja, izvedbenosti, konteksta, prijateljstva, osobnih granica?

¬ N. A: Na razini shvaćanja izvedbenih umjetnosti ponov-no mi je postalo jasno, jer sam to negdje po putu zaboravila pokušavajući se legitimirati kao „ozbiljna autorica“, da ne po-stoji idealna predstava niti ideja izvan iskustva procesa. Sve to, naravno, oduvijek znam, ali radeći s Petim ansamblom konačno sam shvatila da je to tako. Kao dramaturginja sklo-na sam projekcijama u radu na projektima, zamislim projekt kao gotovu stvar i prije nego što je on započeo. Također, bilo je fascinantno vidjeti koliko je izvedbenih postupaka u po-lju repeticije i trajanja upisano u tijela drugačije sposobnih izvođača, kako njihove neurološke predispozicije posežu za procedurama koje mi kroz povijest izvedbenih umjetnosti vidimo kao estetike inovacije. Zanimljivi su bili komenta-ri nakon predstave Potomci, divovi, bogovi u kojoj smo svoj jednogodišnji rad oblikovali u dramaturški slijed koji je imao logiku predstave neovisno o tome što je u nekom smislu to više bila prezentacija. Ljudi su mislili da ćemo raditi dram-ske scene i bili su jako uzbuđeni što smo na velikoj sceni Zajca, pred 600 ljudi, izvodili proces sa svim ranjivostima, ali i ushitima.

Što se tiče prijenosa znanja i prijateljstva, čini mi se da to tako dobro radimo upravo zato što za nas ne postoji ta velika transformacija. Tako radimo i kada predajemo na studiju Glu-ma i mediji na Akademiji primijenjenih umjetnosti u Rijeci,

gdje Aleksandra, Valentina, Jelena, Mila, Damir i ja predajemo na preddiplomskom i diplomskom studiju.

¬ I.N.S: Kolegica Medie Megas iz Atene svoj je tekst za temat ovog časopisa o inkluzivnim praksama iz 2014., u kojem se bavi iskustvom rada s osobama s nestandardnim intelektualnim spo-sobnostima, nazvala „Tonuti u slatki ambis“. Slažete se?

¬ N. A: Da, to izvrsno opisuje naš rad. Ali ne samo rad s osobama s intelektualnim teškoćama. Padanje u slatki ambis apsolutni je cilj svakog umjetničkog rada. Drugačije niti ne želim raditi ovaj posao.

¬ I.N.S: Kako se organizira kolektivno tijelo ovako velikog ansambla koje čine mladi s nestandardnim doživljajem svijeta i sebe u njemu? Što se događa unutar grupe?

¬ N. A: Ne znam jesmo li mi kao grupa izuzetak ili su pe-dagozi u Centru za odgoj i obrazovanje izuzetak, ali na razi-ni međusobne podrške, poštovanja, interesa, posvećenosti i iskrenosti naša je grupa funkcionirala kao da se izvedbenim umjetnostima bavi godinama. Niti jedan problem koji nam je stvarao frustraciju nije dolazio iz grupe Petog ansambla. Uvijek su uzrok frustracije bili oni koje označavamo kao funkcionalne članove društva.

¬ I.N.S: Koju je vrstu utjecaja ovaj projekt imao na obitelji i užu zajednicu vaših polaznika?

N. A: Ispada da je utjecaj bio ogroman. Iako smo uvijek isticali da naš cilj nije djelovanje u području rehabilitacije niti u bilo kojem tipu art terapije jer mi nismo rehabilitatori niti terapeuti. Činjenica je da je naš pristup koji je inzistirao na ravnopravnom radu; sve se vježbe rade zajednički i cijeli je edukacijsko-umjetnički tim sudjelovao u izvedbi, vidljivo-sti u zajednici i medijima, uvažavanju autorskih preferenci-ja, doveo do toga da se dogodio značajan pomak i u području rehabilitacije.

Mislim da je to naprosto stvar drugačijeg iskustva jer ne mislim da je rehabilitacijska praksa u bilo kojem smislu nedovoljna, već je iskustvo Petog ansambla pokazalo koliko je uskraćivanje participacije u svim segmentima društvenih aktivnosti odnosno uključivanje u društvo na svim razinama, važno za drugačije sposobne osobe. Upravo je zato važno da u tome sudjeluje institucija koja se kontekstualno veže za pri-vilegiranu višu srednju klasu, poput HNK-a Ivana pl. Zajca.

¬ I.N.S: Što znači „izvedba“ ili „izvedbeno“ u kategoriji rada s mladima s nestandardnim intelektualnim mogućnostima?

¬ N. A: Baviti se „izvedbenim“ u ovom i svakom slučaju znači locirati iz čega proizlazi želja za izvođenjem i prepo-znati oblik izvedbe koji će podržati to što osoba želi učiniti vidljivim ili nevidljivim. U ovom slučaju to znači da ćemo tokom izvedbe Leo i ja skakati na pilates lopti sat vremena. I on i ja (s obzirom na to da se ne osjećam ugodno na pozorni-ci) odabrali smo aktivnost na sceni koja nam daje dojam da proizvodimo dovoljno da možemo uživati u drugim aspek-


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tima izvođenja, kao što su sudjelovanje u nekoj kompoziciji, dinamici, izgradnji slike, ekonomiji pažnje i slično.

¬ I.N.S: Na premijeri predstave „Potomci, divovi, bogovi“ na kojoj sam bila, kada je cijeli ansambl izašao na scenu, kao da se na energetskoj razini otvorio neki snažan i nepoznat pro-stor i potpuno promijenio doživljaj „kazališnog“. Što se zapravo događalo?

¬ N. A: Malo je tko, a tko je izvana pratio naš rad, vjerovao da ćemo realizirati izvedbu od sat vremena. Nama, iznutra, s našim shvaćanjem toga što kazališna izvedba može biti, to nikada nije bilo upitno. Svi su bili preplavljeni tom slikom od gotovo trideset izvođača. Meni se čini da se otvorio prostor gledanja nevidljivih ljudi. Naravno, prisutna je bila i speci-fična prisutnost izvođača kojima je u tom trenutku izuzetno stalo do izvedbe, ali ako govorimo baš o tom prvom izlasku na scenu, koji su mnogi spominjali kao svojevrstan udarac u pleksus, mislim da je riječ upravo o toj masi nevidljivih. Kasnije, kako se izvedba razvijala, razvijao se i taj intenzitet posvećenosti svakom zadatku, ugoda u izvođenju i, naprosto, izvođačka virtuoznost.

¬ I.N.S: Što znači biti izvođački dio takvog ansambla? ¬ N. A: Pronašla sam veselje u izvođenju, što nikada prije

nisam osjećala. ¬ I.N.S: Gdje je Peti ansambl danas i gdje će biti sutra? ¬ N. A: Tijekom 2020. novosadski umjetnik Saša Asentić

režirat će predstavu u sklopu programa EPK, a nakon toga će Peti ansambl djelovati u sklopu HNK-a Ivana pl. Zajca i producirati jednu do dvije premijere po sezoni.

° ° ° Helvecia Tomić:

Ova edukacijska godina sastojala se od pripremnog rada na scenskom izražavanju korištenjem tijela i glasa u pokre-tu, glumi i pjevanju. Fond sati koji nam je bio projektno dodijeljen, uz vremenske mogućnosti korisnika da sudjelu-ju i raspoloživosti prostora dostupnog za korištenje, postavi-li su okvir unutar kojeg smo dobro morali osluškivati što je potrebno grupi za ulazak u magiju koncentracije i prisutnosti kako bi otvorili sve ventile kreativnosti. Bilo je važno osluš-kivati što je ovom, iz početne pozicije, budućem ansamblu potrebno te kako tko od nas voditelja može, za svaku fazu u kojoj smo, podržati kreativno otvaranje svakog pojedinca, pa onda i grupe.

Na početku je naglasak bio na osvještavanju i izražavanju pokretom i plesom na koji su se nadograđivali glas s pokre-tom, a onda gluma i pokret. Kako su dani prolazili i mi se svi zajedno razvijali i rasli, tako smo snagu izraza jačali tamo gdje nam je u svakoj pojedinoj fazi bilo potrebno, odnosno pove-ćavali smo ili smanjivali kompleksnost zadataka za usavrša-vanje „scenskog aparata“ slušanjem što prvenstveno grupi i

pojedincima treba, zajedničkim dogovaranjem oko toga koji voditelj diže kompleksnost zadataka, a koji spušta za predsto-jeće dane ili fazu.

Nekad su odluke padale ovisno o tome je li kišni ili sun-čani dan, je li se netko posvađao s vozačem ili mamom ili je godišnjica smrti Toše Proeskog. Čak i u takvim danima postojala je kolektivna odgovornost prema radu, koja je pro-izlazila iz ljubavi i razumijevanja toga da smo krenuli radi-ti kao dio kazališnog tima. Svaki pojedinac, svaka pojedinka, bilo u ulozi voditelja ili polaznika, odgovorno je stajala iza svoje odluke doprinosa stvaranju Petog ansambla, slušajući jedni druge što nam je potrebno.

Na izvedbi se iza pozornice, događalo uzbuđenje, svi smo bili poredani po redu izlaska na scenu, bodrili jedni druge i podsjećali da znamo kako sve ide i da ćemo biti super, ner-voza Nataše oko toga jesmo li svi na broju... a na pozornici se događala radost, samopoštovanje, samopouzdanje, uzbuđe-nje, podrška.

