Festival performansa 2023

Curators: Urška Brodar, Katarina Stegnar
Artists: Olja Grubić, Barbara Kukovec, Daniel Petković, Luka Martin Škof, Nataša Živković
Production: Nova pošta (Maska Ljubljana in Slovensko mladinsko gledališče)

Tell me what worries you and I’ll tell you who you are.

The 3rd Performance Festival stays true to its basic principles. The curators (in Latin, curare means “to care for”) Urška Brodar and Katarina Stegnar invited five artists to work collectively. The newly formed temporary community tackled the theme of care through different optics and performative practices. The project was inspired by Bojana Kunst’s book The Life of Art: Cross Lines of Care published by Maska, a work about the difficulties art has with care. The New Post Office produces a variety of art formats: from work brigade to travelogue, splash mob, immersive installation, and fairy tale lessons. Olja Grubić, Barbara Kukovec, Daniel Petković, Luka Martin Škof, and Nataša Živković will take care of you.

Programme

Wednesday, 14.6.2023

18.00 / Nova pošta / Daniel Petković: Wind in the wings
19.30 / Nova pošta / Barbara Kukovec: Sweet worries
20.30/ Nova pošta / Luka Martin Škof: The Beljak Stage

Thursday, 15.6.2023

18.00 / Tivolska 44, 1000 Ljubljana / Splash mop: Vergangenheitsbewältigung
19.30 / Nova pošta / Barbara Kukovec: Sweet worries
20.00 / Nova pošta / Nataša Živković: De mortuis nihil nisi bonum (Of the dead nothing but good is to be said)

About the Performances

Daniel Petković: Wind in your wings

In this afternoon workshop we will work on wings, big, shiny, fluttering wings.

Our youngest ones have shown us the path we have already strayed from. Following their instructions, we will learn to turn into the wind, fish in the mud, and spit in our own bowls. The transformative event will start with a sewing workshop and end on a field.

Let’s allow ourselves to be wild, to perceive the environment not only with our visual apparatus but also with our other senses. We will not escape from reality by flying, we will only take a short break and get some fresh air, and each time we will land on solid ground.

Let your honest, unencumbered, and unpretentious child fly …

Barbara Kukovec: Sweet worries

The beauty of Slovenia’s landscape is enchanting to many. Densely planted churches stab the sky with their turrets like pointed spikes. Farmers work the land, and kitchens smell of potica (traditional walnut roll) made according to carefully guarded recipes.

Then the doorbell rings and there stands a short woman carrying a box. She invites you to feel what’s inside. You do so and touch her bare breasts.

What if Valie Export had performed this in the Slovenian countryside in the 1970s? In our backyard? What if Bobby Baker had performed his cooking shows in our home kitchens every month from the 1990s onwards? What if Carolee Schneemann had pulled a leaf out of her crotch to read her story in the village cultural centre?

Would the kitchens still smell so sweetly of potica?

Luka Martin Škof: The Beljak Stage

Škof has recommitted himself to women’s emancipation. He buckled under the great intentions that the Performance Festival had for him, failed, then agreed: he was going to go on a journey, the last of its kind. The only and final one. He will be accompanied by initiators, censors, curators, cheerleaders, feminists, admirers, lovers, and nurturers. And Dani. All the way! They convinced him by presenting the whole story as a heroic sacrifice for the country, for society, for the female body, for the bright future of the nation, for pleasure. And how, I ask you, could such a hero resist such heroism? No way. Come! To an unforgettable story of an irreversible act.

Splash mop: Vergangenheitsbewältigung

What is caring and how do we care?
Who cares about the art scene?
What kind of space are we leaving for future generations?
Why do we as a society always fall short when we are supposed to excel?
Can we cleanse a space of its past?
How can we live with collective guilt?
Can we establish art spaces as safe spaces?
Can we ever clean something that is so dirty?

Nataša Živković: De mortuis nihil nisi bonum

When we bury someone, we sometimes have the illusion that they have come back to life in front of us. The corpse stands up and smiles: don’t worry, I’ll always be with you. For ever and ever.

We will say goodbye to the tired body of an institution that was born of an idea on 7 July 2011 and died by decision on 23 August 2012. Our baby was barely a year old. We never buried it in peace. Perhaps that is why it haunts us and wanders around, from office to office, from drawer to drawer. It has no peace and cannot get up again. Therefore, it deserves a decent burial.

Rise from your own ashes and be reborn as a beautiful dancing phoenix!

Mourning voice: Tea Vidmar

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.