(Un)Safety Signs
In case of emergency let’s gather
17. KONDENZ
Contemporary dance festival
25.-31.10. 2024.
(UN)SAFETY SIGNS
IN CASE OF EMERGENCY LET’S GATHER
ATTENTION!
The KONDENZ festival takes place under conditions of general insecurity.
Please remain on alert. In case of emergency, let’s gather.
Dizziness is possible due to the acceleration of the world in irreversible change.
The KONDENZ festival takes place under conditions of general insecurity.
CAUTION!
KONDENZ Festival may cause emotional reactions and requires your full attention. It includes performances, workshops and programs that examine vulnerability, pair humans up with machines, question what is (not) for sale, and trace the flows of fluid identities.
Consult the person next to you or check the map to find
the closest DANCE POINTS.
WARNING!
You are entering a space where the rules bend under the weight.
Please keep an open mind.
Thank you for your attention! We wish you a safe, erotic and inspiring
experience of the 17th KONDENZ Festival!
This year, the Kondenz festival of contemporary dance and performance takes place from 25 to 31 October at four locations in Belgrade: Bitef Theater, Atelje 212, Center for Cultural Decontamination and Cultural Center Magacin. The slogan of the seventeenth edition of the festival organized by the Service Station for contemporary dance is “(Un)safety Signs of (in)security. In case of emergency, let’s gather.” In a world where danger becomes a signal for withdrawal, we choose to gather, strengthen friendships and build long-term collaborations that the festival continues to nurture from the very beginning.
This year, like every year, the audience will be able to see local and international dance performances; workshops are also a usual part of the Kondenz programme and everyone interested in participating is invited to register via e-mail stanica.info@gmail.com.
The festival opening performance by the local artist Ana Dubljević, entitled Sparked, initially scheduled for October 25, unfortunately had to be canceled due to illness. The performance will be premiered when the required conditions are met, and until then please follow the channels of the Station where we will announce the new date for Sparked.
Sparked (“Žiška”) is a choreographic work inspired by erotic poetry, which considers the impact of the contemporary economic model of “junkification” on the quality of erotic content, and at the same time opens up the space for the transformation of such content away from market pressures. The dramaturgy is also written by Ana Dubljević, music by Emilija Đonin, scenography and costumes by Ana Dimitrijević, sister of the project is Milica Ivić, and Tamara Pjević, Bojana Stojković, Igor Koruga and Marko Milić perform in the piece.
The piece Bodies on the line by the Romanian choreographer Ioana Marchidan will be performed on October 26 at 8 PM at the Center for Cultural Decontamination (Birčaninova 21). This work explores the pressures of the times we live in and the related narrowing of space for independent art, creativity and free thinking. Placing bodies in areas of safety and areas of uncertainty, the author deals with issues of alienation under the pressure of overlapping projects, exhaustion, and the feeling that if you are not seen, you do not exist, but also of hope and need for a collectivity that makes the daily struggle for survival a little more bearable. The text and dramaturgy were created in collaboration of the author of the play with Mihaela Michailov, the music was composed by Alexandru Suciu, and the performers are Anca Stoica, Sergiu Dita, Varga Hunor-Jozsef, Eva Danciu and Alexandra Zavelea.
Bulgarian choreographer and performer Willy Prager is well known to local audiences for the numerous shows he has performed in Serbia. This time we will see a piece called Transformability: forever (partly musical) at the Bitef Theater on October 27 starting at 8 PM. It is a new work created as part of the international educational project, with young Romanian and Bulgarian performers. The performance is based on the earlier work Transformability from 2012, which starts from a philosophical text by Boyan Manchev, discussing the relationship between contemporary consumer society, with its increasingly heightened “performativity” and dance, in the context of capitalism and the global market economy. The performers are placed in the conceptual framework of this popular genre, which symbolizes the progressive society, but also aesthetically often moves on the edge of fake happiness, leading to a state of impossible pleasure and complete exhaustion. The play is performed by dancers Eva-Maria Danciu, Mariana Gavriciuc, Nelly Georgieva, Sergiu Diță, Alexander Gochev, music by Tian Rotteveel, and costumes by Pola Popov.
