Poster of the show “Who is Faster? – the Show for the End of the World” (Antonio Dolić)
Premiere:
May 31, 2018, 8 p.m., Pogon Jedinstvo, Zagreb, Croatia
repetition
May 31, .2019, 7:30 p.m., The Concert Hall of Bersa Brothers, Zadar, Croatia
Author Team:
Author: Vesna Mačković Performers: Luka Barešić, Lana Bitenc, Ida Fučić, Vesna Mačković, Filip Sučić Music: Filip Sučić (električna gitara), Vesna Mačković (glas, elektronika) Photography: Ivan Marinković Graphics: Antonio Dolić Video documentation: Dina Karadžić, Dora Bodakoš, Nives Milješić Costimography: Vesna Mačković Props: Marija Despotović and Mačković family
Accomplished with the Support of:
Pogon Jedinstvo, Zagreb City Culture Office, Association for Audio-visial Culture ‘Camera’
About the Show:
This is a show that, accompanied by live music (Filip Sučić on the electric guitar and Vesna Mačković on the electronics and vocals), which is a sort of a master of the ceremony, depicts the world at its end, using visual complexities of scenography, costumes and movement. This is a show which glances at the prehistory, but also reaches far into the future. Who is faster and where do, really, go those who are faster?
Show Concept:
A vehicle. A trike. Or a romobil. Or a wheelchair. Or a supermarket cart. Drivers. Drivers of vehicles. Time drivers. Endless universe drivers. They travel together. Or they’re racing. The question is who is faster? The one who is ahead or the one behind? Behind of what? Behind the other? Behind the time? Behind the history? And what can any of them do at all about their speed? Can they travel through time? Or are they stuck in a simple mathematical formula that includes gravity and friction? What is their luggage? Plastic bottles are their value. Vehicles are full of them. They flee to the scene. The bottles are alive. They dance. The bottles wave to them out of the past. They wave to them out of the future. Are these drivers sufficiently fast? Or are they too fast?
Video Trailers and Clips from the Priemiere:
Video trailer #1 for the show “Who is Faster?”
Video trailer #2 for the show “Who is Faster?”
Video trailer #3 for the show “Who is Faster?”
Clips from the premiere of the show “Who is Faster?”
Vesna Mačković took her art to various continents. In this episode of the Croatian radio broadcast Skitnje u zvuku she browses around with audio recorder at the largest Kazakhstan city of Almaty and the Shymbulak mountain that keeps this town from the cold winds. But this is not the only thing Almaty is hiding in the midst of this infinitely broad country.
Our Beautiful is truly the most beautiful. We love her when she is in a good mood and even when she is angry at the whole world. We love her when she is beautiful under the sun which slides through her beautiful feet. We also love her in the dark when she talks about smart and tough things. At first, she talks trough whispering for herself. But we love her even when she screams and yells from the top of her lungs. No, we will not ban her from speaking. We’ll even tell her she can laugh and scream if she desires to do so, even when her screaming is not because of that female orgasm. Because she is ours. Yes, she is our Beautiful. Well, when her voice becomes the voice of many, when we no longer listen to her, instead, we will hear those voices all over the place, many of them, echoing. And then it is her, our Beautiful, and there she is all over in so many, very many.
This is body and voice performance on the subject of lesbian discrimination within the nationalist social trends. Performance emphasizes awareness of the institutionalization of discrimination as a method of annulment of the identity and the problem of stigmatizing sexuality. The textual part of the work includes the Croatian anthem, but the part of Mihanovic’s verses that did not enter the official part of the anthem text, were placed in the context of the subject of this work. By this alternation, author apostrophes the heroism of individuality within the public space that builds the semblance of tolerance. In the section of voice and text experimentation, the artist uses looper on the iPad, and the performer’s voice is mixed and effected on 16 channels as if she is not alone on the stage, as if she is surrounded by various female voices. Reproduction creates a network of marginalized women voices and creates a national body in the context of dominant heterosexual ideology.
In the performance are used lyrics by the poets Aida Bagić (from the collection If I was called Sylvia (Aora, Zagreb 2007)), Anamarija Levak and Antun Mihanović (original text of the Croatian hymn ‘Our Beautiful’).
