SHOWCASE MEKI RITUALI (SOFT RITUALS)
The SHOWCASE of the Belgrade Dance Institute will be held at the Belgrade City Museum (Resavska 40B) from March 6th to 8th, from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm.
This year’s Showcase is held under the slogan Meki Rituali (Soft Rituals), and it will present works by undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students of the Institute, created under the guidance of Prof. Dijana Milošević, Prof. dr Snežana Arnautović Stjepanović, Ognjen Vučinić, and Doc. Katarina Bućić. The works that will be presented are in the form of choreographies, multimedia installations, video works, performances, and photographs. An important part of this exhibition is the display of posters of the Institute’s final performances since its founding in 2014.
The project is realized thanks to the support of the Belgrade City Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Cultural Center of Belgrade, DAH Theatre, the School of Engineering Management, Nela Antonović, and Isajlo Marić.
SOFTNESS AND PROVOCATIVENESS OF PERSONAL AND SOCIAL RITUALS
The common denominator of the works presented at this year’s Showcase is the somewhat surprising and subtle quality of softness and tenderness, which is contrasted with the sharpness of questions raised about the meaning of creation within imposed limitations, whether resulting from societal or personal limitations.
The softness has determined the form of the works themselves, which are often changeable, where a performance spills over into a video, and a theatrical form transforms into a performance. A careful choreography of the video is initiated by the sound space, where the sound is transformed into an image.
In our contemporary moment, where we witness growing harshness, conflict, and often violence, the need to explore the space of newly established tenderness speaks to the power of art to create a counterbalance, to illuminate those aspects of our lives that will help us transform that darkness into new, driving energy. These works seem to have arisen from a contemplation of the meanings created by the interweaving of light and shadow. In this case, we can say that the shadow has produced the need for light, which is manifested in the exploration of softness and tenderness – of bodies, thoughts, actions.
The themes of the works range from the exploration of personal safe spaces that produce inner peace, feminine inner strength and body beauty, enjoyment of the softness of body shapes, which are sometimes bare and sometimes covered in glittering powder, the softness of baby skin accompanied by the rhythm of a heartbeat, exploration of emotions of security, happiness, joy, comfort, provoking a calming, meditative effect.
In contrast to this quality are personal and social rituals, which, in addition to producing feelings of softness and freedom, also evoke internal noise or claustrophobia, a sense of limitation and loss, as in the case of measures taken due to the pandemic or the difficult phenomenon of baby theft.
The works intertwine personal and social, offering us a new, different perspective on the time in which we live.
Prof. Dijana Milošević
Admission to the museum is free for all three days.
Welcome!
