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Sessions of Touch is a specific participatory experiential 1 : 1 format for an encounter between one dancer and one spectator. This format is based on creation principles of a performance entitled Diaries of Touch. It serves for exchange of one’s own physical experience. It is a hand offered to share the unique stories of our bodies, and it deals with touch as the basic way in which we directly relate to the world and our immediate surroundings. Sessions of touch will be led by creators and dancers of the performance: Lukáš Bobalik, Viktor Černický, Barbora Janáková, Tomáš Janypka, Jazmína Piktorová, Eva Priečková, Sonja Pregrad, Silvia Sviteková, Andrej Štepita, Dana Tomečková.

Limited capacity, only registered platform participants can book this event.

Make a reservation at guests@danceplatform.sk / limited capacity.

The final discussion of the first Slovak dance platform with Slovak and international guests. We will explore the variability of voices on the Slovak scene, the architecture of relationships and their specifics. We will try to bring the atmosphere from the venue into the online space. A format combining live and zoom formats, questions by the audience are welcome. 

The Man Without Qualities is an ironic and disillusioned panorama of the modern society and its way of thinking.

It is inspired by the novel of the same name by the Austrian writer Robert Musil, which is considered to be an essential work of the last century literature. It is known for a unique usage of irony, sarcasm and it mixes disdain with admiration for the end of something, that iniciates the start of something new.

The world in which the individual characters move in the piece, is a colourful caleidoscope. The characters cannot keep their identities and fail to finish their actions – the fragment rules over the whole. There is hardly any literarary plot, the protagonists act rather than think. They have some kind of a fictitious form, they seem to be moving behind a dark plane, emerge before they start to act and disappear when we forget about them.

Two beings. Two energies. Two opposites. The tension between them shifts the distance. Relationship in the infinite oscillation of reflection and rest. Who is who? Is it important?

The basic idea of the choreography was to look for possibilities how to grasp, with minimal means of expression, the existential question of tension, which is the essence of life. A tension that vibrates and oscillates, that is sometimes invisible and sometimes so evident that it obscures everything else. The existence of tension presupposes the existence of opposites – their examination was the second idea of choreography. The circle is the final idea of the choreography. Its qualities such as secretiveness, autonomy and symmetry nourished the work. The use of masks originally had only one goal – to draw attention to the body, but perhaps it creates the opposite tension. Finally, it also refers to our current experience.

Sapiens Territory is a performance for seven dancers which came out of a long-term international collaborative research.

Where does the body end and the behavioral patterns begin into which we try to fit our bodies day after day? Is it at all possible to distinguish between them or have they grown into a single inseparable entity after all those years, a little like a broken leg into plaster? In this piece, Yuri Korec explores the violence we inflict on ourselves to mask who we really are. But also the violence that protects us from ourselves and our surroundings, scrutinizing us almost all the time. He subjects it to a thorough repeated re-examination with a group of dancers. It will become clear very soon that, more than being shaped by the frameworks, we are shaped by how we define ourselves towards them. Sapiens Territory notices moments when the body suddenly betrays us in contact with them, dismisses obedience, does not cooperate. It will be only then, if we can be ourselves at all.

NO ON is an organic creative process. It is a performative concert, dance without choreography, music without a score. It exists in the dedicated space and time, selflessly offering a spectrum of images, tones, movements, light steps, emotions and inspirations.

Present in the space are the spectators and objects of different shapes and functions. And the performers, who are the energetic conductors connecting everything. The spectators arrive, choose a spot, sit down and the objects begin to resonate with their movements and feelings. Everything in the space is washed over by music and movement. Though this fluidity can perhaps not be perceived with a naked eye, it can surely be exploding within us. The role of „the energetic conductors“ is to let all these vibrations pass through them, resonating. If they feel a potential in the established resonance, they navigate or transform, dive deep into their own fantasy and through this create a tangible matter in the space. This matter that is in reality born from the togetherness in the room.

Our Velvet  Revolution was a turning point for most of us. Manifest of Possibilities does not want to be an objective  enumeration of events. It is a manifesto of different perspectives from which we can look at the revolution and at the times coming after. 

“…One of the most important values of the revolution was the feeling of solidarity. Key values included humanity, human dignity … today we have to ask to what extent reform post-revolutionary laws have in mind these values. (…) Another central value of the revolution was freedom. However, the ethical anchorage of freedom and social dimension has largely disappeared in the post-revolutionary era of transformation.”(Philipp Ther: New Order of the Old Continent_ The story of neoliberal Europe)

What is one’s relationship to his or her own yearning and options? What is stopping us from decision making and responsibility taking? What or who is a driver of our decisions? 

