dance performance
Choreographer:
Maša Kagao Knez
Dancers and co-creators:
Rosana Hribar, Jana Menger, Kristina Pojbič Champaigne, Joseph Bunn
Original music score:
Nino de Gleria
Set designer:
Danilo Pečar
Costume designer:
Katja Komljanec Koritnik
Dramaturge:
Kim Komljanec
Production:
Maša Kagao Knez & KUD Baobab
Coproduction:
Zavod En- Knap
This production was supported by Department for Culture of MOL (Municipality of Ljubljana).
Opening night: 30. marec 2011 ob 20h, Center kulture Španski borci, Ljubljana
About performance
The performance Placed Maša Kagao Knez continues to explore her own and general human existence and co-existence. Her exploration of human relations in a society started with her choreographic debut Missawa (2004) and was continued in the performance Moja boljša polovica [My Better Half ] (2007) where she focused on the dance and life duet between a man and a woman. In the performance Moi toi nous/Jag du vi/ Jaz ti mi [Me You Us] (2009) she looked at the relationship between and individual and a group, whereas her dance solo called Rojena zunaj svoje vasi [Born Outside My Village] (2010, choreography by Rosana Hribar) was a study of her place in a culture she does not belong to, though she was born into it.
This time, in the performance Placed, Maša Kagao Knez is approaching the theme of human existence and coexistence from a less tangible point of view: How do we react, feel or act together and as individuals? How do we influence each other? What do we strive for and why in this existence of ours? Are we all alike in all this and/or how do we differ? Placed is an attempt to transfer all these emotions and questions into the stage language of dance, which is, due to its arbitrary and ever-changing nature, impossible to pin down. It is like the Sanskrit word avidya meaning on one hand something as wide as “ignorance” and on the other something much more defined such as “mistaking the ephemeral for the eternal”. So, how and how much can an artist express their observations, opinions and feelings through dance? And what is the form and level to which these reach another human being at all?
Placed is a performance which translates the author’s observation of the existence of “the placed”, i.e. us all. Four dancers with very diverse professional backgrounds and approaches have been “placed” in the cast of Placed so that each performer’s specific expression is used as the source of creative crossroads which characterise the performance as a whole.
