Rafał Dziemidok & Madgalena Jędra: Dreams of the Fleecy River
Sanja Neškovič Peršin: Hov Hov Suzana / Woof Woof Susa

Rafał Dziemidok & Madgalena Jędra: Dreams of the Fleecy River

Poland

artistic director: Rafał Dziemidok
choreography: Rafał Dziemidok, Madgalena Jędra
music: Moby, Catatonia, Dr Dre, Balanescu Quartett (collage)
dancers: Rafał Dziemidok, Magdalena Jędra

There are many different kinds of dream and one of them is the dream of dreaming. Our desire for release from activity, wakefulness, control, and stress. For some dreams are a luxury, and their tired darkened minds do not dream. Sleep is but the instrument of future activity. Stopping oneself seems impossible and it takes more effort to relax than to keep busy. The gap gets filled by hallucinations from exhaustion and anxiety - those demons of chaos and nothingness in our souls. In this duet man and woman attempt to cross the dark river of dreams in various ways, in order to express a vision of our restless lives with a combination of theatre and dance techniques and contemporary sound design.

Rafał Dziemidok - dancer and choreographer; started by studying dance in 1992 at Bard College, USA. After returning to Poland he began to work with the Dada von Bzdülöw company, and danced in the works of choreographer Lesezk Bzdyl and in the Gdańsk Dance Theatre in the works of Melissa Monteros and Wojciech Mochniej. From 1997-1999 he worked with the Hungarian Compagnie Yvette Bozsik. In 1998 he presented his choreographic debut - the self-devised solo Departure-Arrival, which received honourable mention at the 1999 International Festival of Dance Forms in Kalisz. His next solo piece, Heart of Welding Machine, won first prize at the 2000 Festival of Performing Arts in Warsaw. He has worked on many different dance and theatre projects as a dancer and choreographer. He is also a graduate of the law faculty in Gdańsk and holds twin LLM degrees in comparative constitutional law and human rights from the Central European University in Budapest.

Magdalena Jędra - dancer and choreographer; from 1997-1999 she worked in the Dance Theatre in Gdańsk, and performed in the choreographies of Melissa Monteros and Wojciech Mochniej. In 1999 and 2000 she worked with the Joe Alter Dance Group in Warsaw. At present she is an independent artist and one of the lead performers in the dance company Sfere.

Rafał Dziemidok, Zamenhofa 1/21, 00 153 Warsaw, Poland, rafaldziemidok@go2.pl

Sanja Neškovič Peršin: Hov Hov Suzana / Woof Woof Susa

Slovinsko

choreography: Sanja Neškovič Peršin
dancers: Sanja Neškovič Peršin
lighting design: Miran Šušteršič
stage design: Zmago Lenardič
costumes: Alan Hranitelj
video: Jasna Hribernik, Zmago Lenardič

This choreographic debut by Sanja Peršin has all the attributes of contemporary dance. It is broadminded, personal and ironic. The dancer appears inside a large, transparent half sphere. She excels as the gentle and delicate shadow whose image is reflected like a shimmering mist in this beautiful yet somehow painful dance. Onto this surface, onto this hemisphere over her body (or is it over her soul?) images are projected that seem to modify the space like magic. It is the aspect of space in the piece, offering magic effects such as projected text the letters of which disintegrate like flaming meteorites falling into the stratosphere, trickling down like fiery tears.
          The theme that Peršin explores is fear in its different forms. She draws upon the fact that fear is one of the most rudimentary and most common reflexes. She offers up various forms of fear in individual scenic images: fear as hysteria, fear as anxiety haunting the afflicted person, fear as obedience but also fear in its cosmic consequences. This simple concept has become the opportunity for exceptional interpretation and expressive qualities of this dancer and choreographer. As capable of depicting an incorporeal fairy as easily as a showgirl, she can move you as well as scare you.

Sanja Neškovič Peršin - dancer and choreographer; studied classical ballet in Cannes and took many different workshops (at Merce Cunningham's New York Studio and ImPulsTanz Festival in Vienna, for example). Presently she is a solo dancer of the National Opera and Ballet in Ljubljana, appears often in contemporary dance projects. She has worked with the Museum Theatre Company - a conceptual visual theatre company, physical theatre company Betontanc, and has performed in the conceptual performance Praying Machine Noordug directed by Dragan Živadinov. She often appears in the video film projects of Ema Kugler and Jasna Hribernik.

Bunker, Rimska 2, Ljubljana, Slovenia