Marc Augé: In Praise of the Bicycle
Translation: Sonja Dular

Cycling protests in Ljubljana (and sporadically throughout Slovenia) have been ongoing for more than a year. For practical reasons, during the protests, the bicycle has turned into a political symbol, even a symbol of anti-fascism. Arbitrary or not, we will discuss these symbols, strategies, successes and failures of the ongoing protest movement with Tjaša Pureber, author of foreword of the book In Praise to the Bicycle, Janez Janša, editor of the book, and Miha Zadnikar, an active participant in the protests. The discussion will be moderated by Aleš Mendiževec.

Accompanied by the video installation In Praise of the Bicycle, anthropologist Marc Augé’s In Praise of the Bicycle restores the bicycle to its utopianism, at a time of a renewed enthusiasm for cycling. We are all cycling again, and this time, with purpose. The mythology of the bicycle seems all the more real today. This short video presents three key dimensions of the relationship to the bicycle: the personal relationship of the individual, the urban influence and the mythology of sport. (The idea of healthy living has been deliberately nipped in the bud.)

Video: Asiana Jurca Avci
Concept: Aleš Mendiževec

Alja Tkachev, Actress with a pencil
Selected diaries (1962-1991)
Edited by Nela Malečkar (MK) and Primož Jesenko (SLOGI)

The book The Actress with a Pencil, a selection from the diaries of Alja Tkachev (1962-1991), co-published by the Slovenian Theatre Institute and Mladinsko books, offers an insightful look into the diaristic prose of Alja Tkachev, a remarkable actor, poet, puppeteer, translator, playwright and pedagogue, who was one of the first outstanding actresses of the Mladinsko Theatre and later the driving force behind several theatre companies outside the institution. The conversation with guests Vinko Möderndorfer, Nina Skrbinšek and Maruša Oblak, close collaborators of Alja Tkačev, will also be accompanied by some excerpts from the diaries.

The meeting of theatre and politics in Alain Badiou’s Seven points in his Rhapsody for the Theatre
Translation: Katja Zakrajšek
Foreword by Mladen Dolar

Three relationships between the author, politics and the theatre of three seemingly congruent persons who, with their stasis, age and degrees of urbanity, bring their own points of view, present them and by no means impose them. We show the diffusion of the three super-meanings and their interdependence with all the matching and conflicting forces. Three studious performers, two students of theatre and an established actor bring a peculiar post festum feeling to the reading of this unusual literature and add to the meaning of rhapsodic with their different impressions. The latter is also the central motif of the performative staging, which goes beyond the limits of the classical reading performance of theoretical texts.

Concept and direction by Aljoša Živadinov Zupančič and Nika Korenjak
Costume design: Dajana Ljubičić
Visuals by Asiana Jurca Avci
Branko Jordan (MGL), Maks Dakskobler and Mak Tepšić (AGRFT)

Community of emancipated minds and bodies 2
Methodologies of recording Slovenian contemporary dance artists

Since 2013, the project Methodologies of Recording has been systematically focusing on the documentation of choreographic practices of Slovenian female dance artists. The main form of this notation in the past years has been a live interview between a selected choreographer and a dance theorist or critic. The results of this practice have been articles that have made a historical overview of the choreographer’s practice with some focus on the subject and content of her choreographic works. Thus far, 17 choreographic practices have been recorded and a part of them has been included in the first part of the book A Community of Emancipated Minds and Bodies, published in 2018. Based on the interviews and newly composed articles that have been conducted but not yet published, we will publish the second part of the book Community of Emancipated Minds and Bodies in 2021. At the book = event we will present one of the articles of the book in progress, namely the contribution by Pia Brezavšček, who analyses the choreography of Andrea Rauch Podrzavnik as an affirmation of neglected potentialities of the body. The article describes the work of the Slovenian choreographer through two formats. The first one, called ‘choreographic glossary’, was created as a reworking of a series of conversations that started between the author and the choreographer in 2015. In the second part of the article, the author and the choreographer present an inventory of the background and background of several of the choreographer’s projects, as well as the critical reactions that her more than twenty years of professional work have brought.

The event was also accompanied by Barcaffé.