Balcan Can Contemporary
Upcoming & Up and coming in the region / InFocus -> Public Domain, Politics of Representation, Balkan Dance Platform / ConTexting -> Art and Law
Editorial BCC (Balcan Can Contemporary)
International Arts Information EnvironmentÂ
Balcan Can Contemporary (BCC) is an international arts information environment, which has the goal to support, connect, present, empower and raise visibility of artists and arts organizations involved in contemporary and innovative performing arts from the Balkans. Giving space to young and emerging as well as established artists who are interested in researching and questioning different models of producing, creating and presenting their work is at the core of our attention. Non-curating by definition, BCC aims for the horizontal yet not passive democratization of arts information sharing with which we are filling the communication gaps between different stakeholders (be it between performers and their audiences or even between arts organizations in different countries). Through our English language published magazine, a website in development and an extensive emailing-list we are targeting potential audience throughout and beyond Europe becoming the information resource on the region’s contemporary scene. In addition to being the marketing and information resource environment which every contemporary arts organization and artist from the Balkans can draw from by gaining or disseminating information using the BCC platform, segments of the magazine are dedicated to issues in focus or understanding different contexts. For example, this second issue of BCC brings to the table the Balkan Dance Platform, Public spaces as performance spaces, Political performances and the relationship between Art and Law in different contexts.
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BCC simply means Balcan Can Contemporary
Zvonimir Dobrović
Upcoming & Up and Coming in the region Tina Mess, Catching a Big Fish
BULGARIA
CROATIA
3rd Edition of the Annual Dance Concert for Emerging or Established Bulgarian Choreographers
SQUIRRELS STRIKE BACK Idea and Concept: Maja Drobac Dancers: Sara Barbieri, Darija Doždor, Ognjen Vučinić
December 16,2010
January 13 – 15, 2011
@LMA @LTER University Theatre, 15 Tsar Osvoboditel Blvd., Sofia Foundation Etud is pleased to announce the 3rd edition of the Annual Dance Concert for Emerging or Established Bulgarian Choreographers. The event will take place this December 16 at @LMA @LTER University Theatre in Sofia. The second edition of the concert presented more than 13 short works with a great diversity of styles. This year 6 new creations by Nikolina Todorova, Ana Salasar, Alexandra Spasova, Petia Iosyfova, Asen Nakov, and Jivko Jeliaskov are presented. For more details contact Galina Borissova, Executive Director at galiaborissova@gmail.com or Ani Collier, The President of Fondation Etud.
BiH Editor’s Note Detailed listings for the next few months in Bosnia and Herzegovina can be found on these web sites -> www.bhteatar.ba www.tanzelarija.org
Zagreb Dance Centre, Ilica 10, Zagreb
OOUR / SELMA BANICH: IWALY IVANA RONČEVIĆ: LINIJA KONTAKTA
Zagreb Dance Centre, Ilica 10, Zagreb January 16, 2011
HOW SALTY IS YOUR DARKNESS Choreography and performance: Mark Boldin production: Atelier Choreographique in coproduction with Scene Gorica and in collaboration with Zagreb Dance Centre
Zagreb Dance Centre, Ilica 10, Zagreb
Prostor+ WARP 2 Engine Rijeka - AN EVENING OF ORIGINAL WORKS AND PERFORMANCES Authors: Lucija Blažević, Maja Dobrila, Vladimir Ježić, Tanja Kalčić, Ana Mojzeš, Matea Pasarić, Jasmin Vrban. The WARP project is inspired by and modeled after Ekscena’s WARP project in Zagreb.
HKD, Strosmayerova 1, Rijeka, Croatia
January 28 – 29, 2011 www.prostorplus.hr WARP is a presentation platform for original works through which authors are provided with the conditions for continued operation and recognition, and a chance to present their finished performance and video-dance works or works in progress. WARP 2 features four pieces created by seven authors.
January 20 – 22, 2011 at 8pm
Zanki / Wirthmüller VIERFÜßER (QUADRUPEDA)
This is a performance about solitutde and loneliness and its true face; a story about the emotions which abound and manifest themselves in a variety of expressions, frustrations, fears and desires hidden in an inner world. A world that people focus on with intensity only when they are alone. A world that is also a quest for contradiction – the beauty of pain.
Concept, choreography, text, performance:
Can a person live entirely alone? How do we cope with our fears? When do we feel abandoned? How salty is your darkness?
Petra Zanki & Britta Wirthmüller A production of Zanki / Wirthmüller in Co-production with LOFFT Leipzig and Banana Gerila Zagreb.
Zagreb Dance Centre, Ilica 10, Zagreb
February 10 – 12, 2011 at 8 PM Different from their last dance performance, in which the upright body was the prerequisite, this time Zanki and Wirthmüller get on their hands and knees and explore the possibilities of ‘four-footed-ness’. Hereby they touch not only the ubiquitous images and movements that this position evokes, but reflect upon how they cohere, interweave and alter their own humanness. Thus the performers take us for a walk into the landscapes of the familiar, the illicit, the unknown and intricate.
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Alice Chauchat, Générique
SLOVENIA Hanna Preuss
Španski borci Cultural Centre, Ljubljana January 7, 2011 at 8 pm www.spanskiborci.si
Bara Kolenc Metamorphoses 1º: Hunt
Miha Nemec Liferanti
Produced by: KUD Samosvoj
Theatre performance
January 29, 2011 at 8pm
February 17, 2011 at 8pm
Kino Šiška, Katedrala, Ljubljana www.kinosiska.si
For the past 30 years, sonoric artist Hanna Preuss, a recipient of a number of festival 4 prizes and various awards for her art, has collaborated as a musician, sound engineer, sound director and sonoric composer in a number theatre, music and intermedia projects, and also student, short, documentary, animated and experimental films both in Slovenia and abroad.
Sebastijan Horvat Boudoir Philosophy
Španski borci Cultural Centre, Ljubljana January 17, 2011 at 8pm
In her new performance Metamorphoses 1º: Hunt, the choreographer and director Bara Kolenc focuses on hunting, but dwells on broader notions – the relation between man and nature, between culture and nature. Hunting is presented in the context of the contemporary civilised society, where it exists as a regulated practice within a similarly regulated nature.
Leja Jurišić and Sonja Pregrad Better Life
Dance Theatre Ljubljana
January 23, 2011 at 8pm Produced by: Društvo PEKINPAH * King Kong
Through the format of a performative exhibition, Boudoir Philosophy exhibits and deconstructs artwork and the theatre performance project. www.spanskiborci.si
Series of performances Via Nova presentation of the book NE, Via Negativa 2002-2008
Stara mestna Elektrarna – Elektro Ljubljana January 26 - 30, 2011 www.bunker.si
www.pekinpah.com and www.ptl.si
Teja Reba 650 experiences, a body that has not been tamed Produced by: Exodos performance
Stara mestna Elektrarna, Ljubljana
January 22 - 24, 2011 at 8pm www.exodos.si
Matjaž Farič Let the Children Come to Me Produced by: Flota Dance-theater performance
Cankarjev dom, Linhart Hall, Ljubljana January 28, 2011 at 8pm www.cd-cc.si and www.flota.si
Glej Theatre, Ljubljana www.glej.si
Gibanica – Moving Cake festival (5th Slovenian Dance Platform
Various venues: Stara mestna elektrarna – Elektro Ljubljana, Kino Šiška, Španski borci, Cankarjev dom, Center urbane kulture Kino Šiška, Plesni teater Ljubljana.
