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Čtyři dny | Four days

Janez Janša & Iztok Kovač (SL)

Falcon!

/ Dance
  • Wednesday Oct 15 / 19:30, Archa Theatre
    / The evening includes two performances.
Price: 320 CZK / 270 CZK

The 1991 performance How I Caught a Falcon, a pioneering work by choreographer Iztok Kovač, laid the foundations for modern Slovenian dance.

The cult poetic solo in which Kovač danced in an almost supernaturally beautiful manner, revealed the magical relationship between the body, movement, light, and space; the performance became a symbol for the new artistic style that took the European dance scene by storm just before the outbreak of the bloody Yugoslav wars.

More than 20 years later, Kovač can look at his groundbreaking performance with a sense of objectivity. The new performance, Falcon!, which he created in collaboration with director Janez Janša, asks different questions. No artist has to retire before age 50 – except for the dancer, whose body becomes cruelly unwanted much earlier. In his latest performance, Kovač appears onstage at age 51; Janša is 50. Together with their guest performers, they answer they answer the question as to what draws them onto the stage at their mature age and what their dance might look like… In its review, The Independent called Kovač a “bolt of energy”, while another reviewer praises the humor that you won’t find so easily among young dancers…

EN-KNAP is a dance ensemble and production company founded in 1993 by Iztok Kovač after the success of the solo piece How I Caught a Falcon. Since that time, he has continued develop his choreographic and dance vocabulary. After 14 years of working on his own projects, in 2007 he founded the international repertoire troupe EnKnapGroup, the first permanent modern dance ensemble in Slovenian history. Two years later, Kovač – who has won numerous Slovenian and foreign awards – was named artistic director of the Španski Borci cultural center. In his career, he has created 30 original projects and 5 dance films and has turned En-Knap into a well-known brand.

 

Duration: 60 minutes
Simultaneous translation
The evening includes two performances with intermission.

concept, performed by: Iztok Kovač, Janez Janša
assistant for movement: Tanja Skok
voice: Nada Vodušek
light design, technical realisation: Luka Curk
costume design: Valter Kobal
music: sound recordings from ‘How I Caught a Falcon’, ‘Venček Narodnih II’ by Vili Fajdiga from the album ‘Za fuk pa špila gramofon’, released by Nika Records, September 2009. Used with permission.
sound design: Tomaž Grom
video statements by: Jonathan Burrows, Julyen Hamilton, Mateja Reboljand Renata Salecl
camera: Nina Bučuk, Janez Janša, Carme Renalias, Anna Berger
video editing: Julyen Hamilton, Amin Weber, Omar Ismail
graphic design: Omar Ismail
video from the performance ‘The Immaterial World’ by Julyen Hamilton (performed in Seattle, USA, 2012)
guests in videos: Jonathan Burrows, Julyen Hamilton, Mateja Rebolj, Renata Salecl
translations into Slovene: Marija Zidar
personal notes by Iztok Kovač from 1991, texts by Simon Kardum (‘Not bad, Ico’, Slovenske Novice, 16/01/1992), Judith Mackrell (‘A foreign dream of liberation’, The Independent, 06/05/1993), Aldo Milohnić (‘Agent slovenskega sna’, Dnevnik, 23/10/1992). 
executive producer: Marjeta Lavrič
production: EN-KNAP
co-producer: Maska Ljubljana

Special thanks to: Jonathan Burrows, Julyen Hamilton, Janez Janša, Hotimir Knific, Anja Planišček, Mateja Rebolj, Renata Salecl, Julija Travančić, Amin Weber, Project Motionbank, MG+MSUM andSever&Sever.

Created with the financial support by the City of Ljubljana – Department of Culture, and the Ministry of Culture, Republic of Slovenia.

Premiere 15 December 2013 at the Španski Borci culture center in Ljubljana