° ° ° Peti ansambl čine: Luka Rončević, Clara Višić, Gabrijela Babić, Matea Cindrić, Eduard Nošaj, Matea Glavan, Alberina Kujaj, Vid Gržalja, Isabella Hujić, Sanela Vidmar, Leo Kova-čević, Ivan Maršić, Borna Čabrijan, Lorena Alitovski, Đani Shaqiri, Zdravko Mamula, Ines Jajčević, Oliver Landeka, Jan Šokčević, Leonardo Iličić, Monia Ambrić, Antonia Mar-šal, Brigita Jukić, Deni Pezelj, Zvonimir Materljan i Andrej Janjatović, Mila Čuljak, Helvecia Tomić, Nataša Bačić, Nataša Antulov, Jelena Lopatić, Aleksandra Stojaković Olenjuk

Iva Nerina Sibila plesna je umjetnica, edukatorica i publi-cistkinja, s posebnim interesom za ples kao inkluzivnu druš-tvenu i umjetničku praksu. Studirala je suvremeni ples na Northern School of Contemporary Dance u Leedsu (UK). Živi i radi u Zagrebu.

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dAN KAdA SU PoToMCI SUSReLI dIVoVeKRETANJA 32 | 19

The Fifth Ensemble is an experimental educational and per-formance project, the first of its kind in Croatia, a network of partners connecting the City of Rijeka, Ivan Zajc Croatian National Theatre, Centre for Education Rijeka and Rijeka 21 Association. The programme coordinators are author, per-former, mother, cultural worker, educator and president of the Rijeka 21 Association Mila Čuljak, education rehabilitator Nataša Bačić and dramaturge Nataša Antulov.

In the field of acting, training is conducted by actres-ses employed by the Ivan Zajc CNT, performance artists and lecturers at the Acting and Media course, Jelena Lopatić and Aleksandra Stojaković Olenjuk, and actor with the Rijeka City Puppet Theatre and teacher at the Acting and Media course Damir Orlić. The voice workshop is tutored by the licensed Lessac method teacher and docent at the Acting and Media course Valentina Lončarić, and dance by performer and Dan-ceability educator Helvecia Tomić. The costume design works-hop is mentored by the textile technology engineer and professor of tailoring at the Centre for Education Anto Vra-njić, and graphic design workshop by the bookbinding craft manager Milan Dundović.

The programme is financed by European Social Fund’s open call Youth in Art and Culture, and it is part of the pro-gramme section Kitchen of the Rijeka 2020 European Capital of Culture project.

° ° °

¬ Iva Nerina Sibila: How and why was The Fifth Ensemble launched?

¬ Nataša Antulov: At my home theatre – Ivan Zajc Cro-atian National Theatre in Rijeka we, exploring a deconstruc-tion of the notion of a ‘national’ theatre, tried to see who was excluded from the position of observing and producing thea-tre. After the workshop was held with diversely abled young people, who later became member of The Fifth Ensemble, I got an unpleasant feeling that with such workshops the in-stitutions in a way shake off their own responsibility regard-ing inclusive policies. Every inclusion becomes a human-itarian excess highlighted in applications for funding, but a long-term strategy of institution development and inclu-sive practices doesn’t exist. The BADco. company a few years ago had a project called Institutions Need to be Constructed and to myself, and to Jelena Solarić who was at the time the managing director of Croatian Drama, it became extremely important to understand what it means to build one such institution: who to collaborate with, whom to give visibil-ity, who needs empowering etc. From an intimate point of view, I could not accept the invisibility of my fellow citizens and their families. To the invitation of Jelena Tondini, who was at the time working for the Rijeka 2020 ECC project, we applied for the open call of the European Social Fund for a one-year education. The City of Rijeka was the project ben-eficiary, Zajc CNT, Centre for Education and Rijeka 21 were partners on the project. Simultaneously, with Mila Čuljak and Jelena Lopatić I was working on Mila’s piece Down, by Law, about her experience of motherhood and giving birth to baby Boris who has Down syndrome. This is how the team was formed, and later joined by Helvecia Tomić, Aleksandra

The Day the Successors Met the GiantsInterview with Nataša Antulov, a dramaturge at the Ivan Zajc Croatian National Theatre in Rijeka, one one of the founders of The Fifth Ensemble inclusive collaborative project and Helvecia Tomić, Danceability educator

Iva Nerina Sibila


Stojaković Olenjuk, Valentina Lončarić, Nataša Bačić, Damir Orlić, Ante Vranjić, Milan Dudov.

¬ I.N.S: What did it mean personally and professionally to be part of the creative-educational collective of The Fifth Ensemble?

¬ N.A: All the people included in this project have very complex private and professional lives. Starting from the col-leagues at the Centre for Education who refuse to take things as they are and fight in a proper ‘punk’ way for their stu-dents, for their future jobs, for their feeling of self-respect, to us artists who wish to contribute to their battle with our respective disciplines.

Our strategy was to see each other, to see when we are nervous, to see when we are sad, to see when we are burdened by different obligations and to know that we are giving our very best. The awareness of giving our best and caring about The Fifth Ensemble makes us overcome the initial obstacle in any work relationship – the constant questioning of someone’s motivation and work ability. We don’t deal with that. We deal with making it easier for each other, with feeling good in each other’s company. With taking care of each other.

¬ I.N.S: In what way did this piece make an impact on you personally? What transformations occurred in the intimate sphere in relation to the notion of performance, knowledge transfer, performativity, context, friendship, personal limits?

¬ N.A: On the level of comprehending performing arts, something again became clear to me, something I lost along the way trying to make a name for myself as a ‘serious au-thor’: there is no ideal performance or an idea beyond the process experience. I have, of course, always known this, but working with The Fifth Ensemble helped me realise finally that it is indeed so. As a dramaturge, I am inclined to pro-jections when I work on a project, I imagine a project as a done deal even before it began. Also, it was fascinating to see how many performative actions in the field of reception and duration are inscribed in the bodies of diversely abled performers, how their neurological predispositions resort to procedures we, through a lens of performing arts history, see as aesthetics of innovation. Comments were interesting after the performance Successors, Giants, Gods (Potomci, divovi, bogovi), in which we shaped our one-year work into a dram-aturgical sequence which had the logic of a performance, regardless of the fact that it was in a way more a presentation. People thought we would be creating dramatic scenes and were very excited that on Zajc’s big stage, before an audience of 600 people, we performed a process with all its vulnera-bilities and excitements.

As far as the transfer of knowledge and friendship are concerned, I have a feeling we do it so well because to us this large transformation doesn’t exist. We do it also when we tea-ch the course in Acing and Media, since Aleksandra, Valen-

tina, Jelena, Mila, Damir and myself teach at the BA and MA in Acting and Media at the Rijeka Academy of Applied Arts.

¬ I.N.S: My colleague Medie Megas from Athens named her text for the 2014 thematic issue of this magazine on inclu-sive practices, in which she describes working with persons of non-standard intellectual capacities, “Sinking into Sweet Abyss”. Would you agree with that term?

¬ N.A: Yes, this describes our work to the point. But not only in working with people with intellectual difficulties. Sinking into a sweet abyss is the absolute goal of any artistic work. I wouldn’t do this job any different.

¬ I.N.S: How is a collective body of such a large company, comprising young people with non-standard experience of the world and themselves in it, organised? What was happening in-side the group?

¬ N.A: I don’t know whether we are a an exception as a group, or the teachers at the Centre for Education are an ex-ception, but on the level of mutual support, respect, interest, dedication and sincerity, our group functioned as they were working in performance arts for years. Not a single frustrat-ing problem ever came from The Fifth Ensemble group. The cause of frustration were always those we label as functional society members.

¬ I.N.S: What was the impact of this project on the families and close communities of your attendees?

¬ N.A: It turns out the impact was immense. Although we have always pointed out that our goal wasn’t acting in the field of rehabilitation or in any type of art therapy, since we are not rehabilitators or therapists. The fact remains that our approach, insisting on equal work as all the exercises are done together and the entire team or educators and artists took part in the performance, visibility and media, respect to creative preferences, led to a significant shift in the reha-bilitation area.

I believe it is simply a matter of different experience because I don’t think rehabilitation practice is in any sense insufficient per se, it is rather that The Fifth Ensemble expe-rience proved that denying participation in all the segments of social activities, i.e. inclusion into society on all level is important for diversely abled persons. This is why it is impor-tant that institutions contextually related to the privileged, upper, middle class, like the Ivan Zajc CNT, to take part.

¬ I.N.S: What does ‘performance’ or ‘performative’ in work-ing with young people with non-standard intellectual capacities mean?

¬ N.A: To focus on the ‘performative’ in this and any other case means to locate the source of the desire for performance and recognise the form of performance supporting what this person wants to make visible or invisible. In this case this means that during the performance Leo and I will jump on


06ivA NeriNA SiBilA

a Pilates ball for an hour. Both him and me (since I don’t feel comfortable on stage) chose an activity which gives us the impression that we are producing enough to enjoy other as-pects of performance, such as taking part in a composition, dynamics, building an image, economy of attention etc.

¬ I.N.S: At the premiere of “Successors, Giants, Gods” I at-tended, when the entire cast came out on stage, as though a powerful and unknown sphere opened up on the energy plane and completely changed the experience of ‘theatre’. What did happen in fact?

