Networking meeting “The Slovak Way” 

Thursday, 01.06.2023, 11:00 — 14:00, Telocvičňa – Dance Residency Center, Nová Cvernovka

Networking meeting and discussion about the touring possibilities of dance pieces across the regions of Slovakia, closer cooperation and possible partnerships between dance creators and venues as well as independent centres across Slovakia. It will consist of short and longer pitching sessions as well as a moderated discussion on current challenges in programming contemporary dance works.

Hosted by Maja Hriešik (Telocvičňa, Plast) and Michal Klembara (Antena Network)

Soňa Kúdeľová, Boris Vitázek / Chaosmos: AUTONOMY

Saturday, 03.06.2023, 21:00, Kunsthalle Bratislava

“Don’t interrupt your thoughts with words. Come in and sit in silence.”

Imagine a (peculiar) movement, mind and body, as objects of observation and bending… Can you hear it?

“This process vs. art work or product, is my resonating body and my dancing mind. Flushes of resonances in different parts of the apartment, as a long-term ritual performative experiment, help me capture the intersections between myself as a dancer and myself as a person. Throughout the year, I obsessively research and analyze the rhizomatic firing of impulses that my mind produces. And the body survives.”

Autonomy is a process. And it is an art work about creating art works. It is one’s own therapy, it is learning and accepting one’s own autonomy.

The project was supported from public funds by the Art Support Fund The project partner is the Bratislava self-governing region.

“In recent years, Soňa Kúdeľová has taken an interest in exploring the creative overlaps of dance, visual and musical arts. Sound, voice, visual and physical body meet in Autonomy and intersect in space. The viewer has the opportunity to connect to any of the strands. He can freely observe, actively perceive the messages, or just be carried away by the images. Autonomy is the punctuation and culmination of complex author’s AUTO trilogy, and with it her voice has undoubtedly become an autonomous on the local scene.” 

(Miroslava Kovářová)

Choreography and dance: Soňa Kúdeľová
Music and visual design: Boris Vitázek
Dramaturgy: Soňa Kúdeľová, Boris Vitázek
Dramaturgy of the text: Zuzana Husárová
Lighting design and tech. support: Dominik Novák, Peter Dolog
Costume: People on Earth
Production: oz CHAOSMOS

Boris Vitázek

Boris Vitazek – studied intermedia art at AFAD Bratislava – work spans many different media – visual arts, 3d mapping, interactive art, sound art, game art, video and photography work and extensive work with theater. Experimental music scene could be considered his natural environment – working with music festivals and preparing events, DJing and working on live A/V performances. His skills revolve around interaction design, dramaturgy and combination of many media into one comprehensive work. Works often include software like Blender, Unity, VCV rack, Davinci Resolve, and VVVV – software that has been most intertwined with his work and community efforts. He is currently a lecturer at Prague City University, but he has also led various workshops that were focused on creative coding. 

Soňa Kúdeľová

Pôsobí na scéne súčasného tanca na Slovensku ako tanečná choreografka a performerka. Soňa skúma nové prístupy v performatívnom umení a ich presahy. Sleduje tok umenia a jeho rizomatické umiestnenie v každodennom živote, nazerá na jeho históriu a otvorene pristupuje k jeho súčasnej podobe. Čerpaním z každodennej performativity získava skúsenosť a poznanie ako uchopiť seba, v zhluku dnešnej spoločnosti, aj podstatnú motiváciu a kreatívnu spontánnosť v procese tvorby. Skrz neustály výskum tela a mysle, meniacich sa v čase, sa pohybuje v témach sociálno-psychologickej adaptácie, medziľudských vzťahoch, či spoločnosti. Vytvára kolektívne spolupráce s vizuálnymi, hudobnými a intermediálnymi umelcami kde v spoločných procesoch testujú hranice umeleckých vyjadrení v jednom čase a priestore. Okrem každodenného života, ľudí a ľudského charakteru, ju inšpirujú naďalej aj odborné teoretické texty, štúdie a eseje o umení, performance a spoločnosti. Vytvorila tri sólové tanečné inscenácie – Autopilot, Autocorrect, Autonomy. Spolupracovala na projektoch s P. Fornayovou, T. Danielisom, kolektívom mimoOs, a i. Je spoluzakladateľkou vzdelávacieho projektu Telohra, členkou rady PlaST – Platforma pre súčasný tanec a Koordinátorkou Rezidenčného centra Telocvičňa v Novej Cvernovke.