February 24 - 27, 2011
A biennial platform of Slovene contemporary dance. This year’s serving will include 12 – 15 pefromances chosen by 3 selectors (Andreja Podrzavnik, Blaž Lukan, Virve Sutinen)
Attila Antal The Garden Of The Selfish Giant After Oscar Wilde’s fairytale Puppet theatre performance (for children)
Mini Teater Ljubljana February 2011 www.mini-teater.si
Miloš Lolić Bartleby, The Writer Produced by: Mini teater Ljubljana Theatre performance
Mini Teater Ljubljana March 2011
www.mini-teater.si The best-known story from Wall-street!
photo from Red Dawns archives
Red Dawn 12 12th International Women’s Festival
Metelkova CITY (Menza pri koritu, Alkatraz Gallery) March 8 - 11, 2011 www.rdecezore.org Red Dawn features international creators and activists from the fields of performing arts, visual arts, film, and music, as well as video projections, round tables, book presentations, and lectures.
PreGlej Na Glas! Playwriting Festival
Cankarjev dom (Štihova Hall), Dance Theatre Ljubljana March 8 - 18, 2011 www.integrali.org Integrali Cultural Association in collaboration with Glej Theatre, the PreGlej Na Glas! Playwriting Festival presents staged readings of plays by emerging and already established playwrights. With its programme, the festival fosters new, different approaches and modes of presentation of contemporary (Slovene) playwriting as well as offering playwriting related workshops, discussions and round tables.
The SPIDER Festival
Španski borci, Cultural Centre March 17 - 20, 2011
www.SpiderOnTheEdge.org www.spanskiborci.si The second edition of the SPIDER FESTIVAL as a “Moving International Performance Exibition” comes to Ljubljana after its first edition in Athens. The idea of Spider emerged from »scratch«, dealing with concepts and principals of »the edge and referentiality,« started by dancers and choreographers Matej Kejžar (Slo) and Michael Pomero (Fr), meeting in Bruxelles (at Rosas) and Antigone Gyra (Gr). The Spider festival encourages transnational circulation of artists, connects people from various artistic fields and milieus (dancers, choreographers, musicians, writers, sculptors, visual artists) and opens a space for on-going artistic activity and exchange. Next destinations: Lyon, Salzburg, Zagreb.
Aerowaves / Dance Across Europe Aerowaves spring forward
various venues: Stara mestna elektrarna – Elektro Ljubljana, Cankarjev dom, Španski borci and Dance Theatre Ljubljana March 25 - 27. 2011 www.bunker.si
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Aerowaves Spring Forward is an opportunity to see 20 works over 3 days by young and emerging choreographers and companies from around Europe, in the picturesque setting of Ljubljana. All the works have been selected from annual applications to Aerowaves from this and previous years.
Ajda Rooss How Jaromir was searching for Luck? Puppet theatre performance (for children) Produced by: Glej Theatre
Glej Theatre, Young Glej, Ljubljana 20 March 2011 www.glej.si
Tina Valentan and Urška Vohar Lyotard (Why Can’t I Leave You) Produced by: Maska Dance performance
Stara Mestna Elektrarna, Ljubljana March 21. 2011 at 8pm www.maska.si Miha Nemec, Liferanti, photo by Urška Boljkovac
Zidno pesničenje, photo by Branka Nadj
SERBIA 5th International festival of Roma culture ROMART
Cafe club Trubadur, Park Rajhl Ferenca 11, Subotica November 19 – December 24, 2010 www.romartfest.net 6
Art group ŠKART Zidno pesničenje (wallpaper of the previous 20 editions of a poetry publication)
Gallery Remont, Shopping mall “Trg Republike” (Staklenac) Makedonska 5/II, Belgrade November 29 – December 17, 2010 www.remont.net
Kino Klub, Novi Sad Film front - festival of short feature, documentary, student, independent and experimental film
Studio M, Ignjata Pavlasa 3, 21102 Novi Sad and CK13, Vojvode Bojovića 13, Novi Sad December 13 – 18, 2010 www.kinoklub.org
Association Kulturanova, Novi Sad and Multimedia Center, Priština Views: Personal Histories of Serbs and Albanians
Dodona Teatar, Priština Rr. Xhavit Mitrovica Pn Prishtinë December 16-30, 2010
www.qendra.org and www.kulturanova.org
Promotion of the Magazine for Queer Theory and Culture, QT.
Bitef Dance Company Paranoia Chic Choreography: Isidora Stanišić
December 17, 2010 at 7pm
December 17, 2010 at 8pm
Bookshop “PlatoBooks”, Trg Cara Jovana Nenada 2-4, Subotica www.fokus-su.rs The first (double) issue of QT for Queer Theory and Culture offers, in 330 pages, an overview of homosexuality in the discourse of social sciences (sociology, psychoanalysis, etc..) and philosophy from the 70s to today, the transformation and different perceptions of various theoretical standpoints. Presented authors are some of the most prominent contemporary theorists, such as Sartre, Barthes, Deleuze, Guattari, Foucault, Judith Butler, Monique Wittig, Bourdieu, Derrida, Weeks, Zizek, Martha Nussbaum and others. The last pages feature biographies of all the authors, alphabetically sorted. The second (double) issue, at about 450 pages, focuses on the history of homosexuality from ancient Rome through the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Enlightenment, New Age to the Balkans, through a central introduction to the history of violations (indexed by name). Also, two minor themes are included. The first, Queer Film, which presents three articles by local authors on the representation of “gay” sensibility in domestic and avantgarde film, and analysis of the famous sci-fi series “Alien”. The second, Polemics, presents a public debate on gay marriage initiated by Slobodan Antonic. This debate took place on the websites of the New Serbian Political Thought (NSPM), B92 and radio show “Pescanik”. It has been included because it represents one of the few serious debates about this intellectual-political issue on the Serbian agenda - the legalization of same-sex unions and adoption of children in “nonheteronormative families”.
Bitef Theatre, Skver Mire Trailović 1, Belgrade
Sanja Nešković-Peršin, choreographer Julija, contemporary dance piece
Bitef Theatre, Skver Mire Trailović 1, Belgrade
December 18, 2010 at 8pm Frakcija and TkH Journals Design
Magacin, Kraljevića Marka 4, Belgrade
December 18, 2010 at 6pm www.cdu.hr/frakcija www.tkh-generator.net www.howtodothingsbytheory.info An exhibition of journal editions and presentation of the recent issues of Frakcija “Curating Performing Arts” and TkH “Exhausting Immaterial Labour in Performance”. Presentation of TkH project “How to Do Things by Theory” realised in cultural centre Les laboratoires d’Aubervilliers in Paris, and discussion about the uncertain future of these two regional journals. Participants: Ana Vujanović, Miško Šuvaković, Marta Popivoda, Katarina Popović, Siniša Ilić, Bojana Cvejić, Dragana Jovović, Bojan Đorđev, Jelena Knežević and Ivana Ivković.