¬ N.A: Very few people, outside observers, believed we would be able to create an hour-long performance. To us, insiders, with our knowledge of what a theatrical perfor-mance can be, this was never debatable. Everyone was over-whelmed by this image of almost 30 performers. To me it seems like a space for observing invisible people opened up. Of course, there was a the specific presence of the perform-ers who cared for the performance at that moment, but if we are talking about the first entrance onto the stage, which many people mentioned as a sort of kick in the plexus, I be-lieve it is precisely about this mass of invisible people. Later, as the performance evolves, the intensity of dedication to each task also evolved, the pleasure of performing and, sim-ply, the performers’ virtuosity.

¬ I.N.S: What does it mean to be part of such a cast performance-wise?

¬ N.A: I found joy in performing, which I never felt before. ¬ I.N.S: Where is The Fifth Ensemble today and where will it

be tomorrow? ¬ N.A: In 2020 artist Saša Asentić from Novi Sad will di-

rect a play for the ECC programme, and after that Fifth En-semble will collaborate with the Ivan Zajc Croatian National Theatre and produce one or two premieres per season.

° ° °

Helvecia Tomić:This year in training consisted of preparation work on

stage expression through body and voice in movement, acting and singing. The timeframe we were assigned in the proje-ct, along with the possibilities of the beneficiaries to take part and spatial availability, gave us a frame in which we had to pay close attention to what the group needed to attune to the magic of focus and presence and open all the valves of creativity. It was important to pay attention to what this future company required and how any of us educators could, in every particular stage, support the creative expression of every individual, as well as group.


Initially the focus was on raising awareness and expre-ssion through movement and dance, followed by voice and movement, and subsequently acting and movement. As days went by and we evolved and grew together, we strengthened the power of expression wherever we needed to in each par-ticular moment, i.e. we increased or decreased the complexi-ty of tasks to perfect the ‘stage apparatus’, keeping an eye on what the group and individuals needed, arranging as a team which manager would raise the task complexity and which will lower it in the upcoming days or phase.

Decisions were sometimes made depending on the weat-her, someone’s fight with the driver or mother, or Toše Pro-eski’s death anniversary. On such days there was a collective responsibility to the work, stemming from love and under-standing that we set out to work as part of a theatrical team. Every individual, a manager or an attendee, responsibly bac-ked their decision to contribute to The Fifth Ensemble, paying attention to each other’s needs.

At performances, behind the stage, excitement rolled, lining up who will be the first to come out and who second, cheering for each other that we know it all and it would all be great, Nataša’s anxiety whether we were all there… And on the stage there was joy, awe, confidence, excitement, support.

° ° °

The Fifth Ensemble are: Luka Rončević, Clara Višić, Gabrije-la Babić, Matea Cindrić, Eduard Nošaj, Matea Glavan, Alberina Kujaj, Vid Gržalja, Isabella Hujić, Sanela Vidmar, Leo Kovačević, Ivan Maršić, Borna Čabrijan, Lorena Alitovski, Đani Shaqiri, Zdravko Mamula, Ines Jajčević, Oliver Landeka, Jan Šokče-vić, Leonardo Iličić, Monia Ambrić, Antonia Maršal, Brigita Jukić, Deni Pezelj, Zvonimir Materljan i Andrej Janjatović, Mila Čuljak, Helvecia Tomić, Nataša Bačić, Nataša Antulov, Jelena Lopatić, Aleksandra Stojaković Olenjuk

° ° °


Iva Nerina Sibila is dance artist, educator and dance wri-ter with a special interest in dance as an inclusive social and artistic practice. She studied contemporary dance at Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds (UK). She lives and works in Zagreb.

The Fifth ensemble photo: dražen šokčević

76 KRETANJA 32 | 19 HITRA eVoLUCIjA MATeRIjALA

Rapid Material Evolution

Hitra evolucija materijala

07

77MOVEMENTS 32 | 19RAPId MATeRIAL eVoLUTIoN

NAJBolJA

07Ona je toliko umorna. Zakasnila je sa svim tekstovima. Pro-budila se u 11 sati s glavoboljom i opet nije stigla sve što je namjeravala.

Ako je baviti se ovim za nju toliko ugrožavajuće, zašto onda u tome i dalje ustraje? Zašto joj je prije bilo lakše? Da li joj je bilo lakše?

Iako smo si dragi, to ne znači da su svi ljudi za sve projekte. Umjesto da se trudimo mene uklopiti u projekt koji sasvim lijepo živi i bez tog dodatnog truda, ja bih vas i sebe oslobodila dodatnih očekivanja.Jel, može? Nadam se da se ne ljutite. I da i sami vidite da to nekak ne ide.Bilo ih je 5, sad ih je samo 4, a trebala je biti samo Ona.

Jedan joj je prijatelj jednom spomenuo kako postoji nešto što se naziva optimizmom sjećanja.ona je rođena u jugoslaviji.she is homesick.no no noyes yes yesOna je doma.Ona je izložena, mislim, izglobljena i usamljena.Website.

Teško odvaja proces od izvedbe. Osjeća dozu frustracije i nemogućnosti definiranu time što je to njoj i u njoj. Osobno nije nužno njezino. Nedostaje dijeljenog iskustva.

Bilo joj je neobično što se rad vratio nakon toliko vremena, pitala se bi li danas uopće radila takav rad. Nema jasan odgovor, ali misli da ne.

Ima osjećaj da samu sebe nije uspjela dostići kad se pridru-žila, ali sad se osjeća dobro jer joj se čini da je ispunila svoj karmički dug. Što to znači da dvoje mora biti slabije da bi jed-na postala jača, kakva je to onda suradnja danas? Zašto smo zajedno i zašto to radimo?Radi s promjenama u dinamici.Ali imenovanje otvara proces, ne zatvara.

11:01, službeni početak. Ona tipka po svojoj tipkovnici koja je bespotrebno… nešto. Tekst se mijenja. Ona više ne zna kako tipkati, ali… Zato postoji undo. Pita se tko je Anonymous Chinchilla i zašto ih nema dvije? (Zapravo četiri…)

Ona obilježava vrijeme. Čak i vrijeme u zaostatku.To joj se dogodilo dvaput.Barem dvaput.Od tri puta, samo jedanput koristi svoje službeno ime. Best, The.Pita se što joj je tema današnjeg susreta sa samom sobom.

Vadi tarot s police.Suđenje i 9 novčića. Ona slavi plodove svojeg napornog rada. I dok slavi, umorna je.

Najbolja

Hitra evolucija materijala: o njezinim zajedničkim interesima, novim valovima, krajnjim vremenima i uzajamnoj ljubavi

Foto: Najbolja


She is elusive. Piše tri poruke istovremeno.

Htjela je reći da se sinoć vratila s otoka. Tamo je zadnji put bila prije tri godine. U te tri godine umrla je nekoliko puta.

Na dobar transformativan način?

Da. Yes.

Jesi li znala da je Smrt jedna od karata u tarot špilu koja izazi-va najveći strah? Vrlo je neshvaćena. Mnogi ljudi izbjegavaju spomenuti ovu kartu jer je toliko moćna. Većinu vremena lju-di ime karte shvaćaju doslovno. Međutim, stvarno značenje karte Smrti jedno je od najpozitivnijih u čitavom špilu.Baš poput nje. Vrlo je duhovita.

Danas joj je polurođendan.Stoga, ispekla je pola torte.

Pita se što radi u tematu o kolektivnim praksama kad je ona samo Jedna. Što to znači?Što su znaci?

Po prvi put doživljava svoj kolektivitet u tekstualnoj neline-arnosti. Zamišlja kako može skočiti u tekst od prije nekoliko tjedana, ali ipak još neće.

Kako može ući i promijeniti nešto s početka srpnja, iako je u drugoj polovici srpnja.

Čitajući vijesti, saznala je da se krivnja u masovnim ratnim zločinima može mjeriti u postocima. “Nizozemski vrhovni sud presudio je da je država djelomično odgovorna za 350 smrti u bosanskom masakru u Srebrenici. Sud je rekao da je odgovornost države 10% jer je tolika vjerojatnost da su njiho-vi vojnici mogli spriječiti ubijanja.”

Štogod, pomislila je. Zatvarajući taj dio nje. Taj dio razgovora sa sobom, o sebi. O nama, o njima, o njoj. Dio razgovora koji već dugo zapravo i nije otvoren. I zbog nje-ne vremensko-prostorne pomaknutosti možda ni neće dobiti ponovnu priliku da se otvori. Dio nje je s time i u redu.

A dio će samo nastaviti popunjavati rupu nesigurnosti.

Priznaje svoje različite ritmove, svoje različite strategije. Prošle i sadašnje i one koje će tek doći.

Nije vezana ni uz kakvu estetiku niti odluku, doživotno.

Nešto je čudno oko vremena, i toga kako prođe. Nešto s tim ne štima.

Kolektivno, Ona razmišlja… Bolje je ako. Dočeka priliku da ne dovrši misao.Strah pred gubitkom vremena.

Mora ići.

Voli mogućnost toga da ne tipka uvijek aktivno, nego je i pro-matranje rad.

S obzirom na to ima osjećaj da se na neki način i podružila, što je relevantno za temu. Jako je aktivna.

Dok čeka, ona kasni.Dok priča, ona se osjeća pametno. Ali uglavnom ne priča.Dok ima nesanicu, ona sanjari.

Daje si za pravo da briše dijelove svoje prošlosti. Ono s čime nije zadovoljna, za što misli da previše otkriva, što joj se ne čini kao dobar materijal za priču. Ona je hijerarhična, to jest, ona propituje što su uloge i što je emancipirajuća hijerarhija.

Reci mi kako se zovem.

