This presentation of Contemporary dance lesson is about our current research on how to create a lesson on contemporary dance that is intended to schools and young audience, teachers and dance teachers, students, professionals, different interested audience.

Presentation in Vienna was focused on showing and discussing the situation or the current status of the project development we were at that time (collecting and gathering data, informations, discussing appropriate format...).

STUDY LESSON (Introduction)

written by Andreja Kopač

»STATE OF THINGS« in Slovenia

WORKING PROGRESS situation

We have almost 30 years of continuation of dance education in Slovenia, but still no cover institution, which would take over education in the field of contemporary dance; but there are some significant dates;

- 1920: The first issue of Maska, the journal of contemporary performing (October)

- 1929: Ferdo Delak, who studied in Berlinu, writes article: On new dance Art

- 1930: Meta Vidmar, the student of Mary Wigman v Narodni dom in Ljubljani opens her School for Modern Dance and later change its name to School for Artistic dance

- 1931: Ferdo Delak in journal Modra Ptica writes article »Introduction to Dance Art«

- 1932: Meeting of four pioneers of Slovenian contemporary dance in Ljubljana; Meta Vidmar, Pino & Pia Mlakar, Katja Delak (improvisational evenings), Marta Paulin

- 1935: First production of Mete Vidmar Dance School in Slovenian National Thetare

- 1953: Re-opening the school of Meta Vidmar after Second world war

- 1956: Živa Kraigher starts to teach rhythmics in the Centre of aesthetic education of Pioneer Library, starting to work with children on the field of dance education; she starts to educate »educators« and build dance base in Slovenia

- 1962: First small book on contemporary dance in Slovene language; The development of Dance Art

- 1967: First musical-study lesson in choreography of Živa Kraigher “Guide through orchestra” von Benjamin Britten – first time on TV, presented on 3 big stages in Ljubljana (solo dance plus group choreography)

- 1968: Half-hour TV show in Museum of contemporary Art with Ksenija Hribar: »The Poetry of Dance Everyday«, where dancer and choreographer LEADS spectator through the system of dance school and demonstrates dance movements »poetically«

- 1970: Dancer Lojza Žerdin starts to teach on Academy for Actors where influences generations of new generations of actors, who starts to involve movements

- 1971: Two dance pedagogues Dora Gobec (from Žive Kraigher and Marte Paulin) and Breda Kroflič (from Meta Vidmar) prepare dance matinée with a title Dance – I am

- 1974: Established Studio for contemporary dance under Živa Kraigher, which goes beyond dance education and becomes a group

- 1975: First book on Slovenian contemporary dance by Marija Vogelnik: Contemporary dance in Slovenia

- 1978: Director Dušan Jovanović invites Ksenija Hribar as choreographer on big stage; what means entering choreography in Slovenian theaters

- 1984: Establishing PTL; first professional dance theater in Ljubljana; important role; in 1995 PTL started to run FIRST VENUE JUST FOR CONTEMPORARY DANCE

- 1994: Established Contemporary dance Professional Association

- 1999: Established Department for contemporary dance in High School (Maja Delak)

- 2007: Established professional group of contemporary dance EKG (Iztok Kovac)

- 2009: Established program STIK; educational program for »dance educators«; public found for contemporary dance is important in the role of dance education by workshops, summer dance schools, seminars….

- 2009: Established Academy for Dance, with a department of contemporary dance

- 2011: Decision on establishing public institution: Center for contemporary dance

- 2012: decision on closing public institution: as one of the first cuts (austerity collateral damage) by government of Janez Janša

So, we do not have a institution, but we have TOOL BOX as a further step in dance education, which is also created as a - TOOL

- The role of dance education is significant role in the field of Slovenian contemporary dance (reflection)

- It is more then just a tool – it is also a CONTENT which tries in all that year build a creative, open dialogue with spectators, with viewer

- There are many ways how to talk about a certain story / topic / problems – the story of Slovenian contemporary dance is also a story of certain persistent »rebelling« for space, for recognition

- There is NO CONTINUATION in dance education, but there are over thirty years implementation models of the most significant dance teachers; specially from Mary Wigman and Rudolf Laban (derives from 30s)

- THERE IS A SPECIAL CONNECTION the reflection of the working conditions; which is inherently built in the dance productions, also in the study lesson

- Study lesson is also EDUCATING VIEWER; quite lots of books, but no program how to »educate spectator«; and study lesson is mostly for that

- Special WAY of ADAPTATION; there is a lot of choreographers (not just in presented cases) WHO USE STUDY LESSON as special didactical tool

- There are lots of tries how to use it as a tool for »watching«, but disadvantage is that choreographers tends to be too much bound to their things, thats why it did not last

- Specific answer to this situation is a GENERATIVE TOOL BOX; including videos from 3 different situations;

1. 1984: Ksenija Hribar
2. 2004: Stanje stvari (Nina Meško)
3. 2007: Rodeo (Maja Delak)

KSENIJA HRIBAR AND DANCE LESSON

written by Petra Pikalo

In early 80ies Ksenija Hribar the pioneer of contemporary dance in Slovenia, after her long professional carrier in UK London, returned to Ljubljana. In nineteen eighty-four with some young enthusiastic dancers she established Plesni Teater Ljubljana (Dance theater Ljubljana) as a first professional dance company and started to work, give classes, prepare and choreograph dance performances. But quickly she realized that they need to do something to educate audience about contemporary dance. She used similar model that the company and the school in England (LCDS and LCDT) experienced and developed in interaction with the audience. The target group was mostly high school students.

