SLO | EN
Premiere: in development
Jana Jevtović with Tina Benko, Jerneja Fekonja, Evin Hadžialjević, Neža Jamnikar, Ema Križič, Bojana Robinson, Kristina Tini Rozman, Mårten Spångberg, Inti Šraj
Production: Jana Jevtović and NDA Slovenia
Coproduction: Športno društvo Tabor Ljubljana
Public relations: Goran Pakozdi
Video documentation: Gaja Madžarevič
Foto documentation: Nina Pernat
Financial support: Mestna občina Ljubljana, Ministrstvo za kulturo Republike Slovenije, DanceMap
A dance tells something but is simultaneously something in itself—similar to how we listen not only to what somebody has to say, but also to the rhythms, timbre, and dynamics of their voice. Dancing implies learning to listen to those qualities within a dance.
In her new production, the dancers and choreographer Jana Jevtović research the tradition of the Pan-Slavic Sokol movement, and its related manifestations known as zlets—physical movement practices performed at mass events—as an aesthetic practice. Was it simply a means to consolidate ideology and power, or were zlets also shaped by particular artistic currents? If so, can these movement compositions teach us something about how shared concerns and communal care have been replaced by personal identity and involuntary insularity?
Seven women come together in a space that resonates with memories, lifelines, personal and collective histories, worries, and sensualities. These are passed on to the audience like a landscape criss-crossed with lines, intersections, scars, and indentations—much like a palm telling the story of an individual life, shaped through presence and interaction with others. The dancers gather to share, with each other and the audience, dances that oscillate between formal precision and an almost conversational mode of moving together, in which the formal qualities of zlet transform into a semiotics of intimacy.
Text by Mårten Spångberg