Views: Personal Histories of Serbians and Albanians, photo by Nikola Bradonjić
Opening of the Exhibition of the best students of the year from the Faculty of visual arts (FLU) and the Faculty of Applied Arts
Gallery FLU and shop windows, Knez Mihailova 53, Belgrade December 20, 2010
Ivana Vujić Anton Pavlovič Čehov: Three Sisters - premiere Co-production: Bitef teatar, Beton hala, Kulturni centar Panceva
January 17 – February 4, 2011
Rada Ðuricin, Mirko Babic,
www.remont.net
Konstantin Bunuševac, Dunja Mahorcic, Gorjana Stoiljkovic
Reward Ceremony RANKO RADOVIĆ + exhibition
December 21, 2010
Award categories: 1) Critical-theoretical writings on architecture, urbanism and the city, published in the previous calendar year as well as in the current year. Awards include best critique, essay, book, lecture or any written text in general. 2) TV shows, exhibitions or multimedia presentations 3) The most significant realized architectural work
December 21, 2010 www.ulupuds.rs
Nensi Frejlik, Nadra Morić, Zvezdana Stojmirović and Azin Vali TYPE/LIFE (TIPO/ŽIVOT) – Forest of floating typography – an exhibition of 4 designers
Grad Cultural centre, Braće Krsmanović 4, Belgrade December 21 – 28, 2010 www.gradbeograd.eu
Gallery Remont, Shopping mall “Trg Republike” (Staklenac) Makedonska 5/II, Belgrade
Cast: Ružica SokicBranka Petric,
www.flu.bg.ac.rs
Kolarčeva zadužbina, Belgrade
Stanko Maletić, objects, exhibition
Bitef theatre, Skver Mire Trailovic 1, Belgrade www.bitef.rs
New Istrian Video
Vladimir Milanović: An exhibition of drawings.
Gallery Remont, Shopping mall “Trg Republike” (Staklenac) Makedonska 5/II, Belgrade February 7 – 25, 2011 www.remont.net
Gallery Remont, Shopping mall “Trg Republike” (Staklenac) Makedonska 5/II, Belgrade
MACEDONIA
www.remont.net
4 TUNED CITIES Independent film and visual art festival
December 21 – 32, 2010 INDIE GO Indie music night
Gun club, Miloša Pocerca 10, Belgrade
Multimedia Centre Mala Stanica/ Faculty of Dramatic Arts/Cultural Centre CK, Skopje
www.indie-go.com
www.lokomotiva.org.mk
December 21, 2010
Association Kulturanova, Novi Sad, Youth Club CK13 D.I.Y. workshop – Do It Yourself – a workshop on contemporary design and free software
CK13, Vojvode Bojovića 13, 21000, Novi Sad January 14 – 17, 2011 www.kulturanova.org http://ck13.org/
December 15 – 18, 2010
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Via Negativa, OUT
TOURS Plesni Art Laboratorij and Centar Koraki Senka Baruška and Gordana Svetopetrić DIARY OF ONE JOURNEY
SzoloDuo International Dance Festival January 12 – 18, 2011 8
Betontanc & Umka.LV SHOW YOUR FACE! USA tour in January Slovene and Latvian team will tour in the following venues:
6 – 8 January:
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; 10 – 11 January:
Under the Radar Festival, New York; 14 – 16 January 2011:
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; 19 – 23 January 2011:
REDCAT/Calarts theater, Los Angeles Every House Has a Door LET US THINK OF THESE THINGS ALWAYS. LET US SPEAK OF THEM NEVER.
Performance Space 122, NYC, New York, USA January 26 – 29, 2011
The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA February 9 – 13, 2011 www.everyhousehasadoor.org Under the direction of Lin Hixson, artists Selma Banich and Mislav Čavajda from Zagreb, and Chicagoans Stephen Fiehn of
Cupola Bobber and Matthew Goulish, propose an encounter between Croatia and the US through responses to an unlikely, “equidistant” third entity, Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman. Yugoslavian responses to Bergman, derived from the work of Dušan Makavejev (Sweet Movie), and American responses to Bergman (and Makavejev) extracted from philosopher Stanley Cavell, provide the foundation for a theatrical work that engages in the histories of utopianism and revulsion/revolt in an unjust world. Film becomes a basis for choreography, a catalogue of abandoned practices offers a degree of humor, and theater frames an encounter of difference in the delicacy of the present.
Perforations Festival in New York
La MaMa E.T.C
March 11 – 20, 2011 www.perforacije.org www.lamama.org Perforations Festival has been supporting co-productions with different organizations and performing spaces from the region and is working extensively on promoting all the artists internationally and developing long term relationships with them. Along those lines some of the highlights of the Festival Perforations will be touring to La MaMa E.T.C. in New York City for a ten day festival in March 11 – 20, 2011 where 12 productions with over 50 participants from the Balkans region will be presented. The artists among others featured in the Perforations program in New York are: Ivo Dimchev (Bulgaria), BADco. (Croatia), Sanja Mitrovic (Serbia), Igor Josifov (Macedonia), Željko Zorica (Croatia), Petra Kovačić (Croatia), Slovenia Youth Theater (Slovenia), Ivica Buljan (Croatia), Via Negativa (Slovenia).
Via Negativa Festival New Territories,
Glasgow
March 15, 2011 At Festival New Territories Via Negativa is presentig nine performances from Via Nova series in three chapters in which we cope with three basic fields of our work: thinking, presence and relation. Chapter One: Via Nova Symposium, is an investigation into the relation between performing arts theory and practice. In a total of 2 hours we will present following performances: What Joseph Beuys Told Me While I Was Lying Dead In His Lap, a solo performance by Boris Kadin. No One Should Have Seen This, a lecture performance by Bojana Kust in Katarina Stegnar. Interview With An Artist, an interview performance by Kristian Al Droubi. Chapter Two: Naked Presence, is a presentation of three of our most basic (reduced) strategies of being present in performing arts situations. In a total of 2.5 hours we will present the following performances: Viva Mandić, a solo performance and video work by Marko Mandić. Invalid, a dance performance by Primož Bezjak. Pure Performance, a visual performance by Jaka Lah. Chapter Three: Money, Blood & Love, sets up questions about the relationship between the performer and his audience. In a total of 2 hours we will present following performances: Buyer With An Eye, an auction performance by Katarina Stegnar.
Betontanc and Umka.LV, Show Your Face
Workshops Game With Toothpicks, a documentary performance by Boris Kadin and Kristian Al Droubi. Tonight I Celebrate, a concert for a performer and his audience by Uroš Kaurin. (more about individual performances in the attachment: Via Nova NT presentation)
Via Negativa March 18, 2011:
Perforations Festival Festival in La Mama, New York - Via Negativa: Out
March 19, 2011:
Perforations Festival in La Mama, New York - Game
with toothpicks, Invalid, Tonight I Celebrate
EMANAT Institute Wanda & Nova deViator: Frozen Imagese
Agon workshops
Ljubljana
January 10 – 21, 2011 Workshop “Imagery #1” with Maja Delak, Agon program 2011, March 12 – 15, 2011 dance workshop Tono Lachky (Les SlovaKs)
www.emanat.si
Maska workshop
Ljubljana
January 28 – 30, 2011 Workshop with Janez Janša: Dispositif of imagination and impersonation February 12 – 13, 2011 Workshop with Petra Sabish: Everybody’s toolbox and creation of Generique performance
GarajIstanbul, Turkey
www.maska.si
www.emanat.si
26th Winter Dance School February 19 – 24, 2011
March 2011
Maribor, Slovenia
IMPROSPECTIONS 11 to 13 March 11 – 3, 2011
Zagreb (location TBC at the web site) Workshop: Voice and Movement Leader: Alessio Castellacci www.improspekcije.com At this workshop we invite artists (singers, 9 actors, dancers) of all experience levels to explore deeper and more personal connection between voice and movement. Studying the anatomical structures involved in voice production, we will sharpen the perception of listening and observing. Through play and exploring personal boundaries we try to rid the source of the authorial voice in poetry and movement, reacting to the environment in a free associative process. Improspections is the initiative for the development and affirmation of the improvisation scene in Croatia and it is promoting international cooperation and interdisciplinarity in improvisation as a performing art through a series of workshops, research projects, discussions and public performances, often related to a specific location.