Anonymous Quagga. Morala je guglati tu životinju, izumrlu u 19. stoljeću.

Njezina pozicija je uglavnom promatračka.

Prvo na probama u Berlinu, gdje joj u gledanju pomažu tri kamere.Zatim u gledalištu, za predstavu koju je platila 15 eura i već prije ulaska pomalo zažalila.

Smijala se svojoj nemogućnosti da prekine ispravljati vlastite greške. Vlastite greške zvuči dramatičnije od tipfelera (zati-paka), pa se još jednom nasmijala u sebi.

Dok tipka i promatra tipkanje, ona pogađa riječi koje će se pojaviti na ekranu. To je njezina igra. Voli igre. Ona je u dosluhu sama sa sobom.

Ona je duhovita na taj način.


NAJBolJA

07

Čak i u Berlinu, predstave kasne. “Tehničke poteškoće”. Vri-jeme je za networking!Ona ima puno sreće sa slučajnim susretima. Toliko slučajnim da nisu slučajni. Nisu slučajni. Osim kad su slučajni, mislim, to jest, ona misli da je to onda win-win situacija. O da. Totalni win-win. I win-win-win. (Čak i kad je win-lose).

Ona je to već rekla, čak u ovom tekstu. Iznenadilo ju je kad je svoje riječi, onako kako ih je izrekla naglas, našla potpisane drugim imenom u tekstu koji nije pisala ona. Ali onda se sjetila da to jest ona. I to jest njezino ime. Jer nema njezinih i tuđih riječi i imena. Sjetila se tuđih riječi: “Nije važno tko je rekao, netko je rekao, nije važno tko je rekao”. Nije sigurna kako se osjeća.

Ona je kao bend koji se trebao raspasti prije 5 albuma.

Postavila je tezu da će kolektiv sam definirati važnost udjela pojedinca i to kojeg pojedinca. Rezultati ju nisu iznenadili i svi ispitanici, to jest, ona sama, ponašala se upravo očekivano. Izlistavala je svoje suradnike redom od najvažnijeg prema naj-manje važnom. Bilo ih je oko 120, a neke čak nije niti spome-nula. Sve ju je to skupa podsjetilo na zvijezde i njihov život. Zvijezde na nebu, ne zvijezde kao celebrities. Duhovita je. Tako je duhovita.

Bježi joj kursor, ne može pisati i započeti novu rečenicu jer netko drugi tipka. Osjećaj je sličan kao kad joj netko stalno upada u riječ. Ali zabavnije. Upadati u riječ je zabavan izraz.

Jeste. Katkad se i ubaci u redove. Ali upada se između riječi, zapravo. Tijekom riječi. Paralelogram.

Jednom je također istraživala što znači prisutnost drugog u njezinu tijelu. Gdje je to drugo, koliko je tih drugih i imaju li oni određenu hijerarhiju među sobom? U njezinom tijelu? Gledala ih je, promatrala kako isplivavaju u njezinom fizika-litetu, u njezinim osjećajima i senzacijama, u njezinoj imad-žijaciji. Promatrala ih je, a onda ih je imenovala. Prozivala. Zazivala. Napravila je jam (džem).

Moram podijeliti nešto u njezino ime.

S nestrpljenjem čeka.

Trenutni broj znakova: 30771. Ciljani: oko 18000. Veseli ju pomisao na fazu uređivanja. Ona voli rezati riječi, premještati ih, mijenjati im redoslijed i smisao (za humor).

Za točno 24 sata ukrcat će se na avion i niti ona više neće biti u gradu u kojem je Ona. Od sutra je u 4 različita grada, 4 različite države, na 2 različita kontinenta.

Na telefon je u tom trenutku zove otac. Nije se javila. Nazvat će ga kasnije. Nazvala ga je kasnije. On će nju nazvati kasnije. Nazvao ju je kasnije. Zaželio joj je sretan put. Lijepo.

Kako je?Možda trebam ići. Natočila je još jednu čašu bijelog vina. Vani je još dan. Čuje se zvuk obližnjeg slapa.

Ponestalo joj je makedonskog vina.

Ide na drugo pivo, da se oporavi od grozne izvedbe koju je pogledala u Berlinu.

Ne znam kako funkcionira? Imamo li neka pravila od zadnjeg puta?Pravila se dogovaraju i pregovaraju tijekom samog događaja. Princip prefiguracije. Njezina stara tema.

Trenutni broj znakova: 33903. Ciljani: oko 18000.

Onda za danas ok? Čujemo se za idući put?

Rekla bih da da.

Trenutni broj znakova: 8336. Ciljani: oko 18000.

Dobro jutro. Pojela je doručak, skuhala kavu i vratila se u kre-vet, upalila laptop. Pije cold brew od prije dva dana. I dalje je dobar.Probala je i french press kavu. Nije ju briga.Čita vijesti. Nisu dobre.

Od pomisli na vijesti nije joj dobro. Dapače gore. Najgore.Stavila je kavu, objesila je veš, upalila suđericu i sjela za stolić ispred laptopa.

Od neki dan se trudi koristiti browsere (preglednike) i traži-lice koji su sigurni, ali su zato sporiji. Traži alternativu za Gmail jer joj je dosta da joj Google čita mailove.


Tajno čitanje mailova je oblik kolektiviteta. HahHhh duho-vita je!Njezine vlastite šale uvijek su Najbolje.

Njezina bol je zapravo bol drugih. I njezina ljubav je univer-zalna. Ona voli, Ona jako voli! I ona je jako voljiva!Napisala je Ljubavnu pjesmu u znak protesta protiv nazivanja principa oblikovanja izvedbe ženskima.

Sad se pokušava sjetiti ljubavne priče koju bi htjela ispričati… Znate, toj prekrasnoj publici, tim prekrasnim čitateljicama… Ona… HmmmO, da! Jednom se zaljubila tijekom vlastite izvedbe. O, to je bilo nešto! Tako nadrealno! Nastupala je u vlastitoj izvedbi. Sjedila je nasuprot tog prekrasnog članice publike, prekrasno! Njegova majica, njezina kosa, mislim, njihove cipele… Prekra-sno… I tijekom 30 minuta su se gledali i samo su tako tamo sjedili. Osjećala je toliko ljubavi za njuga. Bila je toliko ganuta tom intenzivnom količinom ljubavi da je pustila suzu. Samo jednu, iz jednog oka. Suza se otkotrljala niz njezino lice. Nije primijetio. Ali je reagirala. Na kraju izvedbe samo je ustala i (kao i uvijek) rekla: “Hvala”. I otišla je.Poslije nije mogla prestati misliti na… njih. Bila je uzbuđe-na, čak je imala leptiriće u trbuhu. Kasnije ih je tražila. Našla ih je. Još uvijek su bili tako prekrasneeeeee! Zagrlile su se, nasmijali, i onda je Ona otišla.

Jednom je sjedila u gledalištu na gostovanju jedne plesne predstave. Shvatila je da oko nje u gledalištu sjede ljudi od kojih je većinu vidjela golu. Ali nitko od njih nije nju vidio golu. Smiješna priča. Anegdota.

Pita se u kojem je trenutku prestala pratiti koga je sve vidjela golog i obrnuto.

Jučer je u posjeti foto muzeja u Rotterdamu vidjela mnoge gole ljude iz 70ih. Dok sam ja tek u srednjim 20tima, ostatak posjetitelja je bio dosta iznad 60, pitala sam se da li su neki od tih ljudi na fotografijama. Da li je ona na tim fotografijama?

Našla se u novom kolektivu u kojem je shvatila da ne mora dijeliti zajedničke interese, pogotovo ne umjetničke. Samo uživa u njihovom društvu. Nedostajat će joj to kad ode, ili se vrati. Vraća se doma, ili ono mjesto koje je zvala doma prije 8 godina.

Prije par mjeseci razmišljala je da se vrati tamo zauvijek, ali sad na to može jedino napisati haha.

Sve ovo je propustila, a pitala se gdje su svi. I što se događa. Osjećala se samom. I kao da je sva odgovornost na njoj, ali nije. Odgovornost je dijeljena.

(Početni kapital kolektiviteta dijeli se između svih suradnica/ka. Recimo, 51% je zajednički. Zatim, sve ostalo se dijeli na to koliko je suradnica/ka. 49% / 4 (ili 5) = 9,8% pojedinačne suradničke odgovornosti. Plus 51%, zapravo 60,8% odgovor-nosti po suradnici/ku).Omjeri.

Možda je kolektiv praksa, nešto što radiš, što ona radi, što ona voli. Onda neka se zove praksa, kaže ona, iako… ta riječ. Opet ta riječ. Ona može koristiti koju god drugu riječ. Misli, Ona misli, puno je riječi kojima se može opisati Nju i ono što Ona radi. Ona. Ona je samo jedna od njih.

Puno razmišlja o samoidentifikaciji, a najviše o dezidentifi-kaciji. E, ta riječ joj se sviđa. Jako jako. “Ja se dezidentificiram kao/od…” Ja nisam Ona ili ona? Ona se dezidentificira kao tri najbolja performera? Zaintrigiralo ju je ovo… Kamo bi ju odvelo da se nastavi baviti radom dezidentifikacije? U Mia-mi, Latinsku Ameriku i smeđe gej barove.