On October 28 at 8:30 PM, a performance of Unstable Comrades by local choreographer and performer Igor Koruga will take place at Atelje 212 (Svetogorska 21). It was created as a result of international cooperation – dramaturgy and text by Dimitrije Kokanov, music by Vladimir Pejković, performance by Mariana Gavriciuc, Tamara Pjević, George Alexandru Pleșca, Hunor Joseph Varga, Jakša Filipovac. The piece is based on the fragmentation of society and the fragmentation of individuals. The performance explores the legacy of queer emancipation as an ongoing process of constituting and distorting resistance, influenced by both Western ‘liberal’ societies and socialist values aimed at a more just society. It examines queerness as a space of empathy, vulnerability, intimacy and eroticism, perception, the challenging of norms, and, of course, expression.
On October 29, from 11 AM to 2 PM, a COLLAGING workshop will be held in the dance studio of the Cultural Center Magacin. The workshop is based on the concept of “collaging”, inspired by the art technique, where the body and space become a canvas for creating a dance performance. The workshop is led by Dora Pocedić and Linda Tarnovski, dance artists from Zagreb, with rich experience in joint work and research through the artistic organization CO-MMENT.
On October 30 from 11 to 13 PM in the conference room of Magacin Marijana Cvetković will hold a workshop – Tool kit for survival 3 – which will continue through to the exchange platform Modular school from Zagreb & Stanica’s educational program PUZZLE in the dance studio of the Cultural Center Magacin from 13 to 16 PM. Please register for the workshops via: stanica.info@gmail.com
The Modular School is an educational program in the field of performing arts and contemporary dance. This year, the participants have taken part in the exchange within the Nomad Dance Academy. They participated in the Lokomotiva’s program “Curating in Context” in Struga. During the KONDENZ, they will visit Belgrade to meet the participants of the Puzzle program in cooperation with Stanica, and they will end their program with a visit to Ljubljana and the Co-festival, together with partners from the Nomad Dance Academy of Slovenia.
Romuald Krężel, a Polish choreographer and performer based in Berlin, visited Belgrade in 2022 as part of the residency program at Station – Service for Contemporary Dance. During his residency, he worked on a piece that he will now present to the local audience on Tuesday, October 29, at 8 PM at the Center for Cultural Decontamination, titled All That I Left Behind Is Here. The basis of the work is the fragmentation of society and class divisions. Romuald Krężel’s new solo draws from his personal and artistic experience. By revisiting his very first dance experience in life: a Ballroom Dance course – the only one offered for free in his primary school, he intends to focus on various aspects of classism in the performing arts context. By re-learning and critically evoking movements, steps, poses and different styles of Cha-Cha-Cha, Rumba, Jive, etc, he attempts to investigate his social-class background and its relation to his current choreographic practice. The ghostly figures, post-punk music and aesthetics will support him in this return to his past.
Bojana Robinson, a choreographer and performer from Belgrade who lives and works in Slovenia, will perform the piece Machine, for which she created the choreography, with text and dramaturgy by Dimitrije Kokan, on Wednesday, October 30, at 8 PM at the Center for Cultural Decontamination. The performance is a duet between Bojana, a choreographer and performer, and the breathing machine her daughter occasionally uses. Although the device is present due to her child’s health condition, the author explores her own relationship with the technological device, which both directly and indirectly impacts her life. More broadly, the performance also encourages thinking about the role and place of technology in contemporary society and explores concepts such as: care, support and above all togetherness. Scenography and video work was done by Dorian Šilec Petek, music by Manja Ristić, costumes by Timotej Rosc.
The 17th Kondenz Festival of Contemporary Dance and Performance will conclude with a book promotion. The book, titled Dissonances. On Herding Cats to Take out the Trash, was created as part of the Critical Practice (Made in Yu) educational program by the Station – service for contemporary dance. The promotion will take place on Thursday at 3 PM at the Magacin Cultural Center (Kraljevića Marka 4), moderated by Ana Pinter, one of the authors. Ana, along with Nefeli Gioti, Elena Rose Light, Szymon Adamczak, and Myrto Sarma, spent a year and a half attending festivals, watching performances, and engaging in discussions, all of which culminated in this collective work.
Following the closing of the KONDENZ festival, we invite the audience to join us at the closing event of the ninth art+science festival, organized by the Center for the Promotion of Science, which will take place at the Jevremovac Botanical Garden (Takovska 43). In keeping with the themes of both festivals—gathering and interrelationships—the audience will experience an exciting program. We especially highlight the performative tour by artist Vladimir Bjeličić, Nature Unveiled or Stories of Plants and Workers, which represents a new phase of the work, presented for the first time at the Kondenz Festival in 2020.
Entrance to all the Kondenz festival programs is free this year as well.