Media
Announcement of the premiere at the Vox Feminae Festival:
Idea, concept: Vesna Mačković Camera, editing, sound: Ana Opalić 3D animation, voice and text: Vesna Mačković
Acknowledgments
Video was presented in biennial edition of magazine Women Cinemakers
The video was selected for the exhibiton ‘Age of emptiness’ of The Festival of the first, Zagreb, Croatia
Concept
What is our reality?
What is the reality of certain others?
What kind of imagined or virtual worlds are we running to, and to what are they?
The inspiration for this video work I find in growing alienation I feel about life chained with physical existence.
Through this work, I ask myself what kind of existence do I aspire to. I wonder what would I miss from the physical world if I existed only as an energy cluster.
In the end, I wonder, if there are beings who live only as energy clusters which virtual realities such beings strive to and what are their screensavers?
Where do such beings wish to escape to?
Magazin Women Cinemakers (Bijenalno izdanje 2018.)
Festival ‘Revelation’ održao se u Kazahstanu između 26.1.-15.2.2018. Radionica improviziranog glasa, zvuka i teksta “Whisper to me, I wanna yell!” koja je prethodnu verziju doživjela u suradnji Vesne Mačković i Festivala Satyrianas u Brazilu, ovom prilikom u Kazahstanu je unaprijeđena uključivanjem glazbenika i vokalista iz suvremenog orkestra ‘Eegeru’ s izvedbom koja kombinira tri jezika: ruski, hrvatski i kazački. Glazbenice na flauti (Meruyert Tulenova), kazačkom tradicionalnom instrumentu kobyzu (Tokzhan Karatai), operni i gregorijanski zborski pjevač na ruskom (Elias Duisen), glumica na kazačkom jeziku (Zhanel Sergazhina) i Vesna Mačković na hrvatskom jeziku i elektronici nakon 2 dana radionice izveli su 45-minutni koncert.
6.11.2017., Sao Paulo, Festival Satyrianas, Brasil
In her sound and text work ‘Whisper to me, I wanna yell!’ performing artist Vesna Mačković explores variations her brain produces using her vocal chords as the tool. She pushes random words into her brain, both in her mother tongue Croatian, but also in world languages she has been hearing during her travels. She forces those words, sounds and sometimes full sentences into her brain and through her throat and vocal chords explores their warmth or coldness, their sharpness or softness. As if she understands them… As if her brain knows what it has been confronted with. As if… she doesn’t need to take them carefully…
In Brasil the topic she played with was censorship of culture and arts which was very hot current topic in Sao Paulo during the festival.
Eu tehno uma voz.
Voce nao consegue ouvir?
Ouca, por favor, escute!
Ouca com cuidado.
Tehno palavras para voce.
Pegue elas.
Leve com cuidado.
Se eu falar o seu idioma,
nao julge apenas porque voce entende.
Se eu falar o que voce nao entende,
nao goste apenas porque e exotico.
Nao sou seu palhaco de palavras.
Eu so tenho alguns sons para voce.
Ouca.
Leve com cuidado.
Whisper to me, I wanna yell – excerpts – Sao Paulo, Festival Satyrianas, Brazil
Workshop dates: 3.-5.11.2017.
Public performance: 5.11.2017., Sao Paulo, Festival Satyrianas, Brasil
The 18th edition of the Satyrianas Festival had 1100 artists, who performed in 21 theaters and cultural spaces in the city of São Paulo. In total, 318 activities (theater, performance, cinema, music and workshops), all with conscious tickets (pay as much as you want), with an estimated audience of 30 thousand people.
Vesna Mačković held a workshop ‘Different me, different you’ which had local artists as participants. Through practices and tasks involving trained breathing, work with the voice and improvised text the participants practiced to produce individual and group content of performance on the topic xhosen by all together. Last day of then workshop a public performance of all participants was created from parts of workshop contents. The topic was really current in Sao Paulo those days and it was censorship of arts and the Festival Satyrianas.
Excerpts from the workshop and full video of public performance:
Photographs from the workshop ‘Different me, different you’
2017-5-27, King Tomislav Square, Zagreb – A protest for closing of all slaughterhouses
The Animal Liberation Initiative organized a second international demonstration in Zagreb on Saturday, 27 May 2017, “ANIMAL LIBERATION for closing of all the slaughterhouses”.