Ona nije njezina majka.Definitivno nije, jer sebi dopušta stvari koje joj ona uskraćuje.Kakav bi to bio kolektiv kada bi ona bila svoja majka? Kada otvori usta, ponekad izađe njezina majka. Ponekad donese odluke koje stvore sliku njezine majke u njezinoj glavi.Ali ona nije njezina majka. Često se dezidentificira i od kolega umjetnica/ka, ali deziden-tificirati se ne znači u potpunosti odbaciti modus identifika-cije već uspjeti pronaći rupu u kojoj bi ono što se podudara i dalje moglo postojati. Pa tako, kada ju ljudi pitaju čime se baviš, nakon inicijalne panike, ipak kaže:vizualna sam umjetnicamislim, plesnamislim, dramaturginja sammislim, ono sam za što me projekt trebanikada nije rekla za sebe da je umjetnica(dez)

Nedavno je gledala rad koji se bavi umjetničkim radom i kon-tekstom. Izvođačica je bila u Najboljoj formi dosad. Ponekad joj je forma bila jedino bitna, njoj, ne izvođačici. I onda… (Svi-dio joj se rad jer je bio nepretenciozan, skroman i iskren).


NAJBolJA

07

Nakon rada je razgovarala o tome što je ženski trud. Jer je često ženski odgovor na odbijanje konteksta da se još više trudi, umjesto da se pobuni i napravi jednostavan rad - u plesnom kontekstu, na primjer, da samo pleše 40 minuta na pozornici, bez ikakvog značajnog koncepta.

Isti dan je vidjela i rad muških autora koji su upravo to radili - jedan od njih je čagao na pozornici. Vjeruje da je drugima to bilo simpatično. Nagađa da bi bilo “kaj je sad ovo” da se radilo o plesačici…(Čak i u Berlinu?) U Berlinu je vidjela samo radove koji joj se nisu svidjeli.

A na relaciji Zagreb-Rijeka-Zagreb-Beograd je nedavno u 5 dana vidjela 9 radova zbog kojih je već danima sretna. Vidjela je moguće nemogućnosti, prekrasna eksplodirana čudovišta, feminističke superheroine, zajednice koje se dobrovoljno (ras)formiraju, humore koji mijenjaju svoje svjetove, predstave događaje koji mijenjaju sve. Na sličan način je u razdoblju od 2015. do 2019. vidjela i sudjelovala u 8 radova koji nisu sročivi u jedan tekst, a samo jedan ima. Odnosno dva.

U zadnje vrijeme puno mašta o nekim situacijama koje si tre-nutno ne može dozvoliti, a kojih je prije imala puno. Koje su je činile istovremeno zadovoljnom i nezadovoljnom, sretnom i nesretnom. Zamišlja ih jer želi da ju danas čine sretnom. Pita se bi li im imala kapaciteta danas pristupiti na drugačiji način i doživjeti ih isključivo kao zabavne i lijepe? Kao nešto što ju puni i osnažuje? Priželjkuje da se takve situacije pono-ve, no strahuje da bi sve bilo isto kao i prije. Nije sigurna što bi donijele, a i rizik koji mora poduzeti, to jest, na koji mora pristati, velik je i mogao bi ju učiniti nesretnom. Ne prestaje maštati jer i tim maštanjem nešto dobiva. Neko iskustvo, neku emociju, neko razmišljanje, neki stav. Raste i iz tog maštanja, koje zna trajati dugo, nekad kratko, i događa se bilo kada i bilo gdje, čak i kada je neprimjereno. Dosta uživa u tom iskustvu.

“Nekompatibilnost je poklon”, pada joj na pamet i pada s glave na pod.Sad misli na veliko staro drvo i kako je negdje pročitala da sve što iz glave pustiš da padne na pod i u pod i u Zemlju daje ti podršku i stabilnost. Vrlo somatski. Oh ne!

Ona nikad nije psovala u svojim performansima, ali i to je počela raditi u Nizozemskoj, pripisuje to činjenici da ovdje

nema planina. Riječ fuck pojavljuje se čak tri puta, a eksplicit-ne asocijacije na muška spolovila su mnogobrojne. Ovo zasigurno neće završiti u konačnoj verziji, ali ona to sve-jedno dijeli s mozgom košnice.

Ima tri aplikacije za napisati ovaj tjedan, a nikada nije osje-ćala veći otpor prema tome. Što joj to želi reći. Odgađa na sve moguće načine. Čistila je stan 4 dana. Našla dva nova hobija.

Mrzi ju da piše. Ni tu joj ne ide pisanje s lakoćom. Želi se odmoriti od sebe. Želi raditi samo ono što inače ne radi. Otići u područje bez signala. Ona radi i kad ne radi. Da li je hobi kolektivna praksa u kojoj jedna odnosno svaka osoba radi ono što hoće u vrijeme u kojem ni jedna osoba iz kolektiva nije profesionalno angažirana?

“Kao što sam spomenula, kolektiv je u odnosu na nešto. Radujem se mogućnosti toga da se referiram, na primjer, na druge kolektive. Na druge tekstove. Na drugu sebe.”

Krenula je nabrajati… “Kolektiv znači propitivati sebe u širem sustavu od samo sebe kao jedne osobe. Kolektiv znači razu-mjeti šire od sustava tog samog kolektiva. Kolektiv je dogovor ili nedostatak dogovora. To je razabiranje između onoga što je dio kolektiva i onoga što nije. Koliko je ženskih, feminističkih kolektiva u ovom kontekstu. Jesu li kolektivi u ovom kontek-stu jako pristojni? Može li kolektiv biti skupina ljudi koji se međusobno ne poznaju (vidi gore dio o LGBT zajednici i soli-darnosti koje se unutar toga podrazumijevaju (ili ne)). Potiču li kolektivi na još kolektiviteta ili na potrebu za samovanjem u vremenu kada nisi u kolektivu.”

I što je samovanje nasuprot usamljenosti, što druženje nasu-prot participaciji, što je ignoriranje nasuprot odluci da se ne oglasi, što je slušanje nasuprot potrebi da se dođe do izražaja.

Pitala se koji je to kontekst o kojem govori, na koji se referira? Kakav je taj kontekst?Podsjetila se na koncept trialektike koji joj je jako zanimljiv, to jest, igru koju nikad nije probala igrati, a koja u srži ima pregovaranje kategorija koje su dosada, u praksi, bile nužno osuđene na samo dvije kategorije. Poput jači i slabiji, bolji i lošiji, prvi ili zadnji… Što je s onima, iz kolektiva, koji nisu ili ne mogu biti jedno od dvije ustaljene kategorije?

Počela je raditi u galeriji u kojoj je prije tri godine prvi puta izvodila u galerijskom kontekstu.


Kontekst zagrebačke (i malo hrvatske) umjetničke scene u razdoblju od otprilike 2008. do 2019.To je složen i slojevit kontekst, ali zanimljiv.

“Mmm da…”, promrmlja.

Nedostaje joj jasnoće… Što unutar tog konteksta promišlja?

“Sve od navedenog! Jer kako razmišljati o kolektivima bez konteksta. Čak i kada se to pokuša, o tome se razmišlja u kontekstu akademizma ili osobnog promišljanja, koje, opet, postoji na nekom geografskom mjestu, u određenom povije-snom razdoblju i klasnoj poziciji, itd.Jer promišljati o kolektivima na mjestu i u vremenu gdje ne postoji, na primjer, radikalizirani feministički umjetnič-ki kolektiv, mijenja priču u odnosu na to kada bi postojao”, nabacuje misli koje planira kasnije raspisati.

Nije sigurna da nije postojao, da nije bio izvođen, mož-da samo nije kao takav prenesen kanonom… U akademskoj zajednici se gradio, u nekim umjetničkim praksama se gradio, izazivao, postojao… Bila sam mu, ona mu je bila blizu… Samo možda se nije takvim nazivao...

Razlika je u tome kada se naziva, a kada ne. To je ta pristoj-nost, jer da se tako nazove, bilo bi manje probavljivo.

Brojni su tu paradoksi. Nazvati nešto nečime i zaista to živjeti, to je izazov na kojem mnogi padaju. Horizontalni kolektiv u kojem postoje čvr-ste hijerarhije. Feministički kolektiv koji ne prepoznaje vla-stiti feminizam ili ga ne želi takvo imenovati. Anarhistički kolektivi s prešutno priznatim vođama i propisima kako im se pripada. Kolektiv sastavljen od jedne osobe koja ni na koji način ne promišlja tu kontradikciju niti ikako to u svome radu oslovljava… Ima ih.

Ili je u to vrijeme bilo potrebno utemeljiti nešto što je dije-ljeno svim praksama, kolektivima, umjetnicama/ima .. Ili, sada kada gleda, razmišlja da se u to vrijeme na plesnoj sceni počela događati svojevrsna dezintegracija/dezidentifikacija od onoga što je od 2000. do 2008./09./10. bilo postavlje-no jakim snagama ženskih kolektiva… Političke struje grada počele su biti sve snažnije, ideologija je krenula tokom koji je sceni dao neke druge izazove, zatim fokuse… A i feminizam kao takav je pokrenuo neke nove valove… I neki su ga počeli denfati i misle da ga denfaju i sada…

Foto: Najbolja


NAJBolJA

07

Feminizam je muškog roda.

Htjela je reći još nešto, ali je ponestalo vremena i prostora. Htjela je, na primjer, reći da je to bilo vrlo intuitivno i nastalo iz nužde i situacije koja je bila i tko je bio.

