Divadlo Štúdio tanca is the only professional theatre in Slovakia dedicated to contemporary dance with a permanent artistic ensemble. Based in Banská Bystrica for almost a quarter of a century, it has been creating original dance productions, offering movement courses for children and adults, organizing dance festivals, providing artistic residencies, and producing a variety of activities and events that bring contemporary dance closer to the public. With a diverse repertoire that caters to both discerning audiences and children, the theatre performs on its home stage as well as on tours across Slovakia and abroad. It operates in its own fully equipped building, home to an international artistic ensemble of dancers and performers from three continents. Throughout its existence, it has brought contemporary art, people, and atmosphere from around the world to the city, and it has no intention of stopping.
Med a prach (transl. Honey and Dust) is an artistic group that operates at the intersection of various art forms and genres. Under its roof, works are created that blur the lines between theater performances, concerts, and installations. Their works are presented in theaters, galleries, and concert stages alike. The basic starting point is complementary art, an artistic language rooted in the symbiosis of different means of expression. Performers are equally musicians, visual artists, actors, and dancers, striving to discover new ways of artistic expression through dynamic movement between diverse artistic communities and means. An essential aspect of Honey and Dust´s work is not only the fusion of the artistic forms but also within the individual works, the exploration of connections between art and other fields such as biology, psychology, philosophy, history, physics, and genetics.
Radical Empathy is an art group created in Autumn 2021 by Tomáš Danielis as a reaction to contemporary events. Its main goal is to support creating and distributing contemporary art pieces as sociological probes. Radical Empathy focuses primarily on creating performative art (dance and stand-up), original texts (mainly for performing arts), photography and media work. It does that without geographical restriction, but with (critical to) the European region and events in mind. The first art pieces created by the group had been Mainly Love inter-media performance (Nuit Blanche Festival, 2021), Custom View (Moyzes Hall Bratislava, 2022), followed by the photographic exhibition Entelechiea (Arteska Detva, 2022). People, whom participated on this 2 events are Tomáš Danielis, Marek Godovič, Soňa Kúdeľová, Zuzana Husárová, Lenka Sršnová Ľubomír Panák, Anthony Rouchier, Samuel Velebný (as curator of exhibition). In their work together they used, re-used and recycled besides documentary materials also works of David Bowie, Pat Matheny, Vladimír Godár, Gioachino Rossini and others.
T-O-K is more than just a production platform; it emphasizes the need for the continuous development of dancers and a deeper understanding of the dancer’s profession. The project encompasses various activities – including research, dance creation, workshops, lectures, and discussions – all connected by the central theme of sustainability, continuity, and psychophysical health. Its initiator, Lukáš Bobalik, has extensive experience as a freelance performer, collaborating with a numerous independent creators and project-based dance companies. He also worked as a teacher at various educational levels, including the Conservator). All of this has deepened in the ambiguous nature of becoming a professional dancer today, especially in the context of self-produced work. Additionally, his experience of near burnout, which almost led him to quit dance, motivated him to launch the T-O-K project.
tanC o.z. was founded in 2020 The civil association is dedicated to dance and movement performances, site-specific projects, productions, movement collaborations, and choreographies in non-traditional spaces. It engages with various art forms and artists from different disciplines, researching and exploring unique and contemporary movement principles and their potential applications. Lucia Bielik, Michaela Šeligová, Jakub Bielik, Radoslav Piovarči, and Lucia Piovarči work under the banner tanC.
thereeiscompany is an interdisciplinary female collective with a strong interest in blurring the boundaries between different artistic fields.In 2017, dancer and choreographer Soňa Ferienčíková, digital visual artist Mária Júdová, and sound artist and architect Alexandra Timpau joined forces to explore how interdisciplinary collaboration and audience involvement can further expand the horizons of contemporary dance.
Yuri Korec & Co. is the project platform and artistic brand of choreographer and performer Juraj Korec. Under its auspices, artistic collaborations result in contemporary dance works. Since 2017, when the full-length dance performance d-BODY-m was introduced under this brand, several other works have been created and successfully presented, including the lecture performance Solo Not Just for One Body (2018), the solo performance Not a Solo (2018), and the group performance Sapiens Territory (2020). Long-term collaborators include dramaturg Maja Hriešik, performers Eva Priečková, Silvia Sviteková, Lukáš Bobalik, Jakub Jautz (D), as well as sound designer Matúš Bolka and producer Martin Krištof. The thematic focus of Yuri Korec & Co.’s works explores the phenomenon of one´s body performativity in various minimalist contexts, often aligning with the principles of ‘non-dance’.