In a new location (Karantena, Pobreška 20, Maribor), in new dance studios, a new guest team of art pedagogues presents superior dance education and performances. (Jasmina Križaj – Flying Low dance technique and creative workshop, Nastja Bremec – modern dance, Michal Rynia – hiphop dance, Anja Bornšek – Body Mind Centering workshop, Maša Kagao Knez – african dance, Nino Mureškič – percussion workshop, Jose Ubaldo dos Santos-Capoeira). application forms must be sent before the
Via Negativa, OUT
10th of February 2011 to: JSKD Območna izpostava Maribor, Pobreška 20, (Karantena) 2000 Maribor, Slovenia Additional information at: www.jskd.si and www.zveza-kd-maribor.si
Petra Kovačić, Act(ing)
Representation Politics and the Representation of the Political Jelena Graovac
10 For the needs of the so-called processes of
European integration, investment in culture is nominally presented as one of the primary strategic goals of cultural politics of the Balkan region countries – the vaguely defined geographical or cultural region in Southeast Europe. In various forms of discourse in European populism, culture is certainly a representation tool, evidential material of the European mission statement. Culture is primarily understood as – culture as means. So, the year 2010 has been declared the International Year for the Reapprochement of Cultures, and as its main goal UNESCO lists “the celebration of cultural diversity in the world and support for the strengthening of dialogue among cultures“. Ministries of Culture of the Balkan region countries have, in their own way, already celebrated their entrance into the process of European integration by becoming, each and every one, one after the other, selfproclaimed cultural capitals of Europe. In the context of the dynamics of contemporary cultural politics, whose praxis is evident primarily in representation, mediation, organisation and articulation of art and contemporary art form practices don’t possess a starting point in a predetermined model of agency, whether it’s calling itself institutional or non-institutional. If we speak about practices which imply public presentation and perception, or v i s i b i l i t y, it’s clear that artistic production cannot be viewed outside of the context of
Darko Vaupotić, Queer-ed Up Fairy Tales
global economy, or market. A whole variety of processes and institutions are involved in the production of art; therefore the quest for alternative ways of production and presentation of art practices can only conditionally be called a non-institutional (independent) position. The questionability of the term derives from the source of financing, because regardless if it’s a question of state money, a corporation, foundation or a private individual, the terms under which the project will be realized are inevitably there. What do these terms, which do not only exist but reproduce themselves, mean for the performative effect of critical thought and, if it is lacking, being deprived, what happens with the rest?
Referential truths The assumption that every system in itself already contains calculated attempts of its own obstruction is hardly new. In various ways it can be inscribed and articulated in the agency and strategies of those cultural practices which position themselves critically towards a given reality. By that, they question ways in which the media and politics construct our reality, what they present as referential “truths”. The criteria of presence or non-presence of consciousness about strategies of the agency itself and the conditions under which viewing and seeing takes place therefore appear to be more purposeful than the
more regular binary division on institutional and non-institutional artistic practice. In order to be inscribed in the field of the perceptive, each articulation, or its performance, demands a place and a space. These places and these spaces, in a very tangible sense, represent ways in which artistic practice, which we call contemporary, can happen and does happen – today. Yes, art happens in galleries, but the so-called institutional frame had to endure its own reconfigurations as well, so for example the Zagreb Museum of Contemporary Art is opening itself up, in a communicational and spatial way, towards so called more alternative forms of collective action. (I will only name a few, which relate to the past year, 2010, and again remind us of the trap of the binary separation of the so-called institutional and non-institutional culture and artistic practice; Film mutations: the Festival of Invisible Film; one part of the Perforacije Festival program; the year-round film program from the Queer Zagreb Festival; Eurokaz etc.) Art happens in public spaces but festivals, festival production and various forms of collective and participatory work, have become places and spaces of not only articulation but also direct mediation of contemporary art. The fact that they are becoming more numerous, year after year, can only go in favour of the thesis that those forms of culture which are marginalised financially or within media, can take over strategies of the social field which want a portion of
the right to monopoly power. Festivals are, with the assumption that they happen, just more visible forms of action, and by that, also potential opportunities to re-politicize contemporary cultural production, despite the networking of positions and conditions which determine them within a system of division of cultural politics. By taking over the form of the platform and space for debate, festivals can not only convey and mediate artistic production but also (re) interpret its meanings. They may also, in their own strategy, [present the observer with a certain political or creative problem. Hence, the positioning takes place on both sides. The everyday logic of perceiving things is thus rewritten and reinterpreted into a different code, in a shift which is not strategically different from the artwork itself. In the book Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (Penguin Press, New York, 2004.), Negri and Hardt deconstruct and interpret the term ‘multitude’ in opposition with the term People (this opposition has existed since the 17th century and has played a deciding role in the defining of the socio-political categories of modernity), conceptualising it as a model of resistance in the criticism of the global capitalist system. According to the authors, the multitude is composed of a collection of singularities, and by singularity they mean a social subject whose difference cannot be reduced to sameness. Thus designated, the multitude would represent an active social subject which acts based on what singularities share in common, a live tissue which governs itself and is capable of participating in constitutive power. Multitude is a negative term, that which has not adjusted to become a People. According to this, multitude could be one of the strategies for the production of its own visibility within given frames and reality relations. What does this have to do with art?
To each articulation a place and space A major part of the new production of artistic practice which we call performance happened this year in the context of the festivals, speaking on a regional level, or projects such as the Spaport biennale in Banja Luka (organised by the Centre for Visual Communication Protok), which consciously take strategies of expansion into public spaces as representatives of symbolic values. Such forms of cultural action and mediation of art, in the legal sense mostly registered as civil organisations, take, for example, the space of the Upper Town in Zagreb, the location of the legislative and executive government facilities (10th Urban Festival, 1st -7th Oct, 2010), the space of a public garage Kvatrić in Zagreb (Max Art Festival, second year in a row, this year 1st -5th Dec, 2010), various public city locations
(Perforacije – a week of live art, second year in a row, this year in three different cities: Rijeka, Dubrovnik and Zagreb, 16th – 25th Oct, 2010 etc.), and the space of the Museum of Contemporary Art should also be put on the map of the symbolic (festivals listed above). In such contexts the “Boxing match for the title of the Minister for Culture” (Siniša Labrović, Zagreb! festival, September 2010.) takes place, and furthermore an exhibition is set up which gives some of the possible answers to the question of the fairy-tales’ outcome when they are distorted (Queer Zagreb, exhibition Queerd-up fairy-tales by artist Darko Vaupotić opened on December 6th, 2010 in the Museum of Contemporary Art), etc. These contexts are created in spaces of high symbolic charge. I will repeat; in order to be inscribed in the field of the perceptive, each articulation, or its performance, demands a place and a
This year’s 10th Urban Festival, entitled (Im)possibilities was opened by the performance of Siniša Labrović, “Marking”. Few days before, the performance was announced with the author’s words: This year’s Urban Festival has, as the theme and place of its holding, the Upper Town of Zagreb. It is a space of great symbolic, cultural and historical significance. It is also a space of contemporary political power, a place in which the legislative, executive and court government of the Republic of Croatia, the Parliament and the Constitutional Court are located. These are institutions which have a great influence on the life of every citizen of the Republic of Croatia. The increased presence of the police and a larger number of surveillance cameras as well as the lack of urban events and everyday liveliness in the Upper Town is understandable. The exclusivity of the space is increased by the Law that prohibits public
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Siniša Labrović, Match for the Title of Minister of Culture of Croatia, photo by Boris Cvjetanović
space. According to Richard Schechner, one of the founders of the Performance Studies department of Tisch School of the Arts (New York University), the term of performance surpasses that what we call art, and relates to various performing practices in art, culture and society. In the performative, which is produced by such practices, the body is also a political designator and the politically designated. Therefore, I consider the various artistic articulations of performer practices, supported by organised forms of the claiming of spaces (which themselves also use performative strategies), a form of conscious action. Let us not forget its affilation with the system of art, which isn’t autonomous by itself or more autonomous than the other social practices, is maybe the only possible form of its materialisation in the field of visible.