Ono što joj je bilo jako dragocjeno, osobno, ne zna za druge, ali nisu se puno oslanjali na druga iskustva, prakse, ona nije puno niti znala o tome, nego je to stvarno došlo iz ljudi koji su se okupili, iz autentičnih promišljanja i potreba ljudi koji su bili dio toga, koji su postavili gotovo neki manifest. Ali ako uzme, komparativno, na primjer, feminističku borbu, nju i njih čeka neki novi val. Htjela je reći da danas, kad gleda feministički pokret u kontekstu u kojem živi, on je transge-neracijski i dapače, provode ga sve mlađe generacije, sve su aktivnije i sve borbenije. Ako se to pokuša komparativno sagledati, nju treba zadesiti novi val.

Htjela je reći i da ono što se promijenilo jest da se u jednom važnom dijelu, obrazovnom, stvar komodificirala. Što obra-zovne institucije jebiga indoktriniraju. I kako će to biti vrsta goriva za novi val i uključivanje ili odu-stajanje od postojećeg vala i borbi prema nekoj promjeni. Ili se to mora desiti iz institucije, u smislu da ona svojom indoktrinacijom i svojim pogonskim gorivom stvara genera-cije koje su borbene, ili će doći neka generacija koja će reći fuck off.

Ponestalo je vremena i prostora, a htjela je reći još nešto...

Ali ne radi se o njoj.

Osjetila je potrebu sjesti uz ručak i čašu vina nastaviti ovaj razgovor. Ove misli, potkrijepiti ih tekstom, videima, kolek-tivnim promišljanjem postavljenih pitanja… Hm? Idući tjedan jedno popodne?

Konačni broj znakova: 21436

Rođena je 1982. u Vukovaru, 1989. u Zagrebu, i ponovo 1990. u Zagrebu, te 1992. u Zagrebu, međuostalim. Završila je ško-le 2009., 2010., 2012., 2015., 2016., 2017. i 2018., u Zagrebu i Berlinu, a i Amsterdamu gdje je diplomirala cum laude na temu kolektiviteta. Što je starija to joj je jasnije da ne treba tražiti smisao, čak i kad se izgubi u jasnoći. Voli toplinu svog kauča, uživa u crnom vinu i sve teže podnosi mamurluk. Često šeće Samoborskim gorjem. Želi okupiti planinarsko društvo. Beskonačno voli one koji znaju što se i kako se dodiruje i čita. Najbolja je prekarna radnica koja priželjkuje da jednog dana bude umotana u kašmir i posjeduje personalnu jahtu, no i dalje nije sigurna da želi ostati u Zagrebu. Najbolja je neurednica ovog broja.

Foto: Najbolja

najbolja

84 KRETANJA 32 | 19

THe BeST

84

07

HITRA eVoLUCIjA MATeRIjALAKRETANJA 32 | 19

The Best

Rapid Material Evolution: On Her Common Interests, New Waves, End Times & Mutual Love

She’s so tired. She’s running late with all the texts. She woke up at 11 AM with a headache and once again didn’t have the time to do all she wanted to do.

If doing this is so threatening, how come that she is still per-sisting? Why was it easier for her before? Was it easier for her before?

Although we like each other, it doesn’t mean that all people fit into all projects. Instead of trying to include me into this project that lives such a beautiful life on its own even without that extra effort, I would like to free both you and myself from further expectations. Is that okay? I hope you’re not mad. And that you can see for yourselves that somehow this doesn’t really work. There have been 5 of them, now there are only 4, and it was supposed to be only her.

A friend once told her that there was something called the optimism of memory.she was born in yugoslavia.she is homesick.no no noyes yes yesshe is home.she is displayed, i mean, she is displaced and lonely. Website.

She finds it hard to separate the process from the performan-ce. She feels a certain level of frustration and impossibility

defined by both what it means for her and what is inside of her. The personal is not necessarily hers. A shared experience seems to be missing.

She finds it unusual that the work reappeared, returning to her after all that time and at this point she was wondering if she would even work on something like that at all.She doesn’t have a clear answer, but She thinks not.

She has a feeling that she was not able to reach herself when she joined but now she feels well because it seems as if she has cleared her karmic debt. What does it mean that the two have to become weaker in order for the One to become stronger, what kind of collaboration is that then, today? Why are we together and why are we doing this?

She works with the dynamics of change.But naming implies opening the process up, rather than closing it.

11:01 - the official beginning. She is typing on her keyboard that is unnecessarily… something. The text is changing. She doesn’t seem to know how to type anymore, but… that’s why there’s the undo option. She wonders who Anonymous Chinchilla is and why aren’t there two of them? (Actually, four…)

She marks the time. Even if the time is late.It has happened to her twice.At least twice.


Out of three times, only once did she use her official name. Best, The.

She’s wondering what might be the theme of the today’s enco-unter with herself.

She reaches for her tarot deck from the shelf.Judgement and Nine of Pentacles. She is celebrating the fru-its of her hard labour. And while celebrating, she feels tired.

She is elusive. Writing three messages at the same time.

She wanted to say that she came back from an island last night. She was last there three years ago. In those three years she has died several times.

In a good transformative way?Yes. Yes.

Did you know that Death is one of the most feared cards in a Tarot deck? It is often misunderstood. Many people avoid mentioning this card because it has that much power. Most of the time, people take the name of the card literally. However, the real meaning of the Death card is one of the most positive ones in the whole deck.Just like her. She’s very funny.

Today is her half-birthday.So, she baked a half of cake.

She’s wondering about her role in an issue on collective pra-ctices if she’s only One.What does it mean?What are the means?

For the first time, she is experiencing her collectivity in a textual non-linearity. She is imagining that she can jump in a text created a few weeks before, but decides not to just yet.

How can she enter and change something from the beginning of July, despite the fact that it’s the second half of July. Reading the news, she learned that the guilt in mass war crimes can be measured in percentages. “The Dutch supreme court has upheld a ruling that the state was partially responsible for 350 deaths in Bosnia’s Srebrenica massacre. The court said the state had 10% liability, as this was the probability that its soldiers could have prevented the killings.”

Whatever, she thought. Closing that part of her.That part of the conversation with herself, about herself. About us, about them, about her. That part of the conversation whi-ch has not been open for a long time anyway. And due to her temporal and spatial displacement, maybe she won’t even get another chance to open up. A part of her is okay with that.

And a part of her will simply continue filling up that gap of insecurity.

Photo: The best


07THe BeST

She acknowledges her different rhythms, her different strate-gies. The past and the present and those yet to come.

She is not tied to any aesthetic or any decision, for life.

There’s something strange about the time and the way it passes. Something’s fishy.

Collectively, She thinks… It is better if. She welcomes the chan-ce not to finish her thought.The fear of losing time.

She’s gotta go.

She likes the option of not always having to type actively. Observing is also labour.

In that sense, she has a feeling that she had a chance to hang out in a way, which is relevant for the subject. She’s very active.

While waiting, she’s late.While talking, she feels smart.But generally, she doesn’t talk.When troubled by insomnia, she daydreams.She grants herself the right to erase parts of her past. Those with which she is not content, which she thinks reveal too much, those that don’t seem to be a good material for her story.She is hierarchical, I mean, She means, she questions the roles and what is an emancipative hierarchy.

Tell me what’s my name.

Anonymous Quagga. She had to Google that animal, which became extinct in the 19th century.

She usually takes an observational position.

Initially, during the rehearsals in Berlin where She is assisted in observing by three cameras.Later on, in the auditorium, during the show for which she paid 15 € and slightly regretted it already before entering the theatre.

She laughed at her incapability to stop correcting her own errors. “Own errors” sounds more dramatic than typos, so she laughed at Herself once again.

While she’s typing and observing the typing, she is guessing the words that will appear on the screen. That’s her game. She likes games. She’s in league with Herself.

She is funny like that.

Even in Berlin, performances run late. “Technical difficulties”. Time to network!She is very lucky when it comes to chance encounters. There is so much chance involved that they can’t be happening by chance.They are not accidental. Except when they are accidental, I mean, she means that it’s a win-win situation. Oh, yes. A com-plete win-win. A win-win-win. (Even if it’s a win-lose).

She has already said that, even in this text.She was surprised to find her own words, the way she had said them out loud, signed under somebody else’s name, in a text she didn’t write. But then she remembered that it was her. That it is her name. Because, there are is no such thing as her or someone else’s words or names. She recalled someone else’s words: “It doesn’t matter who said it, somebody said it, it doesn’t matter who said it”. She’s not sure of her feelings.

She is a band that should have disbanded 5 albums ago.

She has established a hypothesis that the collective would defi-ne the importance of an individual’s contribution, depending on the individual. The results were not surprising and all the subjects, that is, she herself, behaved in line with her expecta-tions. She was listing her collaborators, ordering them from the most to the least important ones. There were around 120 of them, and some of them she has not even mentioned. All that reminded her of stars and their lives. Celestial stars, and not stars like celebrities. She is funny. Sooooooo funny.

Her cursor is escaping, she is not able to write and start a new sentence because someone else is typing. The feeling is similar to the feeling she gets when someone constantly interrupts her words. But more amusing. Upadati u riječ je zabavan izraz.

It really is.Sometimes she even cuts in-between the lines. But, one interrupts in-between the words. During words. Parallelogram.

Once, she has also been researching what it meant to conta-in the presence of the Other inside Her body. Where is that Other, how many others are there, and is there a certain hierar-


chy between them? Inside her body? She was watching them, observing how they emerged from her physicality, her feelings and sensations, in her imagination. She has been observing them, and then she named them. She called them out. Called them in. She made a jam (‘jam’).

I have to share something on Her behalf.

She is waiting impatiently.

