CHOREOGRAPHY
Magdalena Reiter
PERFORMED BY
Ana Vnučec, Dina Ekštajn,
Martina Tomić, Ana Mrak,
Ida Jolić i Una Štalcar Furač
DRAMATURGY
Vedrana Klepica
MUSIC
Nenad i Alen Sinkauz
LIGHT DESIGN
Marino Frankola
COSTUME DESIGN
Ana Savić Gecan
STAGE DESIGN
Andrej Rutaj
CHOREOGRAPHY ASSISTANT
Lada Petrovski Ternovšek
PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEO
Neven Petrović
PUBLIC RELATIONS
Nina Kunek
PRODUCTION
Studio Contemporary Dance Company in coproduction with Mirabelka Productions and Zagreb Dance Center within its 2019. artist in residence program
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Bosiljka Vujović-Mažuran
PRODUCER
Branko Banković
PARTNERS
Zavod Bunker / Ljubljana, Dance Week Festival / HIPP
PREVIEW
Preview 04.06.2019. ZPC
PREMIÈRE
Premiere 05.06.2019. ZPC
The performance has been supported by the Zagreb City Office for Culture, Croatian Ministry of Culture and the City of Ljubljana
Conversation Pieces – trailer by Neven Petrovic on Vimeo.
ABOUT PERFORMANCE
Standing off to one side. Seeing only the world in fragments, there won’t be any other one. Moments, crumbs, fleeting configurations – no sooner have they come into existence than they fall to pieces. Life? There’s no such thing; I see lines, planes and bodies, and their transformations in time.
Olga Tokarczuk, Bieguni (Flight)
John Berger once said that the way we look at a piece of art is determined by a series of assumptions: about beauty, truth, civilisation, form, status, and taste.
With this in mind, the matter of modern dance seems even more volatile, evasive, incomprehensible, especially if it does not rely on description, on an imaginative framework to mould and shape the body, but on the body itself and its own possibilities of interpretation. This is why Magdalena Reiter calls her new performance Conversation Pieces. She does not rely on any predefined conversation subject – whether it takes place between the choreographer and the dancer or between the dancer and the audience. Her primary focus is on (female) bodies and their own monologues. Their exhaustion, limitations, spatial relations, one isolated body in a group of bodies as well as in space and time.
And even more importantly, the structure of her choreographic expression creates visual references to the perceptions of the female body that always evade clear interpretation. These references stem from the collective memory of the history of art, sculpture in particular, of the complexity and refinement of the body. Yet these references disintegrate all too quickly, before they develop. They provoke with their fluidity and unmet expectations about how a female body should move and behave on stage. Body is approached in a laboratory-like fashion. It’s all about anatomy, about the basic elements. A movement that at one moment seems sensual disintegrates into a skeleton, flesh, and skin. On stage, the bodies often move without one of the extremities, which is hidden or immobilised. The movement becomes funny and painful at the same time. Its flow saturated and blocked by repetitiveness. The cracks opening up through destruction, analysis, and redefinition of body as imperfect and unexpected provide a glimpse of criticism of how we perceive female body on stage, but also of self-perception, of self-awareness and the resulting behaviour. Through these cracks we are given the chance to change our understanding of the body as best as each of us can.
Vedrana Klepica
ABOUT AUTHOR
Magdalena Reiter is a Polish choreographer, dancer, and teacher, who works and lives in Slovenia. She graduated from the National School of Ballet in Gdansk, Poland, and the contemporary dance school Performing Arts Research and Training Studios. She choreographed over 15 shows in her own production or as commissioned pieces (for the Polish dance theatre Poznan Ballet, Bodhi Project SEAD dance ensemble, Anton Podbevšek Theatre, and Plesna Izba Maribor). She has received an international jury award for the best performance on the 2nd Slovene Dance Festival and an award for the best performance at the 8th Sarajevo Teaterfest. Her performances have been staged in several European countries. She choreographed a number of plays (with Mateja Koležnik, De Tijd, Janez Burger, Matjaž Berger, etc.) and opera productions (Flemish opera with Joachim Brackx, Flying Dutchman in Cankarjev Dom, Ljubljana, Slovenia) and collaborated as a movement consultant in films (Tiha sonata and VAN by Janez Burger).
Magdalena has performed in her own and other peoples’ choreographies and worked with other directors (Dada von Bzdülöw, Johanne Saunier, Mateja Bučar, Matjaž Farič, Matjaž Berger, etc.). She gives workshops and lectures, and mentors. She has taught in Slovenia, Austria (SEAD), France, Poland, Belgium and Croatia, to name a few places. Magdalena has also founded and has been the art director of VIBRA – The International Summer Dance Workshops in Ljubljana, as well as of Mirabelka Productions.