www.sonakudelova.dance

www.telocvicna.dance

Chaosmos

The civic association CHAOSMOS was established on the initiative of Soňa Kúdeľová and Boris Vitázek. It includes artists of dance, performative and audio-visual arts. It focuses on the creation and presentation of performative, movement and dance works, with an emphasis on visual aesthetics, supported by new media and technologies. The authors collaborate with several artists, create collective creative processes and thus develop diverse approaches to creation, through which they reflect the themes that resonate in them. CHAOSMOS also observes the performativity around ourselves. We perceive its diversity and uniqueness. We enjoy the vagueness of the term performance art. We want to explore it not only by observation but also directly. As part of our future activities, we want to foster several performative works, and create a dialogue or discussion with the artists.

Jana Tereková / bees-R: ABNORMAL REPETITIVE BEHAVIOUR

Thursday, 01.06.2023, 20:30, A4 – Space for Contemporary Culture

When animals are deprived of their natural environment, locked in inappropriate spaces, in a ZOO, circus, or laboratory, they tend to develop abnormal repetitive behaviors. Picking at nothing, floating limbs, head banging, head waving, pacing, or dancing are the names that scientists have given to the stereotypical movements of animals in captivity. In her new creation, Jana Tereková creates weird, possessed, alienated, troubled and troubling bodies which are able to turn into calm bodies instantly, stretching out time, doing nothing or too less, carrying out rituals without apparent sense, inefficient and unnecessary. They draw the spectator into a strange universe that fascinates, hypnotizes, where time seems suspended. The beings on the stage are distant yet intimately familiar. They are animals, imaginary creatures, objects, humans. The work can be received as an ironic and bitter action in the face of general inaction, ignorance and arrogance. And as a praise of long time and boredom, creating a counterweight to the world obsessed with utility and efficiency that has reduced nature and non human animals in consumer goods.

“In her works, choreographer and dancer Jana Tereková systematically exploresthe dancing body, the limits of dance, movement structures. Dancers are provoked to work against their emblematic movement, thus she eagerly revises the dance vocabulary and incites a discussion on the development and character of dance with her creations. By focusing on artistic research and reflecting merely scientific subjects, she is quite unique in the context of the Slovak dance scene. Her most recent work Abnormal Repetitive Behaviour, is a beautiful example of this – the starting point for new dance material is the movement of animals held in long-term captivity.”

(Michaela Pašteková)

Choreography: Jana Tereková

Dance and creation: Edita Antalová, Daniel Raček, Jana Tereková

Sound design, music: Joseph Champagnon

Costumes: Gabriela Čechová

Lights: Jozef Miklós

Jana Terekova

Jana Terekova is choreographer and dancer active between Bratislava and Paris. She is the author of several dance pieces for stage and of site-specific performances. Jana’s work clearly focuses on movement and physicality and can be more or less abstract, depending on the project. The artistic desire relates to the exploration of the body’s possibilities to metamorphose, to become something else. She creates bodies which are situated „in between”: half human half machine, between thing and living being, or unidentified not quite human being, and bodies who blur the border between human and animal.

bees-R

bees-R focuses on the creation of dance and multi-genre productions with international relevance. Since its foundation, the company has produced projects that generated precious and unique cooperation between emerging international artists, mainly in Slovakia and France. It has produced the works of Jana Terekova, such as Phenomena Research (dance-music-poetry-video, 2012), Cyborg Creation (dance-poetry, 2014), The Mirroring (dance-poetry-live music, 2017), She Had 70 Skirts (dance and marionettes, 2018-19), Fettered to The Moment (dance piece, 2020 and dance installation, 2021) Bariolé (dance piece, 2022) and Abnormal Repetitive Behaviour (dance piece, 2022)