gatherings in less than 100 meters within the facilities of Parliament, Government, President and the Constitutional Court, more popularly known as the Law that prohibits gathering on St. Mark’s Square. Because of the good will to soften the place up, because of the persevering hope that I will increase the feeling and awareness that said institutions and authorities belong to each and every one of us, that they are yours, mine, ours, as well as because of a gentle desire to make the space of the Upper Town homely for the UrbanFestival, I will do the performance “Marking” in the Square of St. Mark at the opening of UrbanFestival. As Hannah Arendt says, the ability of judgement is a specific political capability, the ability of seeing things not only from one’s own point of view, but from the standpoint of everyone whose presence is coincidental at the given moment
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Balkan Dance Platform 10 years of BDP
Aerites Dance Company, Anorexia Socialis, photo by Charis Akriviadis
Christina Polychroniadou
In 2001 the initiation of the Balkan Dance Platform was first announced. The founders of BDP, Dessy Gavrilova (BG) and Cosmin Manolescu (RO), launched the idea during an international meeting in Bratislava in 2000. The aim was to fill the gap that existed at the time in local festivals, and organize one that incorporated all the Balkan countries. In a three day event local and international visitors could experience the latest in contemporary dance from Balkan countries, meet with one another (especially when we are talking about neighbouring countries that share a common past) and start making links and communicating with the rest of Europe and the world. “Our idea is to mostly 12 concentrate on local contemporary dancers and choreography,” Andreea Grecu (RO) recalls. For her, “contemporary art is not elitist art but similar to the art created in all of the Balkan countries”. Since then, every two years, a different Balkan city (Sofia, Belgrade, Skopje, Athens, Novi Sad, Ljubljana) has hosted the Platform, increasing the number of artists being presented and incorporating more countries and organisations from the Balkan region. Drawing attention to the work of Balkan artists, putting the area on the international dance map, creating opportunities for artists and establishing genuine collaborations irrespective of the differing political conditions which hold across the region, are some of the fundamental goals of each edition of BDP. As dance critic Donald Hutera noticed: ”Balkan artists want neither to be ignored nor isolated; they want to claim their rightful place on the European and hence the international map.” Facing differing production realities, and with unique artistic identity, artists from the whole region meet every two years, although the quantity of new work produced every year in the Balkans is enough to support a
yearly Platform, to meet, share, exchange and eventually measure up to international exposure. As an international itinerant event, it is always interesting to see new partners taking over the responsibility of organizing and hosting the Platform as well as visiting new places, where different kind of struggles with local authorities, local press and audience to build the idea and actually produce the Platform.
individual style stood out and “Everybody has an issue. This was the most striking and the most promising observation one could make” wrote Gerald Siegmund. “Certain conceptual patterns were clear: The reconsidering of the concept of movement, the traumatic aspect of social reality, and the questioning of the body,” indicated Gina Serbanescu in 2007 after the 4th BDP. Nowadays, different political and geographical situations have changed the nature of the Platform. Artists’ mobility and exchanges, touring productions and collaborations now exist on a certain level, and artists are no longer found within the Balkan region but scattered around Europe where coproduction funds are available and opportunities are more easily found than back home. The Balkans are no longer a “terra incognita”, rather the old “new exotic”. Therefore, it is now facing a new wave of migration, an artistic one, where the main ideas and issues of the Platform are no longer located strictly within the region. New problematic needs and issues have to be met and artists’ support is re-visited with a fresh look next to already existing support projects from other institutions.
For the 2011 edition and 10 year anniversary an enlarged and refreshed team of partners is placing the Platform within the Exodos International Dance Festival, welcoming Turkey as a Tassos Karachalios & Georgia Vardarou, Serenity Square, new partner and the return of photo by Charis Akriviadis Cosmin Manolescu, one of the Platform’s initiators, to the team. The performances 2011 also sees the launch of a three year plan with much needed activities such as Ivo Dimchev, Eduard Gabia, Cosmin touring opportunities, a market hub for BDP Manolescu, Dalija Acin, Sasa Asentic and co-productions, seminars and activities and others first presented their work during a meetings in the periods between festivals BDP before embarking on an international to encourage exchange, communication career beyond the Balkan borders. Their and creation within the region unique approach to choreography and their
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The Story So Far The 2nd Platform was organised in Bucharest, Romania (2003), with the participation of organisations and representatives from Romania (Project DCM Foundation), Bulgaria (Red House), and from the Greek representative Christina Polychroniadou. Twenty three choreographers were selected from the representatives’ committee, based on their application and the video of their work. The 3rd Platform was organised in Skopje, in November 2005, with the participation of 50 artists from the Balkan peninsula and 70 visitors from around the world interested in the developments in contemporary Balkan artistic creation. The 4th Platform took place in the Athens Concert Hall, with the cooperation of the Athens Concert Hall and Full House Promotion. The organization included pieces from 20 artists from 8 countries and for the first time, the program included a series of seminars on dramaturgy and arts management. The 2009 edition, due to limited funding, succeeded in being organised with 7 performances from an equal number of countries by Per Art in Novi Sad.
Kire Miladinoski, Not Close, photo by Charis Akriviadis
Public Domain: Outside and Against Institutions Nataša Govedić
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Selma Banich, Republika, photo by Adam Semijalec
During the “Theatre Night” 2010, when all city theatre houses gave free performances for general audiences, indulging in a fantasy of high availability of cultural goods, Selma Banich (dancer, choreographer and social activist) decided to stage a different political sentiment. She went to collect plastic bottles from trash containers in the street and entitled her work (RES) PUBLICA*. In fact, the title of her piece is hard to translate, since “publica” in Croatian also means “audience”, but suffice to say that she suggested the real political position of Croatian audiences: being poor to the point of collecting plastic bottles for the small reward of state money. She literally refused the demagogy of the theatre institutions and exchanged social positions with the people who work on the streets and rarely go to the theatre. But while institutional elites welcomed new guests for just a couple of hours, completely aware that this “free theatre” is a kind of charity work (where the audience remains invisible, no matter how much they pay for the ticket), the street remained open and cruel to everybody without any temporal, ideological or spatial limitations, no matter if you are a theatre artist or just a regular
poor person. The street turns everybody into a performer. You perform by the very fact that you are waiting for public transport or hanging around trash containers, as there are other people who observe you. Contrary to repertory theatres and the lies that are produced and financed therein, the street makes you all too visible, and painfully marked by your economic status. No charity. Only instant and harsh evaluations. A month ago, Selma Banich also performed piece called Croatian National Surrender. She stood on street with arms lifted in a position of surrender, in front of the City council for culture and education. She protested in the same corporal position for three and a half hours. Different artists and regular people who were passing her on the street expressed deep solidarity with Banich, helping her physically and emotionally to endure, not to give up, and also commenting widely on our common, national “state of consciousness”, which is close to Banich’s expression of hopelessness, despair and revolt, united in a single performative body. Here we also meet the case of collapsed, dysfunctional res publica – the people who
care for people are not the people in the “City council for culture and education” (although that is their public duty). The people who care about their fellow-citizens are anonymous passengers who, surprisingly, exhibit high levels of compassion and altruism. How come the political tribe lacks these qualities? How come the theatre system is not encouraging them? How come the street is more creative and more interested in actual human suffering then the whole social system of “organized support”?