In the dance lesson she was giving attention to many levels. While the dancers did the presentation of the class (at that time they were mostly practicing Graham technique) she was giving an introduction to the audience about profession of a dancer, the need of every day’s class- why, when, how… (see attached video). On the video we see Sinja Ožbolt giving class (at that time, she just returned from UK and London contemporary dance school). Most of the other dancers on the video are now important personalities and very much present in the field of contemporary dance.

Through short examples, dance pieces Ksenija described quickly a bit of history of dance and with that she was explaining how the movement developed from narrative form to abstract. She showed how the creativity and discovering new things are important. There were also examples of improvisation.

During the lesson she was reminding and asking audience what are they looking at, observe, focus at? Where is their attention? Is it on costumes, hairdressing, shape of body and so, or on emotions in the relationship of two dancers, what if somebody makes a mistake how that can influence audience…

Very delicate thing was to introduce audience how to read and understand dance. In the second extract we see a dancer and actor Marko Mlačnik, who is moving and at the same time explaining or describing what is he doing, saying translations of emotions, story development into the movement.

In the last insert, Ksenija shows what’s choreographer’s work, she was trying to give corrections in work in progress.

Usually after that lecture, pupils could see a whole contemporary dance performance. In the performances she was always trying to be critical and responding also to the political situation at that time.

This form of presentation, what contemporary dance is, was very useful also in next 10 years, different choreographers used it with their examples.

THE STATE OF THINGS

written by Nina Meško

The State of Things is my project that I did 2004 in collaboration with video artist Tanja Lažetić. The performance could as well be used as study lesson of contemporary dance.

The project was formally designed as a stage documentary, while its contents were the study of the position of contemporary dance within a contemporary society, the field of art and the production system, as well as the artist’s attitude towards his own creative process. The title of the project was taken after the title of Win Wenders’s movie Der Stand der Dinge, showcasing the director’s personal reflection of the movie industry and the artist’s place inside it.

In the performance The state of things video screen is set up in the environment of professional morning dance class. Projected onto the screen are interviews conducted by me and video artist Tanja Lazetic. We talked with Slovenian dance producers, choreographers and theorists on the topic of their relationship with their own work, contemporary dance art in Slovenia and abroad, and about their criteria for evaluating artistic practices. The goal of the interviews was to acquaint the viewer with the position of contemporary dance within contemporary society, the arts, and the production system.

In fact, interviews are presented only in the form of brief illuminations – the image appears only at the beginning of each speaker’s statement which in turn continues only through voice and projected English subtitles.

The purpose of the project was to create a stage performance that would contain a high level of reflection of one’s own medium and to provide the viewers with an insight into those key segments of the contemporary dance practice that in most projects remain concealed.

The performance consisted of documentary video interviews with important creators of the scene and a live performed dance class by eleven dancers and dance teacher in work-clothes. These two parallel actions – dancers on the stage and the statements on video are separate, but they do meet accidentally.

Two parallel worlds thus emerge: the world of movement - the discourse of the dancing body and the world of language - the discourse of theory. Both worlds function impeccably; neither the dancers nor their coach show any signs of taking in the parallel discourse, and vice versa; one world practices dance, while the other talks about it (of course, only within the parameters of this performance). Thus there an intriguing doubling is created which awakes debate about contemporary dance, its trends and preoccupations.

The statements of the interviewees are timed according to the length of the class, and often an ironic overlap of the words and the moves executed by the dancers on stage ensues. However, the performance maintains the two parallel world separately throughout. The performance functions as a point of entry into an exploration and conceptualization of contemporary dance medium in general.

RODEO – another presentation of a performance lesson

written by Maja Delak

Rodeo was a performance that was commissioned by Cankarjev dom, a public institution in Ljubljana that next to cultural and congress activities runs rich cultural education program. Institution felt the lack of cultural education on dance and the invitations was an activity that was proposed to somehow find a form to reach out to the audience.

I have invited to collaboration Mauricio Ferlin, who is a designer, video artist and director and we prepared some points of departure for the performance. First of all we wanted to speak about dance, about dancers and finally about love that is connected to such work. The second point that was very important to us was that we wanted to do a performance staging our dance life or our attachment to dance. So we decided to work with the performers in the direction that they themselves are the material that we all present.

There were 4 performers involved, an actor/mediator, video projections. We used different roles that we play in our lives: being actors, dancers, choreographers, lecturer, poet, interviewer, student. Created stories were presented in different forms going form dance phrases, singing, TV show discussion, improvised situations, interacting with the audience, interview, dance competition...

In all piece there was a lot of emphasizes on multiple videos, which were projected on few surfaces including the floor. So (as you can also see in the video) the methods of working, the director's choices, choreographic procedures and comments were most of the times projected simultaneously with the performance and created an insight for the audience that I believe was of a significant importance in this work.

TOOL BOX presentation

What is a contemporary dance lesson?

• A tool for getting to know the idea, practice, and procedures of the art of dance.

• A modular, multimedia, informative, humorous, experiential, and participatory activity.

• An innovation in the area of education which can be gradually and actively included in other contents and learning procedures.

Where is the dance lesson held?

Dance lesson can be adjusted to different situations and forms of teaching (cultural education lesson, culture day, compulsory and optional electives) and spaces.

Who is it intended for?

The simplest answer would be, for any body. The presentation document comprises contents that discuss contemporary dance as the 20th century art phenomenon and is devised as a get-to-know contemporary dance tool kit.

Dance lesson contents can be directly linked both to dance as an art form and to school contents (in connection to topics covered by other subjects), while at the same time they can also be a humorous and didactic critique of popular culture, which could be achieved by seeing and comparing popular and art contents. In an area as general as dance, such a wager could be particularly interesting for analysis, as dance is mainly always bound in both the area of popular as well as alternative culture.

»Study Lesson of Contemporary Dance« was presented by four dance teachers who are still in the process of constructing it.