Eva Urbanová: THE ESSENCE

Thursday, 01.06.2023, 16:00, The Studio 12

During the creation process of this choreography I continued the development of my own dance methodology through movement research. This methodology is focused on using a  body scanning practice which helps me  connect with the subconscious parts of myself. After reaching this state, I generate the movement material which is later needed for the composition. My first intention when I decided to create this choreography was to connect with my essential movement, a movement of purity, which would not only empower myself but also the space around me. This idea emerged just after graduating from a  choreography programme as I felt the studies blocked the flow of my essential movement. At the same time I needed to reconnect with my body after  a severe sickness. Perhaps this empowerment I was searching for at that time and for which a deep truthful connection with the body is necessary also leads to the primordial and beyond-self movements which are  part of my research. Additionally, in some moments of this choreography, you can also see me performing movements which I perceive as learned or expected from the dancer to perform and are not coming from my essential movement language vocabulary. Personally, these movements are creating for me a contrast to my essential movement and help me create an inner emotional narrative. For the creation of the text, I used the automatic writing method. The outcome of this writing was not only text but also the discovery of a certain specific (essential?) rhythm which can be found both in text and in my dance.

“In the solo piece Essence, Eva Urbanová confirms that she is a mature dancer despite her young age. Her movement is straightforward, revealing to us her feelings, emotions and thoughts. She is fragile and strong at the same time. Simply, through physical expression, spontaneously, she is able to express, what is inner. Through a kind of movement ritual, she searches for traces of the essence of herself, of her own or human essence. The two awards she has received abroad for this solo are only a natural assessment of her qualities, both interpretive and creative.”

(Miroslava Kovářová)

Choreography, dance: Eva Urbanová

Text: Eva Urbanová

Music: Aid Kid

Eva Urbanová

Eva Urbanová is a Slovak dancer, choreographer and teacher. In her choreographies, she aims at studying and critiquing the mechanisms of the social system, empowering women and demonstrating the concept of dualism. She concentrates on developing her own distinctive dance style and movement language, taking inspiration from the contemporary Israeli dance scene and the field of physical theatre. One of her main success is her solo „The Essence“ which won 1st award at the Gdansk Dance Festival 2022 and 2nd Choreographic Award and Public Award at the Solo Tanz Theater Stuttgart International Competition 2021.

Radoslav Piovarči, Paulína Šmatláková: CHARON

Friday, 02.06.2023, 21:00, Záhrada Cultural Centre

Dance performance CHARON pictures a relationship between a ferryman Charon and a soul, representing an entity of a universal human being. The character of Charon has been chosen as a personification of human qualities in their self-reflection, while the soul represents a human on her way of transformation and knowledge through a journey into and from the underworld. According to different philosophy questions, the soul is searching for its place not only in our known world, but also in worlds that are distant to us and therefore often obscure to us. Thanks to its companion, Charon, the soul becomes aware and transforms into a purer form. Its journey and knowledge become a mirror of us all, of our deeds. Mythology, as a collection of stories created to explain the ambient world, is the source of timeless learning, pointing at the immutable substance of a human soul regardless the development of human civilizations over thousands of years. Authors also try to ask the audience some provocative questions about who can be a hero in contemporary world, how to become such a hero, what journey needs to be undertaken and what form will the myth of our future have.

“Greek mythology is not an obvious source material for Slovak contemporary dance creators, but Charon proves that even today it is possible to contemplate eternal, archetypal questions such as death, transformation of existence into another form, the search for the meaning and essence of life in a qualitative and ever new way. The performance is exceptional also because of its excellent dancers Rado Piovarči and Paulina Šmatláková and the dramaturgical input of Alexandra Rychtarčíková, who is well versed in the culture of ancient Greece.” 