Chances in the street Politically speaking, the street in Croatia slowly becomes the parallel cultural and political system, para-polis, as well as the only stage ready to confront us with the relevant questions presented by prominent artists. It is precisely the street where performance artist Siniša Labrović challenged the current Minister for Culture, Božo Biškupić, to answer Labrović’s call to arms.. Biškupić had not appeared at the venue, decorated lavishly for boxing event, so Labrović went on with the ritual of proclaiming himself
the new Minister for Culture. The accidental street audience and various representatives of the media used this case to [draw attention to] the idea that the Minister for Culture is not “above” challenges presented by artists, just as culture shouldn’t be run by political bureaucracy, responsible only to leadership of their own political party. Culture, indeed, belongs to artists and other creative professionals and if they cannot work in the proper theatre institutions, it is only logical to take over the street space. But you cannot run the street only by means of ideological dissatisfaction and counter-will. What the street needs to become truly powerful site of new knowledge and new political courage is theatrical competence and expressive professionalism. The street needs articulation that surpasses both shouting and the gathering of many silent bodies, united in undifferentiated demonstrations. For instance, the street as a site of political and theatrical “fight” between the independent scene and the commercially oriented City council was also staged around and on Varšavska street in Zagreb. The destruction of public space in Varšavska street, cutting down trees and eliminating quiet zones for people’s rest, and only because of suspected corruption in City council and the private greed for the money that is expected to pour from the planned shopping centre next to Varšavska, has provoked mass demonstrations during this summer. However, although the Varšavska uprising proved challenging to city officers in political terms (and unfortunately ending with arrest of many protesters and the scandal of the disregard of various legal limitations on turning public space in Varšavska into a private construction area), this particular street-stage failed to organize a continuous cultural platform for creative rebellion and art productions, choosing only occasional concerts and pamphlets as means to encourage public participation in the event.
Experience of witnessing It is, therefore, important to make a difference between truly public and just superficially “shared” or ideologically “marked” spaces. The human territory becomes public and therefore intensely
political only when we use it as area for continuous creative expression. It takes a carefully targeted performance program to turn a regular street corner into a public domain. By the same logic, when institutional theatres use their stages to suppress or diminish the expression of common problems, the stage stops being public. In an extremely surveilled society, such as ours, the street becomes more and more theatrical, as it refuses to behave according to rules of the dominating political parties, and the street is dangerously free because it upholds the real, not virtual bodies, in real – not virtual – environments.
who the murderers were, but somehow avoided naming them. This Could Be My Street shows how much the street owes to theatre and how much theatre owns to the street. In both cases, the audience is in fact either a deliberate or an accidental witness, even if they only watch in silence. However, the experience of witnessing resonates very differently in an art medium as opposed to between the silent walls of city streets. When theatre takes over the street, it makes us immediately connected with various instances of political and media power. When violence is staged, not only acted out, new political opportunities arise to address violence, understand it and change it. It is as if the street is not public enough by itself; we must make it representational to the point of turning it into a performance site. That is exactly what independent theatre company MONTAŽSTROJ did with their performance called Fire-starter: director Borut Šeparović invited the audience to examine the spaces of real political and economic corruption in Croatia from their bus seats, as some kind of mock-tourist expedition. Once again, the street served to point towards the towers of institutional 15 luxury, built through various “privatizations” and “modifications” of common laws.
I will not discuss here the success or failure of theatre makers to turn the street into a stage and the stage into the street, but I insist that Croatian streets are now teaching dissent to all of us, functioning as the last remaining space of public consciousness. I wouldn’t be surprised if we soon have university professors teaching on the street, not because of some romantic Montažstroj, Firestarter, recollection of Socrates’ photo by Montažstroj method, but because more and more knowledge becomes Street has also become the subject of the suppressed or denied in state institutions, theatre piece This Could Be My Street and I know both scholars and theatre makers (directed by Anica Tomić and Jelena who refuse to accept silencing. To return Kovačić), which premiered in Zagrebačko once more to Selma Banich and her street kazalište mladih, one of the most progressive performances, one can either succumb to institutions in town. The play stages social oppression or turn poverty into a documentation about the brutal murder of a political, ethical and aesthetic debate. teenager called Luka Ritz, attacked without apparent reason one night in the street As long as the public domain continues when he was on his way home from concert. to grow outside institutions, the Luka Ritz died from injuries inflicted by fight for undisciplined solidarity the teenage-mob that attacked him, nd the (res publica) is not lost whole judicial process of dealing with this * The title in Croatian is (Re)Publika. and other teenage murders has been almost farcical, since the whole community knew
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Art and Law
entertaining the right to offend the audience Aldo Milohnić
Janez Janša Pupilija, papa Pupilo and the Pupilceks, photo by Marcandrea
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Equality before the law is one of the basic elements of the legal state. Following this principle, we all have an inalienable right to equal and non-discriminatory legal protection, including the basic rights and freedoms which are guaranteed by the constitution. However, regardless of this basic principle of the legal state, contemporary legal systems grant special rights to certain social or professional groups, and the latter enjoy these rights because of a broader social interest which they supposedly pursue in their actions and activities. A classic example of this situation is, for instance, parliamentary immunity of members of the parliament, whose role in the political system of parliamentary democracy is to represent the “voice of the people” in the legislative part of the authorities. An early example of specially protected representatives of the people’s will in representative bodies were the people’s tribunes (tribuni plebis) in ancient Rome, who were considered untouchable (sacrosancti). Parliamentary immunity in today’s sense, however, is related particularly to the development of this legal institution in the history of British parliamentarism, which was the site of rivalry between the Crown and the parliament. Namely, from the 14th century onwards, it was no longer a matter of course that a member of the parliament should end up in prison if he
said something in the parliament that did not appeal to the current king. Nowadays, when one no longer needs to be a king to put someone in prison (one does, however, need a substantial amount of money to hire a good lawyer), the function and form of parliamentary immunity have also changed somewhat; yet, parliamentary immunity still serves its basic purpose: the people’s tribune should not fear punishment, for instance, for uncompromisingly criticising the executive power, even if it later turns out that this critique was misjudged, that it was not based on solid facts, etc. The Slovenian Constitutional Court has also observed this fact when they wrote the following in their explanation of the important decision No. U-I-226/95: “The demands concerning the adducing of proof that the asserted facts are indeed true, which are difficult to meet, can not only jeopardise an open public debate but can actually paralyse and limit it. Not taking into account the difficulties entailed in the verification of facts would have the same consequences. The fear that a statement could not be authenticated not only prevents the disclosure of false facts but also entails a reluctance to disseminate the facts that are true. Because of this kind of self-imposed censorship the control over the actions of the actors of political decision making could only be bogus.” In this case, the Constitutional
Court considers the stylistic questions of, for example, the (in)appropriateness of the chosen words or the (lack of) sophistication of the speaker or the writer completely irrelevant: “If a debate is to be truly free, the right of the individual to express their own opinions must be protected as a matter of principle, regardless of whether the statement is rude or neutral, rational or emotionally charged, calm or aggressive, useful or harmful, accurate or inaccurate.”