Current character count: 30771. Target: app. 18000. She’s looking forward to the editing phase. She likes to cut words, displace them, change their order and sense (of humour).

In exactly 24 hours she will board a plane and not even she will be in the same city as Her.From tomorrow on, she will be in 4 different cities, 4 different countries, on 2 different continents.

At that moment her father calls. She didn’t pick up. She’ll call him later. She did call him later. He’ll call her later. He did call her later. He wished her safe travels. Beautiful.

How is She?Maybe I should go.She poured another glass of white wine. It’s still daylight out-side. A waterfall can be heard from nearby.

She ran out of Macedonian wine.

She decides to go for another beer to recover from the terrible show she saw in Berlin.

I don’t know how it works? Are there any rules since the last time?The rules are agreed and negotiated during the event itself. The principle of prefiguration. Her old subject.

Current character count: 33903. Target: app. 18000.

Is it okay for today? Talk next time?

I would say so.

Current character count: 8336. Target: app. 18000.

Good morning. She had some breakfast, made coffee, went back to bed and turned her laptop on.She’s drinking cold brew from two days ago. It’s still good.She even tried French press coffee. She doesn’t care for it.

She’s reading the news. They’re not good.

Thinking about the news doesn’t make her feel well. On the contrary, she feels worse. The Worst.She makes coffee, takes care of her laundry, turns on the dishwasher and takes a seat behind the tiny desk in front of her laptop.

For a few days she’s been looking for browsers and search engines that are safer, yet slower. She’s looking for an alter-native to Gmail because she’s had enough of Google reading her emails.

Secret email reading is a form of collectivity. HahHhh She is funny!Her own jokes are always The Best.

Her pain is actually the pain of others. And her love is uni-versal. She loves, She loves a lot! And, she is a lot to love. She wrote a Love Song to protest the procedure of naming principles of performance-making female.

Now She is trying to recall a love story she would like to tell… You know, to this beautiful audience, those beautiful readers… She... hmm.. Oh, yes! Once she fell in love during her own show. Oh, that was something! So surreal! She was performing, in her own piece. She was sitting across this beautiful audience member, beautiful! His T-shirt, her hair, I mean, their shoes… Beauti-ful… And for 30 minutes they looked at each other and just sat there like that. She felt so much love for them. She was so moved by that intense load of love that she shed a tear. Just one, from one eye. The tear just rolled down her cheek. They did not react. But they noticed. At the end of the show, she just stood up and said (as always): “Thank you.” And she left. Later, she was not able to stop thinking about… them. She felt excited; she even had butterflies in her stomach. She was looking for him/them later. She found them. They were still soooo beautiful! They hugged, smiled, and then She left.

Once she was sitting in the audience at a guest dance show. She realised that she was surrounded by other audience mem-bers most of whom she had seen naked. But none of them have seen her naked. A funny story. An anecdote.

She wonders when was the moment she stopped counting who has she seen naked and vice versa.

Yesterday, during her visit to the Museum of Photography in Rotterdam, she saw many naked people from the 70s. While


07THe BeST

I was still in my mid-twenties, the rest of the visitors were well over 60, so I wondered if any of those people were in the photographs. Is she in those photos?

She found herself in this new collective and realized that she didn’t have to share common interests, especially not artistic ones. She simply enjoys their company. She’s going to miss it once she leaves, or returns. She is going back home, or back to that place she called home 8 years ago.

A few months ago she thought about returning there forever but now all she can write about that is haha.

She missed all this and wondered where everybody went. And what’s happening. She felt lonely. As if all responsibility lies with her, but it doesn’t. The responsibility is shared.

(The initial capital of the collective is distributed between all collaborators. Let’s say that 51% belongs to the collective. The residual is divided by the number of collaborators. 49% / 4 (or 5) = 9.8% of partial collaborative responsibility. Plus 51%, or actually 60.8% of liability per collaborator).The ratios.

The collective may be a practice, something you do, what she does, what she loves.So call it a practice then, says Her, although… that word. Again, that word.She could use any other word. I mean, She means, there are many words to describe Her and what She has been doing. She. She is just one of them.

She has been thinking about self-identification a lot but, fore-most about disidentification. Yeah, she likes that word. Very much so, indeed. “I disidentify as/from…” I am not Her or her? She disidentifies from one of the three best performers? She is intrigued by this… Where would it lead her if she continued the work of disidentification? To Miami, Latin America and brown gay bars.

She is not her mother. Definitely not, because She allows herself the things she is denied by her. What kind of a collective would it be if she were her mother?Sometimes, when she opens her mouth, her mother comes out. Sometimes, she makes decisions that create an image of her mother in her head.But, she is not her mother.

Often, she disidentifies from her artist colleagues, but to disi-dentify doesn’t mean to completely disregard the mode of identification, but instead, to manage to find a hole where that what coincides can remain existing. So, when people ask her what she does, after experiencing a rush of panic, she replies:I’m a visual artistI mean, danceI mean, I’m a dramaturgeI mean, I’m whatever the project needs me to beShe has never called herself an artist(dis)

Recently, she saw a piece dealing with the artistic labour and context. The performer was in her Best shape (form) so far. Sometimes, the shape (form) was the only important thing, to her, not to the performer. And then… (She liked the piece because it was unpretentious, modest and honest). After the piece she talked about female effort. Since, it is very often the case that the female reaction to rejecting the context implies taking even more effort, instead of simply rebelling and crea-ting a simple piece - in the dance context, for instance, to just dance for 40 minutes on stage, without any significant concept.

That same day she saw a piece by male artists who were doing precisely that - one of them dancy danced on stage. She belie-ves others thought it was sweet. She guesses that, if it were a female dancer, the reaction would be “what is this, anyway?”...(Even in Berlin?) In Berlin she only saw pieces she disliked.

And then recently, on the relation Zagreb-Rijeka-Zagreb-Bel-grade during 5 days she saw 9 performances thanks to which she’s been happy for days. She saw possible impossibilities, beautiful exploded monsters, feminist superheroines, commu-nities that voluntarily (de)formed themselves, humours that change their own worlds, performances events that change everything. Similarly, in the period 2015-2019, she saw and participated in 8 works that cannot be put into words in just one text, but that’s how many texts she has. Actually, two.

Lately she’s been fantasising about certain situations she currently cannot afford, but had been part of many times before. Situations that were making hersatisfied and unsatisfied, happy and unhappy,at the same time.She imagines them because she wants them to make her happy today.She wonders if today she would have the capacity to approach them in a different manner and experience them only as fun and beautiful? As something that fulfils and empowers her?


She wishes these situations happened again, but fears everyt-hing would be the same as it was before. She’s not sure what they would bring, while the risk she has to take, or rather, accept, is big and could make her unhappy.She can’t stop fantasising because she gains something from that fantasy.Some experience, some emotion, some thoughts, some atti-tude, some posture.She grows from that fantasy that can take a long time, some-times short, and takes place wherever and whenever, even when it’s inappropriate.She pretty much enjoys that experience.

“Incompatibility is a gift”, it falls to her mind and from her mind onto the floor. Onto the ground. Now she’s thinking about a big old tree and how she read somewhere that everything you released from your head to the ground and into the ground and into Earth gave you support and stability.Very somatic. Oh, no!

She’d never cursed in her performances before, but started doing it in the Netherlands, she explains this with the fact that there were no mountains there. The word ”fuck” appears no less than three times, while explicit references to male genitals are countless. This will certainly not make the final edit, but she shares it with the hive brain.

She has three applications to write this week and has never been more repulsed by it. What does that want to tell her? She’s procrastinating in all possible ways.She was cleaning her apartment for four days. Found two new hobbies. Writing hates her. She finds it hard to write, even here. She wants to take a break from Herself. She wants to do only the things she usually doesn’t do. To leave and find a no-signal area. She works even when she doesn’t work. Is hobby a collective practice in which one or every person does what they want during the time when no other person from the collective is professionally engaged?

“As I’ve mentioned, the collective exists in relation to somet-hing. I’m looking forward to the possibility to refer to, for example, other collectives. Other texts. Her Other self.”

She started listing… “The collective means to question itself in the context which is wider than just one person. The collective implies understanding that goes beyond the system of that very collective. The collective is either an agreement or a lack

thereof. It is the distinction between what makes part of the collective and what doesn’t. In this context, how many fema-le, feminist collectives are there? Are the collectives in this context way too polite? Can a collective be a group of people who don’t know each other (see the aforementioned part on the LGBT community and solidarity that is taken for granted within it (or not)? Does belonging to a collective encourage more collectivity or does it incite a need for solitude during the time spent outside of the collective?”

And what is solitude versus loneliness, what is ‘just hanging out’ vs. participation, what is ignoring vs. the decision to stay quiet, what is listening vs. the need to express oneself?

She wondered what is the context she is talking about, to what does it refer? What is that context like? She reminded herself of the concept of trialectics that she found very interesting. It is a game that she has never tried playing, and which, in its core, contains negotiating the categories that have so far, in practice, always been reduced to merely two categories. Like, stronger or weaker, better or worse, first or last… What about those members of the collective who do not or cannot belong to one of the two established categories?

She started working in the same gallery where she had first performed in the gallery context three years ago.

The context of Zagreb (and Croatian, to a limited extent) art scene during the period from approximately 2008 to 2019. It is a complex and layered, yet interesting context.

“Hmm yes…”, she mumbles.

She lacks clarity… What does she question within that context?