(Petra Fornayová)

Choreography, concept and performer: Radoslav Piovarči

Co-creator and performer: Paulína Šmatláková

Music and performer: Michal Paľko

Lighting design: Ján Čief

Costumes: Martin Kotúček

Dramaturgy and professional consultation: Alexandra Rychtarčíková

Radoslav Piovarči

Radoslav Piovarči (creator, choreographer, performer) – Dancer, performer, tutor, choreographer, and stage director, Radoslav Piovarči has been part of professional scene of contemporary dance and physical theatre for nearly a decade. Throughout the time he collaborated with a number of leading names, theatres and ensemble, such as Lenka Vagnerová & Company, Artyci Dance Company, Theatre elledanse, Lucia Holinová, Staatstheatre Kassel, Štúdio tanca dance theatre, Total Brutal Company, VerTeDance, Jana Burkiewicz, Virus Theatre. His hitherto collaborative portfolio includes over thirty different dance projects, films and advertisements. As choreographer and director he made, since 2010 the productions of Munnie (Enfin seuls 2010), HOLD YOUR BREATH (Theatre elledanse 2012), SET UP (Theatre elledanse 2013), DUST (Liptov Dance Theatre 2015), and the modular dance project MIMO (Culture centre Dunaj 2017).

Paulína Šmatláková

Paulína Šmatláková comes from Bratislava. Her studies began at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava and continued at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London. She graduated with a Bachelor degree in Contemporary Dance in 2016. During freelancing in London Paulína worked as a choreographer and a performer in an interdisciplinary group devised physical theatre project, Lingering Games, directed by Cao Cong and performed in Taipei. Between 2017 and 2020 she was a fulltime dancer with Blackbox Dance Company in Denmark. Here she worked with choreographers such as Ben Wright, Jason Mabana, Marie Brolin-Tani and Tina Tarpgaard, touring nationally and internationally (Sweden, Greenland, Tanzania, South Korea, Rwanda). In September 2020 she took part in making a dance film in Norway with Compassion2Dance Company, choreographed by Tendai Makurumbandi. Since October 2020 Paulína is a freelance dancer based in Bratislava, where she also teaches contemporary dance classes.

Martin Hodoň, Dáša Čiripová / Neskorý zber / Gaffa: MATTER

Thursday, 01.06.2023, 18:00, P*AKT

01. Do you see that bridge?

010. Do you see that wooden bridge?

0101. You see the wooden bridge but you don’t see the stone bridge.

0. What is the stone bridge?

010101. It’s one that let donkeys cross, let horses cross.

He /DAMA DAMA/

Origin: Púchov forests

Age: 49

Height: 185 cm

Weight: 75 kg

She /LYNX LYNX/

Origin: Slatinské lazy

Age: 60

Height: 163 cm

Weight: 55 kg

A dance duet of maturity on the verge of rottenness, at the meeting point of contemporary dance and physical theatre, depicts the genesis of one master – from admiration and enchantment to asymmetry and disgust. In the beginning there was attraction, instinct, which after a while was replaced by the predominance of the strength and power of the body. Hierarchy.

“The performance matter uses parody as its backdrop in order to give way the feelings of the approaching retirement age of dance performers. At the same time, it thematizes the state of our society, the position and relevance of dance, dancers and choreographers. The balanced acting and movement vocabulary of experienced performers allows them to approach heavy issues with lightness, playfully make themselves the objects of the humour. The piece, based on the lives of the creators, which has proven to be appealing to a wider spectrum of audiences, not only the dance one was. It was directed by Martin Hodoň, known for numerous collaborations with the dancers and for combining the movement with text, with a strong contribution of the dramaturg and in this case also the surprisingly mature performer Dáša Čiripová. The piece, promises an exceptional experience and the opportunity of much-needed (self)reflection.”

(Petra Fornayová)

Director: Martin Hodoň

Dramaturgy: Dáša Čiripová

Choreography: RASEMA

Sound design: Dominik Suchý

Light design/set/costume: matoha

Technical support: Lukáš Kubičina

Dance/performance: Anna Sedlačková, Dáša Čiripová, Daniel Raček

Production: GAFFA co-produced by KC P*AKT

Co-production: Neskorý zber

Thanks to: CO.Labs Brno

Supported by: Slovak Arts Council

Martin Hodoň

Martin Hodoň is a graduate of theatre studies at the Academy of Performing Arts, later he continued his studies at JAMU in Brno in directing-dramaturgy under the guidance of prof. Josef Kovalčuk. His work was mainly devoted to original and physical theatre with an overlap into contemporary dance. He completed his doctoral studies at the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava and his research area was the relationship between performance art and performing arts. In Bratislava in 2015 he founded the independent performance platform GAFFA together with Dáša Čiripová and Zuzana Némethová, which has produced the projects EVA, Slowly Flowing Days, Negative_eGOtrip, Invisible guest, s p e e c h, By the Way, A P E N D I X, C R ASH, The Village.