Artistic community immunity Immunity is a form of a special, specially protected, and thus privileged status, which can be understood as an exception or a particular kind of suspension of a general and commonly valid rule, such as the principle of equality before the law (at least this is so within the system of the legal state). Yet, even in this case, differentiation is acceptable if the legislators have complied with certain rules, such as those mentioned in the explanation of the above-mentioned decision of the Constitutional Court: “The principle of equality before the law does not forbid the legislators to manage the positions of legal subjects differently; it does, however, prevent them from doing so arbitrarily, without a rational and objective reason. This means that differentiation must
serve a constitutionally acceptable purpose, that this purpose must be reasonably related to the subject of the regulation, and that the introduced differentiation must be an appropriate means of accomplishing this goal.” Differentiation, then, is acceptable because it is precisely these special guarantees that ensure the implementation of the basic constitutional provisions (and thus values) of a given society. In addition to the members of the parliament and the judges, whose immunity grants them special legal protection in performing their functions, some other professional groups (for instance, journalists, scientists and artists) as well as certain social groups (such as minorities, who need special protection because of their originally unequal position in the society – this is called positive or reverse discrimination) also enjoy constitutionally recognised special rights. Immunity is a legal notion, whose meaning is determined within the legal system; however, in a somewhat broader or metaphorical sense, we can also apply it in the field of art. The constitution and the penal code thus guarantee a certain (functional) immunity to the artists or rather, if we are utterly precise, to all those people who “are creative” or who “express themselves” in the field of art. The Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia (Article 59) thus guarantees the freedom of “artistic creativity”, while the Penal Code of the Republic of Slovenia (Article 169) states that the person “making offensive remarks about someone in a scientific, literary or artistic work” will not be punished (however, with an important addition, “if it is clear, from the mode of expression or any other circumstances, that this was not done with the purpose of derision”). The legal systems of contemporary parliamentary democracies thus incorporate certain mechanisms or institutions that guarantee special protection to those individuals who are involved in certain activities that are considered particularly important from the perspective of constitutional law. These guarantees are meant to balance the collisions of rights, which can be anticipated and which are in fact frequent in these professions and activities. In court practice, there are numerous examples of collision between, say, the right to privacy, honour and reputation and the right to artistic creativity and expression. In these cases, the court must decide how far the latter can extend without excessively jeopardising the other constitutional right. As the constitutional judge Dragica Wedam Lukić says (the article was published in 2009 in the collection Pravna država), “it issues from the decisions of the Constitutional Court that the specificities of artistic creativity must be taken into account when searching for an answer to the question of how far artistic
freedom (as a special instance of the right to freedom of expression) can extend or the question of where the boundary is located that separates this constitutional right from the constitutionally protected personal rights of others, which include protection of honour and reputation”. As demonstrated by some important examples of constitutional judgement in the past few years (for instance, the Pikalo case and the book Modri e, or the Smolnikar case and the book Ko se tam gori olistajo breze), court practice habitually attaches considerable weight precisely to the “specificities of artistic creativity” and it is less favourably disposed towards the absolute protection of personal rights, with which these specificities are often at odds. Yet, things are not as simple as it might seem. As long as artistic activities are specially protected and deemed an exception to the rule (as mentioned before in relation to Article 169 of the Penal Code), the judges are able to tip the scales in favour of the right to “creativity” and “expression”, when this right collides with a certain personal right. However, more difficult to solve are the cases in which artists with their work find themselves at odds with a certain regulation that does not explicitly mention art as a possible exception to the rule. In these cases, the judges and their scales are put to a new and important test. It is a slightly easier task for the judge if an artist has done something in their work that raises suspicions that this might be a minor or even a criminal offence, yet, this act as such has not been properly sanctioned by a special law yet. This could be called a legal void or, a bit more metaphorically, wilderness, that is, that sphere of human activities that has not been – at least not entirely – regulated by positive legislation. As far as artistic activities are concerned, this area of legal wilderness resembles Hakim Bey’s “temporary autonomous zone” in the early days of the internet. With the accumulation of new regulations and the ever increasing legal standardisation of a certain social field, there is less and less room for manoeuvre left to the artist who is entering into some sort of interaction with this social field. This somewhat abstract presentation of the problem can be illustrated with the example of the original and the reconstructed performance Pupilija, papa Pupilo pa Pupilčki.
What came first – dead chicken or art? As we know, there is a notorious scene in this show that involves the slaughtering of chicken. This was one of the reasons why the Central Ljubljana Police Station brought charges against the members of the theatre group with the municipal misdemeanours judge. The judge moderately fined seven
members of the group, while the rest of the members – who were said to “have played an inferior role in the incident”, as the rule about the misdemeanour stated – were acquitted. It is important to note, however, that the judge pronounced the sentence only in relation to that part of the charge that concerned the violation of Article 8 of the then valid law on misdemeanours against public order and peace, because the group gave no previous notice about the theatrical event to the appropriate body. The judge dismissed all other elements of the police charge – including the accusations that “their shows were a brutal insult to the public morals” and that “they tortured animals” (in both cases, the police quoted the law on misdemeanours against public order and peace) – and explained that “the actions of the accused show no signs of misdemeanour”. Since, at the time, there was no law equivalent to the current Animal Protection Act and the then valid law on misdemeanours against public order and peace named no such misdemeanours, the judge deemed that the disputed acts showed no signs of misdemeanour. The judge thus acted in accordance with the principle of legality, which means that someone can be punished only if there exists a corresponding legal rule. Whatever one’s opinion about the courts during the period of Yugoslavian socialism may be, we could not argue that, 17 in the just mentioned case of “Pupilčki” and the alleged misdemeanour, the judge did not act in accordance with the law. The Universal Declaration of Animal Rights was solemnly proclaimed – in 1978 in Paris at the meeting of the International Society for Animal Rights – after the performance Pupilija, papa Pupilo pa Pupilčki. In the 1970s, a number of other conventions were adopted, which concern the humane treatment of animals and preservation of their natural habitats. In Slovenia, the Animal Protection Act was adopted on the eve of the new millennium – on the 18th of November 1999. The difficulty facing the contemporary “Pupilčki”, who set about reconstructing the original show, was the fact that what lay between their attempt at putting on the show in 2006 and the original “Pupilčki”, who staged theirs in 1969, were the Animal Protection Act, several regulations and a whole series of international conventions that have been ratified by the Republic of Slovenia as well. Since legal rules determine precisely when an animal may be put to death, by whom, how, where, for what purpose, etc. and since the legislators have not explicitly allowed the slaughtering or execution of animals for artistic purposes, it is very likely that the court, in case a report were made, would recognise this act as animal torture and penalise the performers and the producer with a draconian fine.