The aim of the protest was to alert the citizens to the unnecessary and morally unacceptable daily suffering and torment of millions enslaved animals, pointing out the extreme cruelty of the industry regarding meat, milk, eggs, skin, silk, fur, cosmetics and medicines tested on animals, etc. and to give notice to particularly damaging health and environmental consequences of growing industrial production and consumption of meat and dairy products.
Vesna Mačković, among others, before the demonstation participated in a video call to invite people in joining:
The song ‘Kikiriki’ (Peanuts) is a parody of fans anthems created by Vesna Mačković and alternative rock band Radost! as the announcement of Vesna’s theatrical performance ‘Gold Medal’.
Premiere: 13.9., 19:30h Reprise: 14. i 15.9., 19:30h Pogon Jedinstvo, Zagreb, Croatia
Performers: Vesna Mačković i Sven Copony
Author: Vesna Mačković Choreography: Sven Copony Text: Vesna Mačković Sound design and mix: Sven Copony Photography: Ana Opalić Production: Association for Audio-Visual Culture ‘Camera’
In this contemporary dance performance, performers Vesna Mačković and Sven Copony are exploring a range of emotions, from rejection of closeness over the restraint to the rapprochement and complete intimacy. They will dance in It takes two to tango, evocating emotions just like in life: from fear to courage and from loneliness to the passion and connection.
Who am I?
Whose am I?
The world has changed.
Love is new.
I live in a fear of complete surrender.
Like I’m going to lose (a part of) myself
the moment I start dancing life
with my steps along with your’s.
I live in a fear that I will not know how to distinguish
your steps from mine.
And for the tango it still takes two.
Who am I?
Whose am I?
TICKETS are part of the ‘Arts Available to Everyone’ initiative, according to which visitors book empty tickets and at the end of the show enter the price which they decide to pay, depending on their living standard and satisfaction with a watched performance.
REZERVACIJE: ulaznice@vesnamackovic.com
or viber / watzup / SMS with date, name and selected type of ticket send to 0992004040
Premiere:
18.6.2017, Festival Perforacije, Zagreb Dance Center
Reprise: 26.5.2018., Theater 21, Sisak
Author and Performer: Vesna Mačković
Music: Group Radost! (Branko Hlap Bogunović – guitar, vocal, Dimitrij Petrovic – drum, percussion, Dino Sylence Kraljet – bass guitar, Goran Bogunović – Biber – guitar, background vocal)
Scenography and props design: Vesna Mačković
Technical solution of props: Ines Kolenko (Elizabeth Grom)
Photography: Silvija Dogan, Ana Opalić
Video survey: Mladen Ergić filming, Vesna Mačković editing
Video content and music video: Ana Opalić
In the performance of the body “Golden medal” Vesna Mačković, with the technical and coaching support of the carefully selected team, challenges several existential questions.
The evaluation of “games” in the concept of “bread and games” comes into question when games become superimposed, over-games and non-games. When games become a competition, idolatry and suicide. When games are no longer a game, they are no more than games. They become less and less games until in time they completely disappear from their own definition, and the word “games” takes on the most different meanings.
With the support by:
Croatian Ministry of Culture
Sisak Culture Committee
Premiere: 5. 4. 2018, 20 h
Reprise: 6. 4. 2018, 20 h
Pogon Jedinstvo, Zagreb, Croatia
Performers: Tonka Kovačić, Vesna Mačković, Vilim Matula, Ida Fučić, Roko Nakić, Vilim Ostović
Production: Association for Audio-Visual Culture ‘Camera’ Author: Vesna Mačković
Performers: Tonka Kovačić, Vesna Mačković, Vilim Matula, Ida Fučić, Roko Nakić, Vilim Ostović
Costume and props design: Vesna Mačković
Technical solution for props and costumes: Ines Kolenko
Photography: Edita Sentić
Video: Dora Bodakoš
Video selfies: friends around the world and Pero Kvesić
Light and sound technician: Tomislav Maglečić
‘Krleža, stand in line!’ is a multimedia contemporary theater play, in which the theme revolves around the invisibility of artists today. This stage work originated from the same name radio-drama premiered in the show “Ars acustica” of Croatian Radio in October 2017.
Author Vesna Mačković is using performers voices and live effects on iPad looper and then produces experiments of voice, sound and text emphasizing subject’s invisibility, earshot or inaudibility. The performers use the text that the author has imposed on them, but they twist and replicate them as they wish. In spite of everything, and despite the disobedience of the performers, the author manipulates their voices live, and these sounds, that reality, go to the public – the world hears what she decides. And the performers themselves are not sure what will happen when they open their mouth and let their voice out. Where is the artist in all of this? He was invited, he came on time, but nobody notices him. Krleža, stand in line! Snack is served. We have also prepared a fun-music program. And maybe we can talk about your new book. Come on, Krleža! Harry up! Hurry, Krležaaaa!
TICKETS are part of the ‘Arts Available to Everyone’ initiative, according to which visitors book empty tickets and at the end of the show enter the price which they decide to pay, depending on their living standard and satisfaction with a watched performance.
With support: Croatian Ministry of Culture, City of Zagreb, Pogon Jedinstvo, KUC Travno, Zagreb Dance Center, Ars kopija, Outdoor Akzent, Scena.hr
Premiere: 26. 11. 2015., Croatian radio 3, Radio atelje
Director: Vedran Hleb,
Music editor: Adriana Kramarić,
Dramaturg: Katja Šimunić.
Own text interprets: Vesna Mačković.
Music: Alen and Nenad Sinkauz.
This work as radiophonic echo of the same name stage work (dance multimedia play “Intensities”) establishes itself as a composite radio-stage performance in to this radio play by interweaving of triple narrative lines: autofictional, fictional and self-reflective. Vesna Mačković choreographs sounds like a memory of the play, evoking her states during the performance, describes one of her working days and gives a comment on the precarious life of the artist today.
Premiere:
22.10.2016., Sisak, Festival Željezara, Muzej Grada Siska
12.minute performans of sound and text thematising lost, abandoned, corrupted Sisak factories. Created and premiered for Night of performance and video organised by Festival Željezara.12-minutni performans zvuka i teksta na temu propalih, pokradenih ili uništenih sisačkih tvrtki. Kreiran i premijerno izveden na Noćima performansa i videa u organizaciji Festivala Željezara.
Experimental art project of movement, sound and text
Premiere
29.9.-2.10.2106., Pogon Jedinstvo, Velika dvorana, Zagreb
Reprise
27.-28.4.2017. Sisak, Croatia, Festival Sisak dances
26.9.2017., Zagreb, Croatia, Sounded bodies festival
Authoring team
Author and performer: Vesna Mačković
Music: 309th day of the year (Alen Sinkauz, Nenad Sinkauz, Miroslav Piškulić)
Light design: Saša Fistrić
Ligh technitian: Matija Jelić
Costume design: Vesna Mačković
Costume making: Diana Mihalić
Head installation: Damajanti Kondres
Photography, video: Ana Opalić
Introduction to the show
Under a glass bell I am safe from the world.
My light.
My warmth.
My air.
My home.
I am a vegetating plant.
A plant that is its own oxygen and food.
Under a glass bell the world is safe from me.
I am happy.
Concept of research
The play is performed as a solo research performance. Under light simulating a glass bell performer through movement, voice, text and music explores the challenges life in civilization.
The challenges that are her concerns relate to the body vulnerable to the outside world because of its physical weaknesses. Questioning physical security as a result has examination of the meaning of life in loneliness.
The challenges that she explores through thought and text refer to the mind which is struggling with the concept of ‘civilization’. How concepts such as war, violence, bloodshed, exploitation, theft, lack of dignity of life in social security and healthcare area can be conceptually a subset of the concept of ‘civilization’.
The sounds are her finest reality under a glass bell, and the music she heara in herself or from outside herself make her world deceptively complete.
Premiere: 18.06.2016. u 20h, Zagreb, Croatia, Festival Perforacije 2016., Teatar &TD
19.06.2016. u 20h
Authors: Vesna Mačković i Jelena Mesar
Actresses: Vesna Mačković, Jelena Mesar
Text: Jelena Mesar
Piano and arrangement: Jelena Mesar
Audio and video technitian: Saša Obad
Costumes creation: Diana Mihalić
Fotography: Edita Sentić
Make-up: Martina Ćiljevuk
Producers: Udruga Domino, Udruga za audio-vizualnu kulturu “Kamera”.
Predstava je financirana sredstvima Ministarstva kulture i Udruge Domino.
Zahvaljujemo: Teatar &TD, Pučko otvoreno učilište.
About the show
Two of them challenge the systems of stereotypical thinking and its effects, prejudice and discrimination, but most of all those loosely hidden in so called positive thoughts – so pretty, and so clever! Where is the border between the need for stereotypes to survive and pure laziness? Stereotypes are relative to our identities and borders between us and them. Two of them do not go together.
Unrealistic simplification of the world defined them both as victims but also as perpetrators of stereotypical thinking. The two of them draw lines of joint interpersonal movement from distrust and arguments to egotism and are searching for the value of the stereotype variable and whether it is beyond direct sensory experience or whether clear thinking can deactivate the mechanism of stereotype.
Where is the line between two of them and all of us? You know the two of them. The blond one and that disabled girl that dances.
To the city which is dying, but has lived.
To the city with which I have never breathed as one.
To the soil that has soaked sweat and poisons.And happiness and smiles.
To the workers who are freed.
To the systems that come and go. And devastate.
To all of us who persistently walk forward, not knowing to where, why and how much more.
In 1990. I moved to Sisak as a 15-year-old in anticipation of all high-school days’ excitements and youth. The war and isolation due to illness that struck me made it impossible to even sniff the city of Sisak. After 13 long years, happy circumstances in my life put me in position of saying goodbye to isolation and disease, and war was also already long behind us. It seemed like a fairy tale when spoken aloud. But the story is different. The city was destroyed. Earlier, people had been breathing hardly because of the large industry and pollution. Now they have been hardly breathing because there was nothing. Eager for sunshine and getting to know the city, I could now only explore human depression and emptiness of a plucked city. I only knew how to … leave.
In this video performance I imaginary come back to Sisak. I try to deal with the city and my personal history after years of absence.
City of Sisak could be any city.
Lying for years due to illness isolated from people, the world, the city
must be the same in any city?
To stand up after a long illness
still I believe cannot be the same in any city.
City of Sisak. It had no air. I did not breathe with it.
I went away from it, I ran …
To search for other cities. That breathe. Or with whom I breathe.
By mistake I took anger with me.
Anger for not knowing how to change the cities that do not breathe.
So for a moment I reappeared.
I was hitting the walls that echoed, and the city yelled through my ears.
And I still do not know how to help it, how to breathe with it.
I’m leaving. Again.
3rd award at The annual exhibition of contemporary art at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Croatia
From the 172 works submitted this year to the competition, an international expert committee (consisting of MSc Snjezana Pintaric, president of the professional committee, director of the Museum and Museum Advisor, Rainald Schumacher, curator, Office for Art, Berlin; Marco Scotini, independent curator, Milan; guest profesor Sandra Vitaljić, photographer, Academy of Dramatic Arts, Zagreb, Nataša Ivancevic, museum advisor, assistant Director and head of collections and collections of sculptures MSU) has selected 35 of them, with the three invited artists it makes the total number of 38 artists who will present recent works in MSU until 26 March 2016.
Photographs from the video shooting location:
Press clipping
MSU.hr – Winners of annual award THT@MSU
Nights of performance arts, 2016.: Beograd, Rijeka, Split, Dubrovnik
premiere: 12.11.2015., 20h
performances:
13.11.2015. u 20h
14.11.2015. u 20h
Authors: Maja Drobac, Vesna Mačković Performers: Maja Drobac, Vesna Mačković, Marino Frankola Music: Ana Horvat, Konrad Mulvaj Costumes: Diana Mihalić (Diplomski studij kostimografije, Tekstilno-tehnološki fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, student) Costume mentor: doc.dr.art. Ivana Bakal Making of costumes and dolls: Diana Mihalić Scenography: Denis Rubinić Light design: Marino Frankola Texts: Maja Drobac, Vesna Mačković Photography: Ivana Cesarec Hair style: Ivana Brckan (Seraphine frizerski studio) Graphic design: Dean Bertoldi Technical support: Duško Richtermoc
Financial support: Gradski ured za kulturu, obrazovanje i šport Grada Zagreba i Ministarstvo kulture Republike Hrvatske / Office for Culture, Education and Sport and The Ministry of Culture of the Republic Croatia
“The obscuring or embellishing of the truth of a situation with misleading or irrelevant information.”
