Movements in Contemporary dance I
The last double issue of Maska in 2013 is almost entirely dedicated to dance. The first conversations about the plight of contemporary dance started within the current Maska editorial team as early as March 2012, then almost exactly a year ago the first drafts for the current issue were written, and the decision was made to treat contemporary dance issues in a thorough and systematic way. Through long and highly inspiring conversations with members of the editorial team and our friends Rok Vevar and Andrea Kopač, the focus of our thinking, understanding and reading of dance through social contexts gradually crystallised. We set ourselves the ambitious task of mapping out views of contemporary dance from different perspectives: historical, educational, infrastructural, performative, curatorial, production, theoretical, conceptual, interpretative…, rhizomatically embedded in inter-genre and international transitions. The commissioning of articles and the intensive work with the authors accumulated so much material that I was forced to divide and expand it into two double issues.
Year XXVIII, no. 157–158 (autumn 2013)
Editor in chief: Amelia Kraigher
ISSN 1318-0509
Inside
The current issue opens with two excellent papers from the international conference “Electronic Literature and New Media Art”, which we are publishing in Maska under the umbrella title “New Media Politics”. The thematic pages this time bring an overview article by Andrea Kopač on the problems of dance notation over time, an interview with Ingo Diehl, programme manager of the extensive and comprehensive educational programme Tanzplan Deutschland (2005-2010), a study by Katja Legin on autonomous dance practices and studio dance making, which do not necessarily result in finished productions or performances, and represent a kind of continuation of the American dance avant-gardes of the 1960s. In the Slovenian space, such research practices are nowadays intensively pursued by various artists, such as Jurij Konjar, Mala Kline, Tomi Janežič and Gregor Kamnikar; their work, which cannot even be encapsulated in the tender forms for the co-financing of cultural projects and programmes of municipalities, the state and the European Union, remains largely unreflected, poorly researched and undescribed. Stefan Apostolou-Hölscher’s and Danae Theodoridou’s contributions are related to similar issues. Both authors focus on possible alternatives to contemporary production conditions and processes otherwise dictated by neoliberal capital relations. Theoretical reflections on alternative artistic strategies such as everybodystoolbox and Performing Arts Forum, and the Brouillon project by French dancer and choreographer Boris Charmatz of the Musée de la danse affirm distinctly open, new, participatory models of production and curating. Our final section, Criticism without adjectives, this time brings reviews of two excellent books: A Choreographer’s Score by Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and dance theorist and musicologist Bojana Cvejić’s Parallel Slalom, a collection of four early choreographies by one of the most referenced contemporary dance companies, Rosas, edited by Bojana Cvejić and Goran Sergej Pristaš, brings together a series of essays by very different authors, artists and theoreticians, who reflect on the possible emancipatory strategies of dance over time, using a number of examples of Eastern European experimental artistic practices.
Contents
INTRODUCTION
Amelia Kraigher: Shifts in Contemporary Dance?
NEW MEDIA POLICIES
Beat Suter: “A BIG BROTHER IS REALLY LOOKING AT YOU!”
Saskia Isabella Maria Korsten: REVERSE REMEDIATION
SHIFTS IN CONTEMPORARY DANCE I
Andreja Kopač: MOVING TUESDAY – WRITE DANCE
Jedrt Jež Furlan: “IF YOU FIND ONE POLITICIAN AND TALK TO HIM ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF DANCE FOR THE ENTIRE SOCIETY, YOU HAVE ALREADY DONE A LOT.” Interview with Ingo Diehl
Stefan Apostolou-Hölscher: EXODUS AND THE ART OF REPRESENTATION
Katja Legin: AUTONOMOUS ART PRACTICES AND RESEARCH
Danae Theodoridou: BROUILLON: SKETCHES OF MOVING WITH OTHERS
CRITICISM WITHOUT ADJECTIVES
Katja Čičigoj: HOW TO TAKE A DANCE FOR A DANCE
Nika Arhar: A CHOREOGRAPHY OF DISSONANT VOICES