Follow us on Kondenz blog and social networks facebook and instagram!
PROGRAM
Sparked
Ana Dubljević
Performance
Organization assistant: Ana Dubljević
Performance: Tamara Pjević, Bojana Stojković, Igor Koruga, Marko Milić
Music: Emilija Đonin
Scenography, Costume: Ana Dimitrijević
Light design: Boris Butorac
Translation: Jovana Lutovac
Project’s Sister: Milica Ivić
Graphic design and visual: Ana Dubljević, Marko Stojaković
Production: Stanica servis za savremeni ples, Olivera Kecojević, Marijana Cvetković
Co-produced by apap – FEMINIST FUTURES, a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the EU Thank you: Kondenz and Magacin Cultural centre Belgrade
Support: Station, apap Feminist Future, the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia
Performance
Sparked by Ana Dubljević is a choreographic work with contemporary erotic poetry. It was created in collaboration with performers Marko Milić, Tamara Pjević, Bojana Stojković, and Igor Koruga. Sparked is the last stop on Dubljević’s long-term choreographic, theoretical, and visual research, which began with the performance Koreoerotikon (2016) and continued with her exploration of feminist porn-scapes (2017). In its brief appearance, a spark illuminates the surrounding space, reveals the contours of time, and highlights both similarities and differences. Sparks intervene in the everyday. Sometimes they disturb us, prompting us to extinguish them; other times, we offer them a smile of recognition as we pass by. Once in a while we allow them to ignite a small or large fire. A spark scorches voice and body, sound and texture, word and form. It questions whether “the fires of this hell will be the only thing that makes us sweat.”
Milica Ivić
*Quotes from the poem “When Apocalypse Comes” by Sierra DeMulder
Bodies on the line
Ioana Marchidan
Performance
26.10. @20:00
Concept, Choreography: Ioana Marchidan
Performance: Anca Stoica, Sergiu Dita, Varga Hunor-Jozsef, Eva Danciu, Alexandra Zavelea
Text and dramaturgy in collaboration with: Mihaela Michailov
Music: Alexandru Suciu
Light design: Alexandros Raptis, Jimmy Kömpel
Production: Nacionalni centar za ples iz Bukurešta (CNDB)
Translation: Bojan Slavov
Support: SEEDS project (South-East European Dance Stations), Creative Europe programme, the Administration of the Romanian National Cultural Fund
Performance
26.10. @20:00
The performance Bodies on the line explores feelings of belonging and ways in which performers cope with the exhausting pace of modernity. What are the places that independent artists and performers occupy? Do they belong to a community? Is there a common set of expectations, desires, needs of the 20+ generation? How does an artist live when the word stability becomes an utopia? Bodies on the line places bodies in spaces of both safety and uncertainty, from which they can articulate their anxieties, hopes and the need to belong to a collectivity that makes the daily struggle for survival a little more bearable.
Transformability: Forever [partly musical]
Willy Prager
Performance
27.10. @20:00
Concept, direction and choreography: Willy Prager
Performance: Eva-Maria Danciu, Mariana Gavriciuc, Nelly Georgieva, Sergiu Diță, Alexander Gochev
MusicMusic: Tian Rotteveel
Light design: Ralitsa Rangelova
Costume: Pola Popova
Photo: Teodora Simova (Studio “Lunohod”)
Production: Brain Store Project
Partners: RCCA “Toplocentrala”.
Financial support: SEEDS project (South-East European Dance Stations), Creative Europe programme, and the Bulgarian National Culture Fund, subprogramme “Creative Europe
Performance
27.10. @20:00
Transformability is a performance inspired by the text of the same name by the philosopher Boyan Manchev, published in 2006, where he discusses the relationship between contemporary consumer society, with its increasingly heightened “performativeness” and dance, in the context of capitalism and the global market economy. The performance was created as a form of exchange with the philosophical text, and it premiered in 2012 at the dance festival “Tanztage” in Berlin. Twelve years later, the performance returns to the stage. The choreographer Willy Prager recreates his work with young Romanian and Bulgarian performers. For the purpose of Transformability: Forever [partly musical], the philosophical text has been turned into a script following the structure and rules of the musical. The performers are placed in the conceptual framework of this popular genre, which symbolizes the progressive society, but also aesthetically often moves on the edge of fake happiness, leading to a state of impossible pleasure and complete exhaustion.