In the house where nobody lives, one person composes. On her own little piano, surrounded by rag dolls. In the house where nobody lives, reside two ghosts. Buried under dust of texts and years of stillness.
In the house where nobody lives, authors investigate correlations between text and movement through physical and non-physical, movable and static, reflection of visible and invisible.
The performance is inspired by Marko Grobenski‘s photographs from the opus “House where nobody lives”.
Premiere: 23.5.2015., Zagreb dance center, Croatia
Author and choreographer: Molly Fletcher Lynch
Dancers: Ida Jolić, Rina Kotur, Stošija Zrinski, Vanja Jarni
Text and voice: Vesna Mačković
Non-linear stories exploring partial understanding. We will question our perception of what is whole and why we assume understanding based on fragments of information. How quickly one can draw up assumptions of a person walking by, a place we’ve never been, and what some future experience will be like. Four dancers will use movement derived from personal inquiry and explore how expectations, even of the smallest scale, meet actuality.
We are always partially in the dark.
Premiere: Pogon JEDINSTVO, Zagreb, Croatia | velika dvorana | 19.3.2015.
Author of the project: Boris Bakal
Performers and associates:
Nikolina Butorac (visual artist),
Dora Kokolj (dancer, art historian),
Nikolina Komljenović (dancer, choreographer, acrobat),
Vesna Mačković (dancer, actress),
Nikša Marinović (actor, musician, composer),
Veno Mušinović (philosopher, movie director),
Anja Pletikosa (dramaturgy),
Leo Vukelić (scenografy, theatre producer, performer, electrotechnician);
with support of Ivana Bakal (intermedial artist, costume designer) and Sandra Uskoković (art historian).
Urban Hum is a multidisciplinary platform with the goal of critical thinking presentation, preservation and interpretation of urban, public spaces in the region. Our mission connects us to each other with our different histories, playing (former) multi-cultural nation. Our goal is to transform the local community from the places in which we live into a place that we love and understand – together. Partners on the project URBAN HUM are: Association of Shadow Casters, Croatia (project leader); The Association for Culture and Art FRU, Macedonia; REX Cultural Centre, Serbia; Qendra Multimedia, Kosovo; Expeditio, Montenegro.
This dance and multimedia performance explores the connection between the inner and outer body of a performer while it attempts to define, and even question, these abstract categories. The manners in which the two communicate, interfere, annul but also complement each other. Thus the performer will be dancing with words, with her writing of dance and dance’s sound. In that manner she will attempt to construct a new body of Music and Light.
There are seven intensities in the material through which the author translated all the elements of the material acting into a sphere of dance. Thus intensities become the stations of the author’s facing her own limitations, the areas of her intimate resistance in which she as an author is inviting us to share with her the possibility of our own transformation.
Booklet of poetry which is performed in the show can be ordered in croatian or english version at the price of 20kn or 2,60 €. You can get it in Zagreb or you can have it delivered by post at shipping price depending on country of delivery (Croatia 25kn, other countries cca. 3-5€). If you wish to make an order please contact 00 385 99 20 40 40 or email info @ vesnamackovic.com (remove spaces before and after @).
Premiere: 21. 12. 2014., library “Bogdan Ogrizović”, Zagreb, Croatia.
Performances:
31.1.2015.
1.2.2015.
library “Bogdan Ogrizović”, Zagreb, Croatia.
Inicial concept: Boris Bakal
Dramaturgy: Anja Pletikosa
Performers: Boris Bakal, Nikolina Butorac, Dora Kokolj, Nikolina Komljenović, Vesna Mačković, Nikša Marinović, Jelena Mesar, Veno Mušinović, Anja Pletikosa, Leo Vukelić
Urban Hum is a multidisciplinary platform with the goal of critical thinking presentation, preservation and interpretation of urban, public spaces in the region. Our mission connects us to each other with our different histories, playing (former) multi-cultural nation. Our goal is to transform the local community from the places in which we live into a place that we love and understand – together. Partners on the project URBAN HUM are: Association of Shadow Casters, Croatia (project leader); The Association for Culture and Art FRU, Macedonia; REX Cultural Centre, Serbia; Qendra Multimedia, Kosovo; Expeditio, Montenegro.