Neskorý zber / The Late Harvest Association

The Late Harvest Association was founded in the autumn of 2014 by Monika Čertezni, Lucia Holinová, Daniel Raček and Anna Sedlačková, experienced dancers, choreographers and dance teachers who have been working in the field of contemporary dance for more than 25 years. The intention of the association is to create a space for sharing artistic views and statements of a mature generation of dance artists. The association is also interested in intergenerational and interdisciplinary dialogue and progressive pedagogical approaches. It adapts its productions to the outdoors and site-specific. It organizes annual educational workshops on progressive pedagogical approaches. Dancer and educator Katarína Vlniešková and light designer Jozef Miklós have enriched the membership.

Gaffa

GAFFA is a professional theatre group that combines an experimental and authorial approach. An interdisciplinary crossing of theatre, perfromativity and physical theatre. The principle of their work is working with corporeality, which for them becomes an apparatus of contradiction and synaesthesia at the same time. Since 2016, they have created six original productions.

Adrienn Hód, Martina Hajdyla, Soňa Ferienčíková / Me-Sa / Bod-Y: SOFT SPOT

Saturday, 03.06.2023, 15:00, A4 – Space for Contemporary Culture

Soft Spot is an experimental physical performance born out of cooperation between dancers Martina Hajdyla, Soňa Ferienčíková and choreographer Adrienn Hód. Through improvisation and a research of the physical body, they explored the relationship between body, personality and meaning. What do we perceive when we look at the human body? What does the face, the gesture, the posture, the movement tell us? How do we communicate through the body with others? Soft Spot plays with the blurring of human qualities, asks what defines us as humans, and looks for a hidden, sensitive “soft spot” in ourselves.

“Soft Spot is an experimental study that challenges established ways of interpretation and deconstructs traditional movement conventions. It forces the audience to transcend the rational mode of thinking, granting them freedom of movement. In the work of established choreographer Adrienn Hód the extraordinary physical performance of performers Martina Hajdyla and Sonia Ferienčíková is simply stunning. Reduced to mere bodies without facial expression, they explore the subtlety and complexity of meanings inscribed in corporeality. Powerful piece that has received admiring reviews on several dance platforms and festivals.”

(Michaela Pašteková)

Choreography: Adrienn Hód

Created and performed by: Martina Hajdyla, Sonia Ferienčíková

Music: Ábris Gryllus

Dramaturgy: Ármin Szabó-Székely

Movement collaboration: Márcio Kerber Canabarro

Visual collaboration: Mária Júdová

Costume designer: Lucia Škandíková

Lighting designer: Tomáš Morávek

Technical support: Daniel Kozlík

PR: Alice Krajčírová

Graphic designer: Yara Abu Aataya

Production: Lucia Šimášková / BOD.Yngo, Jiří Hajdyla / ME-SA

Executive production: Romana Packová

Co-production: ME-SA, BOD.Yngo, HODWORKS Tanec Praha z.ú. / PONEC – dance theatre, Platform for Contemporary Dance, Bratislava in Motion Association

Supported by: the Art Support Fund, the International Visegrad Fund, the Prague City Hall, the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the State Fund for Culture of the Czech Republic

Special thanks to: Csaba Molnár, Adam Czirák, Dano Raček, Petr Soukup, Mia Majeríková, Maker Keveš, Márk D. Molnár, Soňa Kúdeľová, Viera Farbiaková, Petr Goro Horký, Jenda Niesit, Mariana Novotná, Michal Šimečka, Agi Ferienčíková, Tatiana Lacová, Karol Laco, Lenka Sedláčková, Aneta Jiroušková, Adéla Jiroušková, Gideon Horváth

Soňa Ferienčíková

Soňa Ferienčíková is a dancer, teacher, choreographer and founder of BOD.Y ngo. She had worked with many Slovak and international artists and companies and had performed in Europe, Mexico, Israel and China. Her solo EVERYWHEN was nominated for Slovak theater award DOSKY 2018.

Martina Hajdyla

Martina Hajdyla is a dancer, teacher, choreographer and founder of ME-SA. She graduated from Conservatory in Slovakia and Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. She was granted Dancer of the Year Award 2015 for SuperNaturals.

Adrienn Hód

Adrienn Hód is a choreographer and leader of internationally acclaimed contemporary dance company HODWORKS. In her creations she deconstructs the framework of body, movement, space and music and rebuilds them in surprising ways.

Me-Sa

ME-SA was established in 2008. The company works as an open platform that combines author’s projects with inviting various guest choreographers both from Czechoslovak dance scene and abroad. In 2013, ME-SA became for the first time part of Aerowaves TOP 20 Priority Companies List thanks to project Much More Than Nothing created by duo Peter Šavel/Stano Dobák. The company got three times the nomination for “Dance Piece of the Year” Award. In 2015, one of ME-SA founders, Martina Hajdyla Lacová, was awarded “Dancer of the Year” Prize for her performance in SuperNaturals, another piece by ME-SA listed at Aerowaves Selection for 2015. For the performance in the solo project L – One of the Seven was Martina Hajdyla Lacová nominated for prestigious czech Thálie Award 2016. ME-SA has presented its projects at various festivals: APAP/NYC, Spring Forward, Czech Dance Platform, Tanec Praha, Edinburg Fringe etc.

Bod.Y

Bod.Y – the brain child of Slovak dance artist Soňa Ferienčíková is a non-profit organisation focused on the creation and production of new dance works from young Slovak and international artists. BOD.Y´s interest is on contemporary dance for stage that fuse performative disciplines, as well as dance films, video art, and site specific performance. It also initiate the creation of new works and is open to proposals from artists from all fields. BOD.Y´s works are presented in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Belgium, Hungary, Germany, Spain and Latvia.

Manuel Ronda / Tanečno: YOLT – YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE

Friday, 02.06.2023, 15:00, A4 – Space for Contemporary Culture

This physical theatre performance is a reflection upon the structural system orientated in one main direction in which we people live in. It points out their paradoxic morals, their power games and the loss of orientation once there is no structure any more.

Ingredients:

– 4 performers

– 35 squares

– 1 Eva

– 1 Dorota

– a composition

– little red riding hood

– a bit of salsa

– hierarchy

– left and right

– something special

– the meaning of life

“YOLT combines two principles, two worlds. The world of rationality and the world of intuition, basic instincts. Drawing from fairy tales, they deconstruct stories and reflect on their moral messages. Using movement and text, they play with the concepts of good and evil, structures of power and the pleasures we are constantly seeking. The production presents dance and acting talents of four young and talented performers, attuned to the poetics of of the experienced Italian director and choreographer Manuel Ronda.”

(Eva Gajdošová)

Choreography and direction: Manuel Ronda

Performance: Miriam Budzáková, Silvia Sviteková, Matúš Szeghö, Andrej Štepita

Music: Eva Sajanová

Lights, stage, costumes: Dorota Volfová

Illustrations: Manuel Ronda

Visual: Matúš Szeghö

Production: Tanečno o.z.

Manuel Ronda

Manuel Ronda studied industrial design at the University of Architecture in Genoa and the School of Modern Dance Theater in Amsterdam. He works worldwide as a dancer, actor and performer – he collaborates with various artists and groups (UltimaVez/Wim Vandekeybus, Rootlesroots/Kapatenea-Fruček, Andre Gingras, Frederic Flamand, Tasya Krougovykh/Pussy Riot…), dramaturgically assists choreographer Elena Fokina and works as an actor at the children’s theater “Teatro del Piccione”. His solo “El Gran Salto” was premiered in Tijuana, Mexico in 2019 and he is currently touring and leads workshops worldwide.

Tanečno

The Civic Association Tanečno is an association of young people active in the field of art, culture and community organizing. The year-round activities are mainly based on the organization of the Orava Dance and Movement Festival – Tanečno, which has had six successful years. Among the aims of the civil association are the development, creation and preservation of cultural values and the support of education in the field of culture and art. The association also fulfills these goals by creating year-round artistic and educational activities, especially in the Orava region. The association also operates as a creative and performative collective (Passing/station, The urge grows, YOLT, Antrophos Anthem, Gentle man, Na hlasku, Be off…).

László Fülöp / Divadlo Štúdio tanca: AT THE HORIZON OF NO RETURN

Friday, 02.06.2023, 19:00, Divadlo Štúdio tanca

Is free will real, or is it just an illusion created by chance in the course of human evolution? Is the human race doomed? Are we cursed or blessed by the illusion of our own ego? These are the questions László Fülöp’s choreography seeks to answer in the dance performance At the horizon of no return. The work created for the dance company of Divadlo Štúdio tanca deeply contemplates and reects the situation and condition in which civilization, the Earth, the Universe currently nds itself. As a starting point for his reection he takes the observation of the body, which consciously or unconsciously reacts to given events.

“On the Horizon of No Return is the result of the vision of the new leadership of Divadlo Štúdio tanca, an established Slovak dance company, to create dance works as reflections of current life. Exploring the forms of human behaviour, the possibility of their communication, the creative team comes with a sincere enquiry into the future of our civilization. Dancers with different backgrounds, experiences and physicality are united by a new and convincing quality of interpretation.”

(Eva Gajdošová)

Choreography: László Fülöp

Music: Vince Varga

Dramaturgy assistant: Zebastián Méndez Marín

Light design: Ján Čief

Scenography and costumes: Ivana Macková

László Fülöp

László Fülöp born on the 16th of December, 1987 in Budapest, Hungary the most tender bartender, an introvert shop assistant, also a dancer, performer & choreographer founder of Timothy and the Things I graduated at Budapest Contemporary Dance Academy in 2010. Since then, as a freelancer I’ve worked and collaborated with many artists and dance companies from Hungary and abroad – Vladislava Malá, Adrienn Hód, Eléonore Valére Lachky, Éva Karczag, Klári Pataky Dance Company, Zoltán Nagy, Eva Duda Dance Company, Finita la Commedia, and from 2012 on, I’ve been mainly dancing for the Danish Granhoj Dans Company. In the meantime I’ve developed my own choreographic works under the name of Timothy and the Things. In 2016 I’ve got Viktor Fülöp Scholarship as an emerging young choreographer and in 2018 received a grant from the Gaubier’s Fund as a dancer, performer. The core topic of my interest revolves around exploring and analysing, from every conceivable angle, issues relating to all forms of human social behaviour and communication, completely without generalizations or prejudices, in a simple, pure and personal way. I find extremely important to let people see and understand those inner processes which influence and guide their acts and decisions on an subconscious level.

Divadlo Štúdio tanca

Divadlo Štúdio tanca is the only theater dedicated to contemporary dance in Slovakia with its own artistic cast. It has been operating in Banská Bystrica since 1998. In its focus, it paves the way for original work that respects artists in their creative expression and opinion and continuously supports the creation of original dance productions and their regular presentation.

Tomáš Danielis, Marek Godovič / Radical Empathy: CUSTOM VIEW

Saturday, 03.06.2023, 18:30, Moyzes Hall

“Custom view”, an assisted solo by Tomáš Danielis and Marek Godovic, is a contemplation of how people make decisions and look at the world through the prism of Danielis’ own life. By questioning interpretations of reality, issues of freedom, perception of relationships, and even basic human behaviour itself in (not so) different cultures this work poetically examines the society in which we live together. Based on Danielis’ life and career as a pretext and life Godovič’s dramaturgy presents a mixture of different dance languages and virtuosity squared off by sociology and Wittgenstein’s philosophy on stage.

