FEMINE
The performance Femine is a contemporary dance show produced by the Belgrade Dance Institute, as part of the authorial project by dancer Mojca Majcen 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 choreography of the show was created by Rita Gobi (Hungary) and Alexandra Madsen (Croatia). The project also serves as the final performance for the students of the Belgrade Dance Institute.
The premiere of the dance performance is scheduled for June 29th, 2023, at the Cultural Station Barka in Novi Sad, starting at 7:00 PM, and on June 30th, 2023, at the Madlenianum Theater and Opera in Belgrade, also starting at 7:00 PM.
The Femine project represents a meeting of two choreographers whose roots come from Serbia.
The dance interplay between the choreographers and their mutual dance dialogues are presented in a contemporary form of an interconnected diptych called Femine for 5 young dancers who assume a single identity; the identity of young artists and promoters of the young contemporary dance scene in both Serbia and Slovenia.
Each of the choreographers, at some point, has been confronted with the influence of the concept of boundaries in an active relationship with time. They have experienced the fragmentation and transformation of personal and cultural identity, encountering the concept of absurdity at various levels of existence. At some point, through the feeling of their own displacement, both internally and externally, they have embraced this mechanism as both hope and absurdity.
Choreographers:
Rita Gobi and Alexandra Madsen
Choreography Assistants: Ognjen Vučinić, Mojca Majcen
Music concept and original music: David Nik Lipovac
Costume: SvarogArt
Dancers: Katarina Bućić, Tijana Ostojić, Patricija Crnković (SLO), Tjaša Bucik (SLO), and Neža Banovec (SLO)
Photography: Luka Stojković
Design: Teodora Živković
RITA GOBI
Choreography: LINK-CHAIN
As one link in the chain, an individual is connected to the community. The performance explores what it means to live in a community, what it means to be one of many interconnected links. Why does an individual strive to find a community? Why does a community accept some and exclude others? Do we want to live in a community out of selfishness or altruism? How much courage is needed to be the weakest link?
RITA GOBI is a Hungarian choreographer, contemporary dance educator, and dancer. She was born in Novi Sad and graduated from the Hungarian Dance Academy in Budapest. She has participated in various international dance workshops and residency programs such as the OMI DANCE Residency based in the United States, VARP residency at SE.S.TA-Korespon Dance in the Czech Republic, and Morishita Studio in Tokyo under the Japan Foundation. In 2006, she founded the Góbi Dance Company. Since then, she has created several contemporary dance productions, interactive performances for children, and has been involved in various interdisciplinary projects (exhibition openings, fashion shows, etc.). In recent years, Rita has collaborated with artists abroad and has toured the world with her performances. Her solo piece “Volitant” has received several domestic and international awards, and she presented the same piece at the Sola Festival at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade in 2022. She is a dance professor at the Nemes Nagy Ágnes Art School and regularly conducts workshops in Hungary and abroad at various festivals. She also works as a guest choreographer in puppet theaters and movement theaters, collaborating with actors.
ALEXANDRA MADSEN
Choreography: Wegsittudrlifk
This choreography arises from the exploration of meaning and nonsense in movement and structure. The primary tool of exploration is improvisation through which the performers discover movements that are not pre-refined or assigned as a bodily language.
This vocabulary is established through the active production of contrasts to what is considered to “make sense.” In this way, the deconstruction of the perception of movement as a whole is provoked, and the fragmented execution avoids content that can be recognized as movement-meaning, kinesthetic coherence, or aesthetic elements.
By avoiding meaningful connections in the production of the vocabulary, the choreography simultaneously questions the notion of presumed meaning and expectations in performance. Thus, the principle of nonsense establishes the vocabulary and structure of the performance. Nonsense is not attempted to be “made sense of,” but rather assumes a bodily and performative axiom. This allows both the body and structure to return to examining fundamental motivations for movement and 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 an aesthetic experience. By avoiding “meaning” and deliberately contrasting the performative nonsense, the performers generate choreographic material that fluctuates on the border between absurdity and hope.
ALEXANDRA MADSEN graduated in Performance Dramaturgy and completed her BA studies in Contemporary Dance – Teaching Track at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. She furthered her training in Croatia and abroad with renowned dance educators in various dance practices (Laban Center London, ImPulsTanz). She was a permanent member of the Zagreb Dance Ensemble (2009-2016), collaborating with numerous international choreographers. Simultaneously, she developed her own artistic practice, exploring extended forms of performance works and choreography, and co-founded the artistic organization MasaDanceCompany with Ognjen Vučinić. As an author, she has created numerous notable performances: TI, ONA, RAVE (ON)! She received the Croatian Theatre Award in 2014 for Best Dance Achievement in the production “Hermafroditi duše” by Žak Valenta. As a choreographer, she received the “Award for Most Promising Young Choreographer” in 2004, the “Critics’ Award at the Festival of Choreographic Miniatures” in 2011 in Belgrade, and the Grand Prix at the 6th International Contemporary Dance Festival in Algeria for the performance “TI” co-authored with Vučinić. As a dance educator, she teaches in Croatia and abroad, instructing contemporary dance, partnering, and improvisation. She also works as a teacher at the Contemporary Dance High School of the Franjo Lučić Art School in Velika Gorica, collaborates with the Institute for Artistic Dance in Belgrade, and with the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb in the Contemporary Dance Studies. She is a member of the Union of Writers and Performers of Performing Arts and the President of the Board of the Croatian Dance Artists Association. She lives and works in Zagreb.