The process of desire’s arising is comprehensive. It includes psychological, social, cultural, religious, and other influences. Yearning, for a healthy individual, is an integral part of values such as freedom, will, truth, and change. Our intention was to reveal a state when we are mindful of our yearnings, what are our innermost desires, how to manifest them at individual or collective level. But, at the same time, we do not cling to them as if they were the only important in our life. They are just present, we share them sensitively and I assist others on their way to their own yearning. This is the state we call free efforts or effortless being. 

3×20 manifests the energy and message of three women – choreographers. Each of them reflects the problems of today through her own eyes, inspired by her background, her own hopes and fears. The topics are diverse: movement (in)ability of today´s people vs the more sacred view on movement of the ancient world (Squat), mass paralysis of values in times of political-mafia manipulation (Čin) and the searching for the harmony of micro- and macrocosm within a human being (Spaces). Strong emotions, technically acomplished  contemporary dance and varied aesthetics guarantee a complex and unique experience.

“This is my head and I will separate it from the body so that I can say there is my head.” (J. Juhás)

We started off with little dances with John Zorn and Keiji Haino in 2014. We threw cabbage heads into the corner of the stage. Later we met to dance this time with girls – outsiders, weirdos, girls who wear aluminium hats, girls uttering long tones and winning beauty contests whispering that we failed because of an intellectual error. We are inserting our fingers into the folds of a slightly torn hoodie. Moon cup on the floor has been chewed into pieces by the cat. The head is still rolling around in the corner. Bloody moments. This is becoming very personal. The sperm tastes best after eating a pineapple, whereas the crisps taste best while having a period. We have failed. Bloody moments.

POINT OF ASSEMBLAGE is an interdisciplinary stage piece connecting dance, live music, visual art, light design and the architecture of a post-industrial space. The production is a collaboration of seven artists from Slovakia, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Norway.

POINT OF ASSEMBLAGE represents a “New Temple“ in times of a contemporary human. It invites the spectator in and proposes a Journey – an act of ´passing through´ the border between everyday life and the sacred, dreamed World. The performance articulates a search for deeper Knowing. It is a non-linear story, that reenacts prayer as a ritual of deep listening and connection.

What is important is to allow the Point of assemblage to move. This movement is supported by light and the scope of our imagination, which creates the connection between the internal and the external, between the beginning and the moment of disappearance. Nothing is permanent.

Touch is our primary sense. Touch is dangerous. Touch is what is at stake today.

When creating this piece, the performers kept diaries of touches for 9 months (even during the pandemic). In language, there are only few words for describing touch and even less for describing the experience of being touched, so they invented ways to describe and move our experiences.

Instead of just watching the image, you can allow yourself to be affected viscerally and to stay for a while with this way of engagement with your surrounding.
Imagine a group of youngsters in a sports hall, dressed uniform-like. A sports hall is a place of discipline. Discipline creates beautiful shapes. What if in our primary schools we practiced the discipline of sensitivity? They are close to each other, but not yet touching. They are to build together something yet unseen. They are singing an ode to softness.

Dance performer Lukáš Zahy will be looking for truth. 

In the streets of Bratislava city you are welcome to see a performance. It is a part of artistic research with topic a truth. Lukáš Zahy choosed this topic because he has a strong insterest of human authenticity, discovering art possibilities and lifetime learning. During his artistic research he was asking these questions: What is truth? Does it exist? It can be subjective and objective in the same time? How it works? How it influence civilization understanding of this word? How it is manifesting in movement?

Last year was extremely difficult for the entire artistic community. Since the platform was scheduled for November and the selected works reflect the past two seasons, we will try to find questions and answers to what the year with Covid has taught us, where the dance scene has moved and what it has managed to produce. We will explore which new formats of dance presentation have turned out to be attractive for the creators, and for the audiences, what the new technologies have taught us and what other ways artists have used to communicate with their audiences. We will look at personal experiences of artists, what the quarantine has revealed to them about themselves. 

At the beginning of a theatrical-dance performance stands the word „repast“. The seemingly archaic word speaks of spiritual repast in contrast to the natural,  necessary nourishment.The author’s testimony about our everyday life, coexistence, constant movement of thoughts and unpredictable emotions.

The dance duet by Nikoleta Rafaelisová and Daniel Raček is an anticipation of the end. On the background of J. L. Borges´ texts the piece examines the overlap of conciousness and unconciousness and their influence on shaping reality.
Time as a catalyst of cortex and a next wasted chance to remember my own life. I will die and I won’t even remember.

Autocorrect is a solo dance performance that draws inspiration from the algorithm of automatic text correction as well as the consequences of its use and operating in everyday life. In the game of multitasking, where autocorrect is an instrument of identity, we observe the uncontrolled and, conversely, controlled body of the performer on the border between the creative process and everyday life.

„What is world, baby don’t hurt me?! (autocorrect.) I am sitting on the floor comfortably (changing the position automatically as needed) and peeling a pomelo.“

The Autocorrect is a loose sequel to Autopilot, the artist’s earlier solo.