“Custom View is an honest statement and summing-up of a mature dancer and choreographer Tomáš Danielis, who has worked for more than twenty years in diverse artistic and cultural environments. This gives him a mandate to compare and evaluate, yet he goes beyond mere naming of the positives and negatives. Danielis’ performance offers us, through the balanced presence of text and movement, a glimpse into the intimate space of his own work and life, at times indulgent, at others dramatically precise and ironic. He contextualizes the vocation of the artist in our society, raising many fundamental questions about the meaning and necessity of art itself.”

(Petra Fornayová)

Performing: Tomáš Danielis, Marek Godovič

Dance, text, light design: Tomáš Danielis

Life dramaturgy, text, stage manipulation: Marek Godovič

Music: Vladimír Godár, Anthony Rouchier, Ľubomír Panák, Gioachino Rossini, David Bowie, Pat Metheny

Assitent: Soňa Kúdeľová

Graphic design: Matej Lacko

Production: Biela Noc / White Nights, Zuzana Pacakova, Veronika Malgot

Tomas Danielis

Choreographer and media artist Tomas Danielis (Banska Bystrica, Slovakia, 1980) is known for creating artworks founded on the totality of perception aiming at integral arts. Member of the outstanding generation of Slovak dancers[2] and choreographers born in the 80ties, he is often nicked as a black sheep of the Slovak contemporary dance scene due to his uncompromising approach to arts and reflection of transformative processes in post-communistic Slovakia. He is considered one of the foremost Slovak dance artists. His choreography engages in a type of dramaturgy overruling the primacy of music and libretto in dance, engaging in exploring sociological works on stage. After working on questions of mechanics of power he founded in 2021 collective Radical Empathy, in which along with his colleagues explores topics of empathy, fundamentals of human perceptions and interactions and their impact on creating sociological structures. His work had been “characterised by high intensity of movement expressiveness, defined intellectual concept and uncompromising dramaturgical stylisation. Choreography made of extraordinary images expressed in a rich physical language complemented by spare poignant and often ironically funny texts in total as comprehensible as music, sculpture, painting or architecture. ”His works had been presented in over 20 countries on 3 continents. His most notable works are 21&counting, Mainly Love, Equilibrium and most recent production Custom view. In 2016 and 2017 Danielis were the head teacher and resident choreographer of Ballet Moskva, where he also created performance Equilibrium based on game theory research as a part of a series about mechanics of power with a particular accent on abuse of power. From 2007 to 2009 he was art director of Int. Bühnenwerkstatt Tanztheater Festival Graz. Tomas Danielis is laureate of a number of prizes for performing art and choreography, such as the 2007 Contest – TanzRat Wien, a special prize for choreography and performing art at the 2007 Theatre Arts Festival in Rybnik, Poland, and the prize for choreography at the same event in 2009. His performing activities also saw him in the Reumert Award-winning productions “Men and Mahler” (2013) and “Rite of Spring – Extended” (2014) as a member of Danish ensemble Granhøj Dans. As a performer, he collaborated with cie.W.Dorner, director Olivier Py, Sasha Waltz and guests (as a guest), cie. F.Ruckert, Freyer Ensemble, Granhoj Dans. Danielis also ventured for 4 years in ballet. He was a soloist of Croatian national Ballet in Rijeka, guest soloist of Ballet Graz and member of the ballet ensemble of Slovak National Theatre. His pedagogical work brought him to Charleroi Dans, Henny Jurriens Amsterdam, NRW Düsseldorf, CODARTS,TQW Wien, Hot Summer Kyoto, Dansehallerne Copenhagen, Bora Bora Arhus, Ballet Moscow, Danceworx New Delhi, Tsekh, Ukrainian Contemporary Dance platform, Int. Bühnenwerkstatt Tanztheater Festival, Anton Bruckner university Linz, Terrence Lewis academy and others.

Radical Empathy

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 (21st October 2021,Nuit Blanche Festival), Custom View – a dance performance performed in Moyzes Hall Bratislava (3rd May 2022), followed by the photographic exhibition Entelechiea in Artezka Detva (11th May 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.