Vlasta Delimar, Looking For a Woman / Mature Woman, photo by Milan Božić
As this case demonstrates, art shares the fate of other social activities whose destinies and (admissible) scope are determined and 18 shaped by the legislation. Yet, the setting of the boundaries of acceptability should not be left to the discretion of the judges or, even less so, the lawyers. The legal state is meant to be the opposite of the police state; yet, the excessive power of the judicial part of the authorities can also make life completely unbearable. The story of the alleged neutrality of the legal state as regards politics and social values is the unattainable myth of liberal political theory. Dragica Wedam Lukić has pointed this out (in the above-mentioned article): “We must consider the fact that constitutional judges are also only human, and their value judgements are sometimes more conservative and sometimes more liberal. And it is precisely in relation to the dilemmas concerning fundamental values that the question of the judges’ selfrestraint versus activism resurfaces time and again: to what extent should the judges pay heed to commonly held values and to what extent should they use their decisions to enforce new values?” We must locate the Pupilija case in the broader context of the legal systems of contemporary parliamentary democracies, in which many legal provisions concerning animal protection are, to put it mildly, imbued with hypocrisy and double standards. Despite the fact that these laws prohibit the slaughtering or execution of animals for artistic purposes, they still allow supervised execution of animals in traditional fighting events (such as bullfighting), in hunting, for religious purposes (the socalled ritual slaughter), for the purposes of
natural science museums, in experiments and for the purposes of scientific research and educational purposes, etc.
Offend the audience In Slovenian legislation and under the European Union law, experiments involving animals and the use of animals for the purposes of scientific research are dealt with and standardised in great detail. The key guiding principle in this area is “the goal justifies the means”, for Article 21 of the Slovenian Animal Protection Act allows the use of animals (in this case, vertebrates) for the purposes of scientific research “if it is expected that the suffering of animals would be ethically acceptable compared to the anticipated result” and “if it is expected that the results would be of exceptional importance to people or animals or the solution of scientific problems”. On the other hand, the Act completely ignores artistic practice and makes no exceptions in this regard, for it automatically considers any kind of execution of animals on stage a violation of the law. The problem here is probably the fact that the legislators understand artistic practice as an activity that is meant to provide to its consumers, first and foremost, entertainment and distraction. If we only consider the dominant forms of popular entertainment industry worldwide, it may be true that art is often precisely such an activity; however, this is not a good enough reason to lump all kinds of art together, including those productions that strive to create precisely the opposite effect. We can
mention the Croatian Animal Protection Act as a telling example of a law that claims that all shows in which animals appear together with other (human) actors, are necessarily intended to entertain the audience. Hermann Nitsch’s shows and performances with their ritual animal sacrifice; Günter Brus’s anxious performances, in which he mutilated and tortured his own body; the slaughtering of chicken in the engaged show Pupilija, papa Pupilo pa Pupilčki; the slaughtering of a rooster in Vlasta Delimar’s socially critical performance; the slaughtering of a calf in Franc Purg’s tormenting performance; and the list continues – is it really possible to claim that these events are primarily intended to “entertain the audience”? Are these performative events not meant to stir the viewers’ critical thinking rather than provide entertainment? The point of these events is not to entertain but rather – to paraphrase the title of Handke’s famous dramatic text – to “offend the audience”. A viewer lulled by inane entertainment is probably not worth the life of any “serially fattened” chick sacrificed on the theatre stage, but the audience that feels “slapped in the face” after seeing such a show and that leaves the theatre thinking that there is something wrong with the things that seem self-evident – such an audience is a matter of a broader social interest and this is why it is worth thinking through the limits of the right of the artist to probe social norms, which are crystallized in legal norms and the legal practice of a given society
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Zorica digs Zabludovsky and we dig Zorica Zvonimir Dobrović
Željko Zorica is what makes arts in the Balkans important. The name may not be as well known even in the arts institutions in the Balkans let alone Europe, as it should be. Željko Zorica has been a constant part of the artistic landscape in Croatia and the Balkans since 1976 and his influence on visual and performing art is yet to be acknowledged. What he brings to the arts horizon in this region is the never-ending conceptualization of artistic practices (and products). His thoughts on artistic practices became an aesthetic in itself. His work works extremely well in the context of the Balkans and the conditions that are available to someone who is mainly creating outside of, or to be more precise, on the margins of the institutionalized recognition. His art flourishes on the very idea of itself. It is produced instantly or – its production does not require or depend on realization. That completely puts the whole system off balance and gives the power back to the artist. Lack of resources or opportunity is immediately engraved in the work itself. Every rejection or impossibility of production becomes a part of the production itself, which inevitably brings the work closer to being ready or finished – although the goal is not the finishing of the work but the starting of it. As a deeply private process it does not need to become public to become “work”. Željko Zorica managed to make hopping obstacles that are being thrown at creative initiatives from every direction and level an integral part of his work – everything is documented and legitimate source of inspiration, better yet - sharpened perspective. Mixing fact and fiction was at the core of his work long before it became the next best thing to do by artists in Europe and he has been doing it with much more style and humor than probably anyone. Tirelessly chronicling the life of dr. Hans Christian Zabludovsky has become one of his signature pieces.
H. C. Zabludovsky is a fictional character whose intellectual brilliance and lucky strokes of fate have influenced important historic moments. Zorica is the interpreter of his life and work, always discovering new ways in which Zabludovsky affected our lives and changed the course of history. Traces and truths of that character have been laid in form of memorial plaques on many public locations and that have thus become real sites of some significant event in Zabludovksy’s story. This is just a hint of Željko Zorica and his disbalancing effect on the set and stale relationship between center (institutionalized, heritage driven) and its margin (independent, contemporary, innovative) in the Balkans arts and culture. There is still a strong sense of resistance, urgency, rawness and directness in the artistic output from the Balkans, and that reaction makes it all the more contemporary and interesting and unique. Imagine a contemporary performing arts piece from the Balkans that resembles any other European performance. Is that the ultimate goal? Blending in. Because we are probably a long way from that reality, doesn’t it just emphasize our lack of production resources, contemporary arts education and nurturing opportunities for young artists? A depressive perspective. But artists like Željko Zorica make it all different – and all the difference
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BCC [Balcan Can Contemporary] No. 2, December 2010
BCC is a joint project of Asocijacija Kulturanova Drugo more Frakcija Performing Arts Journal Maska (Institute for Publishing, Production and Education) Perforacije Tanzelarija, organisation for the promotion of contemporary dance in BiH TkH platforma Stanica BCC is distributed for free in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia and Serbia Supplement of MASKA, Performing Arts Journal ISSN 1318-0509 Published by Maska (Institute for Publishing, Production and Education) Metelkova 6, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia Phone +386 1 4313122 Fax +386 1 4313122 E-mail info@maska.si www.maska.si For the publisher: Janez Janša Subscription and distribution: ana.ivanek@maska.si Issue edited by Zvonimir Dobrović International Editorial Board Dragana Alfirević Mila Čuljak Ivana Ivković Janez Janša, Davor Mišković Nevena Redžić Iva Srdanov Milan Vračar Jasmina Založnik English Language Editor Kat Bowman Art Director André von Ah Cover Picture Selma Banich, Croatian National Surrender, photo by Adam Semijalec Print Printera
Circulation 5000 Maska, Performing Arts Journal is financially supported by the Slovenian Book Agency. BCC is financially supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia.