Performativa III.
The third and final edition of this year’s Performativa presents the premieres of devised projects by two Slovenian artists of outstanding merit, Irena Z. Tomažin and Mateja Bučar. A particular emphasis is being placed on their most recent output.
Both performances are co-produced by the Cukrarna Gallery and the independent cultural organisations Sploh Institute, as part of the research cycle Ventilator, and DUM Association of Artists. The two works share a common thread of focusing on the body – specifically on sound, dance, or the moving body. The exploration of the diverse possibilities of expressing presence and inscribing oneself in space are unifying elements of both performances.
The project Hurry-Scurry, Stay in Line, conceived by Mateja Bučar, is situated within the expansive volume of the Cukrarna Gallery lobby. Here, the artist establishes a dynamic line, or as the original title suggests “an exquisite order”, of dancing bodies representing significant contributors to the field of contemporary dance from diverse generations. However, the title, together with the lineup of important dance artists and a succession of recognisable individual dance expressions, techniques, and aesthetics, with an emphasis on exquisiteness, prompts us to reflect on whether such an activity also corresponds to the field of cultural politics and is, at the same time, a commentary on the situation of contemporary dance art in Slovenia. The exploration of the embodiment of the line is a recurring and extended topic in the oeuvre of Mateja Bučar. For this occasion, the line shrinks, stretches, bends, twists, and unfolds, coming to life as an incomplete temporary dictionary of Slovenian contemporary dance, combining a whole range of different movements in a unique and playful way. The question is posed as to whether the act of drawing a line in space is an attempt to demarcate the space into individual segments, fields or sides; to deconstruct or reconstruct it; to explore and shape the spaces in between; to allow the moving line of bodies to roam freely through the architectural landscape; or perhaps to do something else altogether. Despite the dominant rigour announced by the “distinguished order”, the continuous and dynamic line drawn by Mateja Bučar together with her co-creators – at the same time a complex and simple, constantly moving choreographic composition – paradoxically also brings a sense of freedom and fluidity. This is achieved by a structure that is at once strict and open, allowing for the expression of spontaneity, individuality, and playfulness in movement.
The latest work by Irena Z. Tomažin was conceived in a peripheral space within the Cukrarna Gallery complex, specifically within a narrow and elongated corridor encircling the basement hall. This space is usually inaccessible to visitors. The new vocal and movement project entitled like water, a bone sings #3, is, in a sense, associated with the performance pattern of a spilled voice, traces of caramel footprints by Irena Z. Tomažin and Tomaž Grom, which was created as a site-specific work at Cukrarna in spring 2023. The new work is set where the last one started, carrying on the exploration of stories encased within the walls of the Cukrarna Gallery.
In a multilayered movement and vocal landscape, Irena Z. Tomažin focuses on the voice and its embodiment. A superb vocalist, she uses a variety of vocal techniques and singing to bring unheard voices to life with subtlety and complexity. Her voice moves through the spaces of the mind and the body, between bodies and walls. It explores how the voice passes through the corridor and between the bodies of the visitors, how it disappears and comes back to life. With layers of associative patterns, it bulges, condenses, and develops soundscapes, shaping and transforming individual fragments of stories into a poetic sonic mass in the oral cavity. Irena Z. Tomažin’s oeuvre is characterised by exploring the relationship between the body, voice, movement, and space, and the way in which sound passes through the body, which acts as a sounding instrument. In the project like water, a bone sings #3, she devotes particular attention to the presence of the voice in the interspace between bodies. In this process, she addresses questions regarding the potential tactile qualities of listening and the impact of voice proximity on our experience. Is it too intense if we can feel the warmth of the breath on our skin?
PROGRAMME
November 13th 2024
19.00
Irena Z. Tomažin: like water, a bone sings #3
20.00
Mateja Bučar: Hurry-Scurry, Stay in Line
November 14th 2024
18.00 and 20.00
Mateja Bučar: Hurry-Scurry, Stay in Line
19.00
Irena Z. Tomažin: like water, a bone sings #3
Curated by Mara Anjoli Vujić
Production: Janja Buzečan; Public relations: Mojca Podlesek; Photo: Blaž Gutman, DUM; Technical production: Martin Lovšin; Production: Cukrarna Gallery/ MGML; Co-production: Sploh Institute, DUM – Association of Artists; With the support City of Ljubljana.