“All of the above! Because how can One think about collectives without a context. Even when she tries, she realises it is being considered either within an academic context or individually, which is, again, situated within a certain geographical locati-on, within a certain historical period and class position, etc. Because, thinking about collectives in a time and place whe-re, for instance, a radicalised feminist art collective doesn’t exist, changes the story in respect of the situation in which it would actually exist”, she’s tossing out ideas which she plans to articulate later on.

She’s not sure that it has never existed, that it hasn’t been per-formed, maybe it just hasn’t been canonised… It has been con-structed by the academic community, certain artistic practices


07THe BeST

have been constructing, challenging it, it existed… I was, she was close to it… But maybe it just hasn’t been named that way...

It makes a difference when something has been named and when it hasn’t. That’s that politeness, because giving it a name would have made it less digestible.

There are many paradoxes.To name something somehow and really live it, that is the challenge that many fail. Horizontal collectives with strong hierarchies. Feminist collectives that don’t recognise their feminism or refuse to name it as such. Anarchist collectives with tacitly accepted leaders and rules on how to belong. Colle-ctives comprised of a single person who doesn’t question that contradiction nor tends to address it in the practice in any way… There are countless examples.

Or maybe, at that time it was important to establish something that all practices, collectives, artists had in common… Or now, when she looks back, she thinks about how the dance scene underwent a certain disintegration/disidentification of/from everything that has been established by strong forces of female collectives active during the period 2000- 2008/09/10. The city council politics were becoming more powerful, the ideology took the course that challenged the scenes in various new ways, providing new focuses… And feminism as such initiated some new waves… And then, some started dimming it and think they’re dimming it still…

She wanted to add something, but there was no more time and space left. For example, she wanted to say that it was very intuitive and that it emerged from the necessity and the situa-tion which was what it was and with respect to who was there. It was very valuable, for her personally, she can’t speak for others,but they weren’t relying much on other experiences, practices, she didn’t even know much about it, but it really resulted from the people who had gathered, from their authentic questionin-gs and the needs of people who were part of it. Who have, in a way, introduced a manifesto. But if, for instance, she takes a comparative view of the feminist struggle, there is a new wave waiting for Her and them. She wanted to say that today, when she observes the feminist movement in her context; it is transgenerational and even run by increasingly younger generations who are all the more active and rebellious.If it is to be looked at comparatively, she needs to be splashed by a new wave.

She also wanted to say that something has changed in one important aspect, namely, the educational aspect through whi-ch things become commodified. Fuck it, that’s how institutions indoctrinate. This will be a sort of fuel for a new wave and inclusion, or renouncement of the existing wave of struggles for change.Either it has to come from the institution, in the sense that with its indoctrination and its driving fuel it will create more rebellious generations, or a new generation will come and say fuck off.

She has run out of time and space, and she wanted to say something else…

But it’s not about her.

She feels the need to sit down, have some lunch, a glass of wine and continue this conversation. Continue with these thoughts; support them with text, videos and a collective re-examination of these issues… Hmm?

Maybe one afternoon next week?

Final character count: 24664

English language editing: Mirna Herman Baletić

Born in 1982 in Vukovar, in 1989 in Zagreb, again in 1990 and 1992 in Zagreb. She finished schools in 2009, 2010, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 in Zagreb and Berlin and also Amsterdam where she graduated cum laude with her thesis on collectivity. As the years go by she gets clearer and clearer that there is no need for seeking sense, even if she gets lost in all that clarity. She loves the warmth of her couch and very much enjoys red wine though hangovers don't pass as easily. She can often be found hiking the Samobor hills. She wants to gather a mounta-in hiking collective. She has endless love for readers, especially those skilled in touch. The Best is a precarious worker hoping that one day she sits wrapped in cashmere on her private yacht, even though she is unsure she wants to stay in Zagreb. The best is a noditor editor predator of this issue.

91movements 32 | 19dIzAjN I PLeS:

Suradnja različitih vidova umjetnosti uvijek je uzbudljiva i najčešće rezultira ishodima koji su izvan očekivanih okvira. Ples kao najstariji, iskonski oblik izražavanja, neiscrpna je inspiracija raznim umjetnostima, a u brojnim umjetničkim disciplinama pokret se koristi kao način izražavanja.

U ovom slučaju riječ je o tipografiji koja je inspirirana plesnim pokretima, konkretno o eksperimentalnom varija-bilnom pismu Movement*. Pismo je rezultat suradnje grafič-kih dizajnera i tipografa Noela Pretoriusa i Marie Ramos s plesačem suvremenog plesa Andileom Vellemom, umjetnič-kim ravnateljem inkluzivne plesne skupine Unmute. U jedin-stvenom suradničkom projektu koji je pokrenut na festivalu Design Indaba 2019. u Cape Townu Wellemova plesna izved-ba postala je polaznom točkom za dizajn novog pisma. Praće-njem njegovih pokreta i korištenjem tih prostornih putanja kao referenci slova su zadobila svoj grafički oblik.

Ključna inspiracija, odnosno premosnica iz plesnog u odgovarajuće tipografsko oblikovanje, pronađena je u teo-riji Rudolfa Labana, točnije u jednom od aspekata Labano-vog učenja. Koncept dinamičnosti pokreta ili eukinetike kojim se obuhvaća sveukupna izražajnost pokreta poslužio je kao ključ za ovu interdisciplinarnu suradnju. Unutarnja namjera ili mentalni angažman plesača koji rezultira kretnjom, a onda i plesom, prema Labanu kvalitativno su osviješteni četirima čimbenicima, a to su prostor, jačina, vrijeme i tok, dok osam efort akcija (lebdenje, klizanje, savijanje, guranje, udar, doti-caj, lepršaj i bič) nastaju kao rezultat kombinacija kvaliteta triju čimbenika; prostora, jačine i vremena.

DizAJN i plEs: tipografija Movement kao rezultat interdisciplinarne suradnje

Nada Dogan

Upravo su te tri glavne karakteristike uzete u obzir pri proučavanju pokreta Andilea Vellema. Tipografija predstavlja izravni pokret vezanim ravnim potezima, a indirektni pokret fleksibilnim zakrivljenim oblicima. Varijante između tih ekstrema predstavljaju promjenu pokreta, kretnje u vremenu.

Tijelo plesača tako je postalo kreativni alat za pismo koje inauguriramo u ovom broju istoimenog časopisa.

Nada Dogan samostalna je dizajnerica na području dizajna vizualnih komunikacija. Plesom se bavila kao profesionalna plesačica i kostimografkinja nakon završene Škole suvreme-nog plesa Ane Maletić. Plesom kao predloškom za dizajnersko promišljanje bavi se više od 25 godina, od prvih izdanja bibli-oteke Gesta te kao likovna urednica i dizajnerica Časopisa za plesnu umjetnost Kretanja i istoimene biblioteke Kretanja.Diplomirala je dizajn na Arhitektonskom fakultetu i računar-stvo na Elektrotehničkom fakultetu u Zagrebu.* Typeface Movement, by NM type & design Indaba 2019

(http://www.nmtype.com/movement/)

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Fotografiju ustupio NM type

92 KRETANJA 32 | 1992 KRETANJA 32 | 19 deSIgN & dANCe:

Collaboration between different aspects of art is always exci-ting and most frequently it results in outcomes beyond the expected. Dance as the oldest, most primordial form of expres-sion has been an endless inspiration to different arts and many artistic disciplines use movement as a manner of expression.

In this case it is typography, inspired by dance move-ments, more specifically by the experimental variable typeface Movement*. The typeface is a result of collaborati-on between graphic designers and typographers Noel Pre-torius and Maria Ramos with contemporary dancer Andile Wellem, the artistic director of the inclusive dance company Unmute. In a unique collaboratory project launched at the Design Indaba 2019 festival in Cape Town, Vellem’s dance performance became a starting point for a new typeface desi-gn. Following his movements and using spatial trajectories as reference points gave the letters their graphic form.

The key inspiration, i.e. bridge from dance to suitable typographic design, came from Rudolf Laban’s theory, more specifically one of the aspects of Laban’s doctrine. The concept of dynamic movements or eukinetics, which encompasses the comprehensive expressiveness of movement served as a key for this interdisciplinary collaboration. Personal intention of the dancer’s mental involvement resulting in motion and, consequently, in dance is, according to Laban, qualitatively acknowledged through four factors: space, weight, time and flow, while eight effort actions (wring, press, flick, dab, glide, float, punch and slash) emerge as a result of combinations between the three factors – space, weight and time.

DEsigN & DANcE: The Movement Type as a Result of Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Nada Dogan

Nada Dogan is a freelance designer who focuses on visual communications. She pursued dance as a professional dan-cer and costume designer after she graduated from the Ana Maletić Contemporary Dance School. Dance as a pattern for design exploration has been in her focus since the first issues of Gesta Editions, over 25 years ago, continuing as the art director of the dance art magazine Movements and Kre-tanja Editions. She graduated with a degree in design from the Zagreb Faculty of Architecture and computing from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering.

* Typeface Movement, by NM type & design Indaba 2019 (http://www.nmtype.com/movement/)

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These three specific characteristics were taken into acco-unt while studying Andile Vellem’s movement. The typograp-hy represents direct movement by way of connected straight strokes, and indirect movement is indicated with flexible oblique forms. Varieties between these extremes denote a change in movement, motions in time.

The dancer’s body has thus become a creative tool for a typeface which we are introducing in this issue of the epo-nymous magazine.English translation: Ivana Ostojčić

Images courtesy of NM type


Typeface Movement, by NM type & design Indaba 2019 (http://www.nmtype.com/movement/)

Kretanja movements

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