Skopje, 20 November 2024 (MIA) - An exhibition entitled 'Dancing, Resisting, (Un)working – Aspects of Dance as Cultural, Political, and Art Work in Yugoslavia and After' is set to open at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb on Wednesday. The exhibition presents a collaborative research and curated program of the network Nomad Dance Academy, in cooperation with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, also including the Lokomotiva - Center for New Initiatives in Art and Culture.

According to Lokomotiva, the exhibition is a long-term research on developing the digital archive of contemporary dance and the performing arts of the post-Yugoslavian region. It contains documents, photographs, video documentation, catalogues, and books as well as map relations of dance artists, thinkers, and structures that talk about dance archives "as the intersection of pluralities of space(s), memory, working materials, a body of knowledge, history, presence, future, friends(hips), policies, politics, resistance, resilience, love, enemies, silence, protests, dissonances, socialities, togethering, and much more that dance preserves, holds, produces as imagination and perspective."

The exhibition is curated by Biljana Tanurovska-Kjulavkovski and Rok Vevar, and co-curated and co-researched by Slavcho Dimitrov, Milica Ivić, Tea Kantoci, Igor Koruga, Iva Nerina Sibila, Biljana Tanurovska-Kjulavkovski, Rok Vevar, Jasmina Založnik. Curatorial support: Jasna Jakšić from the Museum of Contemporary Art. 

As part of the exhibition, the organizers will present the (Non)Aligned Dance Archive - NADA, the first digital archive of dance and performing arts in the post-Yugoslav region, open and accessible to researchers, artists, and writers.

The exhibition is accompanied by the book "Bodies of Dance: Aspects of Dance as Cultural, Political, and Art Work in Yugoslavia and After" edited by Jasmina Založnik and Nika Arhar. It is supposed to articulate, through its historical-theoretical position, the political, cultural, and artistic framing in which dance practices in Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and North Macedonia emerged in the previous 100 years.

This event is the final phase of the long-term project (Non)Aligned Movements, carried by the Nomad Dance Academy partners: Station Service for contemporary dance, Lokomotiva, Nomad Dance Academy Slovenia, Nomad Dance Academy Croatia, Object of Dance, and Tanzfabrik Berlin.   

The project is supported by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, the Ministry of Culture of North Macedonia, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, the City of Ljubljana, the Ministry of Public Administration of the Republic of Slovenia, the City of Skopje, Goethe Institute, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Culture for Democracy and Hartefakt Fund, the City of Zagreb and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia.

The exhibition will run through February 23, 2025. 

Photo: poster