Premiere: 31.5.2014., Zagreb, Croatia, Zagreb dance center
4.6.2014. Rijeka, Croatia, Filodrammatica
26.2.2015., Athens, Greece, Onasis culture centre (Unlimited access festival)
18.10.2015. Zagreb, Zagreb dance center, mini festival ‘Inclusive scenes’
26.3.2016. Rijeka, Hrvatski kulturni dom na Sušaku, festival ‘Inclusive scenes’
Concept and chorography: Iva Nerina Sibila in cooperation with Silvija Marchig and Vesna Mačković
Performers: Vesna Mačković, Silvija Marchig
The Magnolia (In Defiance) duet is the first full-length work by the IMRC collective. The idea of the performance stems from the textual and visual designs of Vesna Mačković for an imaginary play „Nepokretne“. The performers develop the themes of mobility and imobility, the ecstatic dance and the imposed stillness, as well as the transposition of these categories into the more intimate zones of memory, bodily imagination and transgression of identity, within their respective, autonomous zones. In addition to the emotional and the visceral, through acknowledgement and support their bodies come together as one.
The dedication to dance introspection
Vesna Mačković
I spend my life loving solitude. In psychology, the arts and elsewhere this love has been named – they call it introspection.
Every day a healthy dose of solitude. Every day immersion in your own mind and emotions. Painful or sweet – depending on the day. So the rest of the day, out of introspection, could be devoted to the written word, color, sound, movement.
Introspection, the opposite of external observation, too often fools me. Succeeds to regularly and immaculately convince me I possess knowledge of who I am, what I make and how.
Magnolia (or defiance) has taught me to question my solitude, introspective vanity and arrogance. Blind belief which is engraved in me as some postulate that at that moment when I reach for artistic tools (pen, brush, sound, step) I close my eyes, I know how to and I can – do everything.
Fed by poetry of Marina Gynt, Kazuo Ohno’s videos and numerous brainstorming sessions with Nerina and Silvija, going outs into improvisational introspection were marked with increasingly opened eyes each subsequent rehearsal. After weeks of work, I put away my pen and brush, and I signed a pact with introspection that my performative body would walk the stage, dance, and let its voice out with eyes wide open. I wrote with my feet, painted with my whole body. Coming back regularly to myself, reflecting on the day, week or month filled with work, I realized that the new face of introspection is not extinguishing in its strength. It is not extinguishing in me and it is not extinguishing in my creative expression. Encroachment in myself, in what movement means to me, in what were Kazuo, magnolia, defiance leading me to, that opening of all of my eyes and finally also those that physically see, brought only reinforcement of my confidence. Introspectively I grabbed deeper and wider and threw out all the more. The eyelids, raised or lowered, it was all the same.
I wondered whether creative, artistic introspection can be too deep. Fearful of becoming too personal I delibarately put a STOP sign on some moves, some motives, some glances into the audience. When I would relax in improvisation because my time at rehearsal would allow it, because we were interested in finding out what indulging of inexperienced dancing body can bring outwards, something happened that naively I did not anticipate. Improspections emerging too deep, caused the cracking at some internal stone walls, which otherwise I would not see in myself for too long, if ever. Luckily, some natural inclination to performative expression made each tear, laughter, word and song that came out of me, to be contextualized and inserted within the sequence of movements. By repeating and practicing such sequences originated some dance images that I will forever remember as a self-born, untaught.
Premiere: 14.3.2014., Pogon Jedinstvo, Zagreb, Croatia
Performances: 15. i 16.3.2014.
Project named ‘LITTLE MAN WANTS TO CROSS THE LINE’ (LMWCL) was inspired by a cult Yugoslav new wave album ‘Paket aranžman’. This performance tried to question whether pop music is able to make social changes possible. We live in a capitalist society where music, even the one created over 30 years ago, is not treated as a public and cultural good. The text in this performance was not spoken but sung. Thirty people in the performing collective joined together professionals and amateurs – deprived members of the Croatian society: Old People, Dykes, Workers, Serbians, Women, Blacks… They were all united in the ‘’Choir of Little People” creating a new meaning for the empty phrase ‘little man’.