Opening hours
Tuesday to Sunday: 10.00–19.00.
Tickets
Free entry.
Due to a limited number of seats, reservations are required at info@cukrarna.art.
Press kit
like water, a bone sings #3
How far does a voice travel? It can be heard from end to end of the corridor. What gets lost on its journey from mouth to ear? Is the closeness of a voice too intense when you feel the warmth of its breath on your skin? Is it tactile to hear a voice? Can you hear the muffled voice? Can you see it in your body? Can you hear the voice of a menacing finger, a shrug of a shoulder or an outstretched palm of a hand? Mr Sacks pondered on this, then declared “see the voice” and began to write. “like water, a bone sings #3” is an externalised monologue about the voice, its substance and its modes of expression and presence in the space between the body that utters it and the body that listens, and is a part of the research cycle Ventilator (Fan).
Concept and performance: Irena Z. Tomažin Sound: Tomaž Grom Production: Cukrarna, Sploh Institute
Hurry-Scurry, Stay in Line
The choreography is conceived for a space with volume and length, such as the entrance hall of Cukrarna, in which a queue, or rather a line, can be clearly delineated, where it can unwind, unfold, curve, stretch and contract, agitate and calm down. On the one hand, the austerity of a clear line, on the other, the complexity, the wildness, the intricacy of the languages of movement and articulation, which will braid themselves into each other, one after the other, into each other, constantly swirling within the internally highly complex and externally utterly simple clarity of a single line. We want to capture the paradoxical moment between total liberation and strict discipline in which living, thinking and dancing are always fatally trapped, and some of this paradoxicality, which extends to contemporary life in a broader sense, is perhaps also suggested by the title: Hurry-Scurry, Stay in Line.
I was born one mornin’, it was drizzlin' rain Fightin' and trouble are my middle name I was raised in the canebrake by an ol' mama lion Can't no-a high-toned woman make me walk the line.
(Tennessee Ernie Ford, Sixteen Tons)
01he line functions in Mateja Bučar’s new choreography as the mark of a productive limitation. Not a limit in productivity, on the contrary: a limitation that proves itself to be productive. Movements are thus limited to pertaining to a line. Yet this limitation immediately opens up a space of invention. It brings about all kinds of obvious, fancy, strange or bizarre ways of dealing with one’s attachment to the line. The rule of the line does not just exclude or forbid a number of movements. At the same time it suggests a goal for an abundant number of other movements. It brings about a desire, not to break the rule, but to fulfil it and to reach its goal, maybe by an unexpected move. As soon as the rule of the line is formulated, the spirit of play is provoked – or as it were invoked, engendered. Even the rebellious, outlaw spirit is here not to be understood as the one that violates the rule, but rather as the one that attempts to reach the suggested goal in a strange, funny way, against all possible hindrances.
02The line brings together a number of movements just like a string unites a number of pearls. Connecting movements by the criterion of their pertaining to the line is a way of bringing movements together that is different from uniting them, for example, by the criterion of their similarity, their juxtaposition, their contrast or their narrative sequence. The rule is never only the opposite of no rule, but as well of several other rules that often remain unacknowledged due to their self-evident, customary character. The rule of the line is the breaking with other rules. Only due to this fact – that it breaks with customary, unacknowledged rules – the rule of the line can bring about the unexpected. Robert Pfaller
Idea and co-choreography: Mateja Bučar
Music and sound: Drago Ivanuša and J. S. Bach
Performers, co-creators in movement and dance: Andreja Rauch Podrzavnik, Nataša Živkovič, Kristina Aleksova, Katja Legin, Tina Valentan, Bojana Robinson, Nina Pertot Weis, Loup Abramovici, Beno Novak, Jana Menger, Jerneja Fekonja, Tini Rozman, and Jernej Bizjak
Texts: Robert Pffaler and Rok Vevar
Costume design, light: DUM – Association of Artists
Production: DUM – Association of Artists
Co-production: Cukrarna Gallery and CoFestival 2024
The project is co-financed by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and City of Ljubljana, Department of Culture.