Unstable comrades
Igor Koruga
Performance
28.10. @20:30
Concept, Choreography: Igor Koruga
Dramaturgy: Dimitrije Kokanov
Music: Vladimir Pejković
Light Design: Boris Butorac
Performance: Mariana Gavriciuc, Tamara Pjević, George Alexandru Pleșca, Hunor Joseph Varga, Jakša Filipovac
Production: Marijana Cvetković, Olivera Kecojević, Teona Milićević, Stanica Servis za savremeni ples
Co-production: National Center for Dance Bucharest and Brain Store Project Foundation, Sofia through South-East European Dance Stations (SEEDS), APAP-Feminist Futures, The Culture moves Europe mobility grant and the Goethe-Institute; program “Creative Europe” of European Union; Ministry of Culture of Republic of Serbia; Residential program TanzFabrik Berlin e.g.; Tenerife LAV Residential Program.
Thank you: Magacin Cultural centre Belgrade; Atelje 212 Theatre Belgrade
Performance
28.10. @20:30
The performance Unstable comrades has been created as part of the international educational project “SEEDS”. The performance critically examines various mechanisms of normalization, oppression, and exploitation in personal spheres such as gender, sexuality, desire, emotions, and the body, into which capitalism, patriarchy, and other systems of repression constantly infiltrate. Through a comparative analysis of the intersections of queer culture, art, and Marxist ideology in different socio-economic contexts, from socialist and Western societies during the Cold War to post-socialist Eastern Europe, the artistic research and choreographic work sought examples of artistic practices directed against social and state dogmatism. The performance explores queerness as a space of empathy, vulnerability, intimacy and eroticism, perception, the challenging of norms, and, of course, expression.
COLLAGING
Dora Pocedić, Linda Tarnovski
Workshop
29.10. 11-14:00
The workshop is based on the principle of “collaging”. Referring to the visual art technique of collage, the workshop will build a dance vocabulary where the body and the space we inhabit are treated as a canvas, using the principles of collage to create a performance. Through improvisational tasks, the workshop will explore the qualities of movement and the physical tools that stimulate individual creativity around the theme of “collaging.”
Within this workshop, awareness of body parts will be highlighted within both general and personal space. Through paired and group work, participants will become familiar with the basic mechanisms of collaging, such as layering, covering, and revealing. The specificity of this kind of exercise will be based on fragmented and precise movements, leading to a unique rhythm produced by the body. The workshop will be concluded with independent creative tasks aimed at evaluating the knowledge and tools acquired.
Please apply to attend the workshop via email adress stanica.info@gmail.com
Workshop
Wheelchair Accessible
Dora Pocedić and Linda Tarnovski are two dance artists based in Zagreb. After training at the Contemporary Dance School of Ana Maletić and graduating from the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb, they went to Sweden for an internship at Vitlycke CPA under the mentorship of Francesca Scavetta. Since then, Dora and Linda have established their artistic organization, CO-MMENT, and continue to collaborate and explore shared interests, resulting in works such as "Tango" and "... but there are even smaller exits." They are currently in the process of creating a new work titled "Co-collaging." In addition to their original projects, they are very active in the scene as performers and have had the opportunity to collaborate with numerous domestic and foreign artists.
All that I left behind is here
Romuald Krężel
Performance
29.10. @20:00
Concept, Choreography, Performance: Romuald Krężel
Special guest: Irena Krężel
Dramaturgy: Agata Siniarska
Research support: Tamara Antonijević
Costume: Maldoror
Technical direction, light design: Patrick Faurot
Music direction, sound design: Miguel Caldas
Sound design assistant: Zach Hart
Production management: Anna Konrad
Artistic assistant: Louis F. Baca V.
Artistic support: Carolina Mendonça, René Alejandro Huari Mateus
Production: Romuald Krężel
Co-production: Uferstudios iz Berlina i HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts iz Drezdena
Financial support: Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of the Alliance of International Production Houses. Hauptstadtkulturfonds.
Supported by the Residency Program funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Station – Service for Contemporary Dance in Belgrade/Serbia, Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart.
The research process was supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media within the program NEUSTART KULTUR. The guest performance is co-financed by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion, the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland and the NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ International Guest Performance Fund for Dance, which is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
Performance
29.10. @20:00
Romuald Krężel’s new solo All that I left behind is here draws from his personal and artistic experience. By revisiting his very first dance experience in life: a Ballroom Dance course – the only one offered for free in his primary school, he intends to focus on various aspects of classism in the performing arts context. By re-learning and critically evoking movements, steps, poses and different styles of Cha-Cha-Cha, Rumba, Jive, etc, he attempts to investigate his social-class background and its relation to his current choreographic practice. The ghostly figures, post-punk music and aesthetics will support him in this return to his past, culminating in an emotional conversation with the artist’s mother about class, body, work, shame and dance.
