20th INTERNATIONAL COMICS SALON
The Jubilee, 20th International Comics Salon will be ceremoniously opened on September 28th, 2023, at 7:00 PM in the Great Hall of the Student Cultural Center in Belgrade. The International Comics Salon is a festival of the ninth art organized and managed by the Happy Gallery of the Student Cultural Center in Belgrade as part of its regular editorial program. The Salon is the most extensive and largest comic event in Serbia and one of the most significant showcases of the ninth art in the region.
The festival will be opened by a choreography by the Belgrade Dance Institute, Wegsittudrlifk featuring guest professor Alexandra Madsen from Croatia. The choreography is part of the dance performance Femine produced by the Belgrade Dance Institute as part of dancer Mojca Majcen’s authorial project in collaboration with the Balkan Dance Project. The project is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, the Secretariat for Culture of the City of Belgrade, and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia.
The performance is performed by Doc. Katarina Bućić and Tijana Ostojić from the Belgrade Dance Institute. Assistant choreographer is Professor Ognjen Vučinić. The costume for the performance was created by SvarogArt.
As a traditional event, the Salon is held every year from Thursday to Sunday during the last week of September in all spaces of the Student Cultural Center. Through its exhibition and educational programs, the Salon is conceptually based on: an international competition for authors of all ages from around the world, the presence of the most relevant world comic authors, the reevaluation of domestic comic creation from its beginnings to the present day, the promotion of domestic comic publishing, the promotion of young authors, and the popularization of comics and related forms such as animated film and illustration.
Wegsittudrlifk
This choreography stems from the exploration of meaning and nonsense in movement and structure. The primary tool of exploration is improvisation through which performers discover movements that are not pre-refined or prescribed as bodily language.
This vocabulary is established through the active production of opposites to what is considered to “make sense.” In this way, deconstruction of the view of the entire movement and the fragmentary performance is provoked, avoiding content that can be recognized as movement – meaning, kinesthetic meaning, or aesthetic element of movement.
As a result of avoiding meaningful connections in the production of vocabulary, this choreography simultaneously questions the assumption of meaning and expectation in performance. Thus, the principle of nonsense establishes vocabulary and performance structure. Nonsense is not attempted to be “made sense of” but rather assumed as a bodily and performance axiom. This way, both the body and structure return to the examination of fundamental motivations for movement, as well as the production of meaning.
Unlike purely abstract movement, which touches more on the visual aspect of performance, this choreography emphasizes anticipation as the foundation for aesthetic experience. By avoiding “sense” and conscious contrast in performative nonsense, performers produce choreographic material that fluctuates on the border between absurdity and hope.