PRESS

“The Nature is a meeting place. The way three persons that initiate The Nature in a public space meet, informs me as a spectator and thus invites me to meet The Nature the way they meet. As they initiate the meeting, they allow for and listen to the transition from being one of the people in the public space, to become a performer in the public space. While they engage in a performative act, they do keep in their performing a trace of being one of the people in the public space, the space they came from. This trace is a path I am invited to take as a spectator to engage as a performer together with the performers, in the public space that The Nature devises, yet not giving up my role as a spectator.” - Discollective

“When the dance practice Nature:dialog is staged in its usual surrounding, that is an exterior (under the bridge, on the river bank), it is actually dispersed not only among the invited audience, but also wider. A passer-by could be attracted by the movement and sound, and involved in a temporary ambient. Dragana/Beno’s dance dialogue inside Marko’s sound vibes could be a call to widen our sensory perspective and find (re-call) ways of (re)connecting ourselves to the spaces, places and fellow beings regardless their “official” position.” - performance.si, platform for critique


CREDITS

Author: Dragana Alfirević
Co-authors: Beno Novak (dancer)
Intermedia content and sound: Marko Batista
Cameraman, video director, editor: Slobodan Maksimović
Photo: Sunčan Stone

Presentation of this performance within HERE:2023 is funded by European Union Creative Europa project Beyond Front@: Bridging Periphery.

BIOS

Dragana Alfirević

Dragana Alfirević is a cultural worker in the field of contemporary performing arts.
Born in Belgrade in 1976, where she studied Art History at the Faculty of Philosophy, Belgrade, and following that finished specialist studies in the program BODY UNLIMITED at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, Serbia. She is co-founder of the Balkan Dance Network and Nomad Dance Academy, a regional tool for communication, education and artistic exchange.

Dragana has authored and co-authored 15 evening length performances and a dozen short choreographies and she is regularly choreographing for theatre performances. She teaches, makes performances, writes, curates festivals, and produces art events in the space between praxis, theory, and activism. In her artistic work, Dragana works on the development of her own artistic practice, based on research of process and continuity in search for new models of production, as opposedto project-oriented work.

Beno Novak

Beno Novak is dancer and choreographer of younger generation, active in Slovenia, Germany, Great Britain, Portugal and Brasil. Beno's work is a constant exploration of personal experiences expressed through a strong physicality, mixed with sensitivity, fragility, power and exhaustion.

Beno graduated from Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance in 2016 and was later invited to upgrade his knowledge at the Tisch Dance Department (New York University) and at The Place Dance Academy (London). He has danced for many different companies and with many renowned artists. In London, he has danced for the Gary Clarke Company, Jason Mabana Dance, and James Wilton Dance company.

He has danced for choreographers like Matej Kejžar, Alix Eynaudi, Paul Blackman & Christine Gouzelis, Ricardo Ambrozio, Zsuzsa Rozsavolgyi, Etienne Guilloteau and others.