Tool kit for survival Marijana Cvetković + Modular School & Puzzle
WOrkshops
30.10. 11-13:00, 13-16:00
On October 30, from 11-13:00 in the Meeting room of Magacin, Marijana Cvetković will hold a workshop - Tool kit for survival 3. Following the workshop, there will be an exchange platform between Modular School and the educational program Puzzle from 13-16:00 in the Dance Space of KC Magacin.
Participants: Dora Pocedić, Linda Tarnovski, Viktoria Bubalo, Sara Trbara and Boris Barukčić.
Artistic program leader: Aleksandra Janeva Imfeld.
Please apply to attend the workshops via email adress stanica.info@gmail.com
Workshops
30.10. 11-13:00, 13-16:00
The Modular School is an educational program in the field of performing arts and contemporary dance. Through long term educational modules, it offers space for collaboration, exchange of knowledge and experiences, as well as for work, mentorship, and networking with the local and regional dance community. It is designed for individuals interested in authorial work, developing their own artistic practice, and expanding collaborations within the realm of performing arts and contemporary dance. This year, the participants are part of an exchange within the Nomadic Dance Academy and took part in Lokomotiva’s "Curating in Context" program in Struga. They are visiting Belgrade to meet with participants of the Puzzle program and Kondenz festival in collaboration with Stanica, and will conclude their program with a visit to Ljubljana and the Co-festival, alongside partners from the Nomadic Dance Academy Slovenia.
Machine
Bojana Robinson
Performance
30.10. @20:00
Choreography, Performance: Bojana Robinson
Dramaturgy: Dimitrije Kokanov
Set design and video: Dorian Šilec Petek
Music: Manja Ristić*
Costume: Timotej Rosc
Light design: Igor Remeta
Narration: Polona Juh
Movement consultant: Kaja Lorenci
PR team: Paulina Pia Rogač and Tina Malenšek
Photography: Matt Robinson
Production: Institute for Contemporary Art Practice and Theory 0.1
Coproduction: Cankarjev dom
Partners: Društvo za kulturno produkcijo in afirmacijo umetniških procesov NAGIB, Maribor; Društvo umetnosti in kulture 47, Vrhnika; DUM - društvo umetnikov, Ljubljana
Financial support: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, the Municipality of Ljubljana, Slovenian Embassy Belgrade
*The composition Mašina M2 with an excerpt from the album Hidden Adriatic (in collaboration with Robertina Šebjanič), the composition Fables – side B (in collaboration with Mark Vernon)
Performance
30.10. @20:00
Machine is a dance performance by Bojana Robinson, a choreographer and dancer, in which she explores her personal relationship with a technological device, a breathing machine, occasionally used to alleviate the medical condition of her daughter. The choreographer explores the nature of the machine, tracing its evolvement into the performance’s subject and ways of embodying the relationship between devices and humans.
Dissonances. On Herding Cats to Take out the Trash
Ana Pinter
and Marijana Cvetković
book promotion
31.10. @15:00
Critical Practice (Made in Yugoslavia): Ana Pinter and Marijana Cvetković
New publication: Dissonances. On Herding Cats to Take out the Trash
Authors: Nefeli Gioti, Ana Pinter, Elena Rose Light, Szymon Adamczak and Myrto Sarma
The whole process was supported by the menthors Ana Vujanović, Marijana Cvetković and Biljana Tanurovska Kjulavkovski.
Ana will present the new book Dissonances, a collaborative work by participants in the Critical Practice_Made in Yu program during 2023.
In this book, authors reflect on their “collaboration in a collapsing world,” sharing their thoughts on processes of community, cooperation, and the issues, themes, and artistic works they encountered throughout the program.
book promotion
31.10. @15:00
Ana Pinter is a participant in the fifth cycle of the Critical Practice_Made in Yu program, part of the Nomad Dance Academy network and apap – Feminist Futures, designed to encourage discursive thinking in contemporary performing arts, with a focus, though not exclusively, on the post-Yugoslav space. Ana is a director and cultural worker in the field of theater and performance arts, combining theory with artistic practice. She is currently pursuing a doctoral transdisciplinary study in contemporary arts and media at the Faculty of Media and Communications in Belgrade.