SIDE PROGRAMME: Moving Balkans Co-Productions

12 & 17 May 2026

ARTissue: Lineage

12 May / 6:00 PM / Fabrika

Duration: 40 min

Choreography: Kristina Paunovski

Dancers: Tea Milanović, Irina Šincek, Kofi Yiadom, Panagiotis Demoirakos

Music: ReVibrant - Osman Eyublu (violin and electronics), Pedro Rosenthal Campuzano (percussions and electronics), Golnar Mohajeri (cello)

Light design: Dalibor Fugošić

Costumes: Nataša Mihaljčišin

The work process begins with an intimate question as a focal point – how can we express something that concerns us all? Can the personal become universal, or is it inherently universal by its very nature? The performance ARTissue: Lineage questions the connection between the personal/intimate and the communal/universal, exploring the boundaries between street-club dance styles and contemporary dance and how they mutually influence each other.

The performance is part of the “ARTissue” research process, in which Kristina Paunovski re-examines artistic practices in relation to movement and the body, as well as their history and roots. The author of “Lineage” begins the conversation as a guest at the 2023 American Dance Festival.

The performance is a co-production of the Croatian Culture Centre Sušak (Rijeka, Croatia) and DAN.C.CE Unitiva (Athens, Greece), supported by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia. It was created within the Moving Balkans Dance Platform.

Double Bill: Duets Across Borders

Seems Familiar / Suck it up, buttercup!

12 May / 8:00 PM / SKCNS

Duration: 60 min

‣ _Seems Familiar_

Duration: 30 min

Idea, choreography and dance: Simona Dabija and Deyan Georgiev

Music: Bojidar Vasilev

Produced by: Derida Dance Center and The National Center for Dance Bucharest

_Seems Familiar_ grows from a stretched time: the slow formation of a first connection inside something new. Two realities and two temporalities meet – our lives, our meeting, and the work we are creating together. On stage, we seem to carry each other, or to co-exist in a suspended time. From this proximity, a familiarity between our bodies begins to emerge. By spending time together, sharing life stories, and moving with and through each other, we open that sense of familiarity and belonging to the audience as well.

‣ Suck it up, buttercup!

Duration: 30 min

Idea, choreography and dance: Elena Marinova and Mariana Gavriciuc

Music and sound design: Martina Stefanova

Produced by: Derida Dance Center and The National Center for Dance Bucharest

You are an artist.

You are a thinker. You are the author, the performer and the critic, a bit auto-critical.

You are a teacher, a researcher, a project manager, an event planner, an organizer, an accountant, a cleaning person, a flyer distributor. You are creative.

You are a PR and a marketing person. You make promo photos, promo texts, promo reels, promo statements on promo trends, promo campaigns, promo podcasts, promo posters.

You need to make content. What other skills do you have?

You are a salesman.

You have a piece.

You look and hope for grants, residencies, open calls. You apply, you write to festivals proposing your work.

Please, please, help me be on time for this deadline, you pray.

You are emerging. Still emerging. Not yet emerging.

You meet the audience. You thank the audience for being there. You try to explain to a guy that what you are doing is useful, while he says that football is more useful, football has a bigger audience. You invite him to give you a follow on instagram and come to your other performances.

You are already late for that big opportunity.

You try networking. You are disappointed. You are a disappointment.

You’re an athlete.

You go to workshops, hoping you can still get the moves. You are tired.

Is it enough?

“You’re an artist and that means: you’re a dreamer, you’re a clown. That is what some people think.”, Dieter Lesage

The two new choreographic works in development are presented to the public as part of a joint initiative initiated by the National Dance Center Bucharest (Romania) and Derida Dance Center (Bulgaria), within the Moving Balkans Dance Platform. The two performances are realised with the financial support of the Creative Europe Programme of EU, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Bulgaria and the Sofia Municipality – Calendar of Cultural Events.

IMAGINE

17 May / 10:00 AM / SKCNS

Duration: 80 min

Choreography: Dragana Alfirević, Dejan Srhoj

Created and performed by: Jelena Alempijević, Ana Javoran, Jovana Rakić, Frosina Dimovska, Željka Jakovljević

Set, space and lighting design: Željka Jakovljević

Music and performance: Dunja Crnjanski

Choir: Hor Radio

Choir conductor: Dušica Stojković

Costume design: Dajana Ljubičić

Dramaturgy: Igor Dobričić

Sound design: Žolt Polgar

Graphic design: Ivana Đurđević

Imagine that one night you get lost and meet people you have always known, yet have never encountered before. Imagine that you recognize each other because your eyes are closed in dance and opened in song. Imagine that the next morning (which stubbornly refuses to dawn), as you walk down the street on your way home, you move together, dancing. And that no one questions you, but greets you.

Co-produced by: SKCNS; Kino Šiška (Ljubljana); Praktikabl – platform for contemporary art and culture (Novi Sad); and Nomad Dance Academy (Ljubljana), within the framework of the Moving Balkans project. The performance has been supported by the Provincial Secretariat for Education, Regulations, Administration and National Minorities; the Ministry of Culture of Slovenia; and the FUSION – Contemporary Forms of Art and Sociability project, developed in cooperation with the French Institute in Serbia and the regional Teatroskop program, implemented with the financial support of the French Embassy in Serbia.

For the realization of the performance, works and poems by Judita Šalgo, Katalin Ladik, and Vujica Rešin Tucić were used. We extend our sincere gratitude to Slobodan Tišma, Mitja Bravhar, and Tatjana Tucić. The performance includes the composition “Shores” by the band The Howlite.

Ridges

17 May / 12:00 PM / Fabrika

Duration: 30 min

Choreography and Concept by: Ermira Goro

Music by: Aliki Leftherioti

Performed by: Mariel Brahimllari, Viktor Konstantinović, Margareta Sinković, Semela

Skenderasi, with special thanks to Lara Kapeloto

Coproducers: Albania Dance Meeting (Tirana, Albania), Dance Fest Skopje/ Interart

Culture Centre (Skopje, North Macedonia), Tjedan suvremenog plesa/ Hrvatski

institut za pokret i ples (Zagreb, Croatia) Photo: Dragan Perkovski / Dance Fest

Ridges draws inspiration from the traditional dances, rhythms, and atmospheres of Albania, Croatia, and North Macedonia; the choreography transforms inherited movement languages into a contemporary physical dialogue.

Footwork with sharp accents, circular trajectories that expand and contract, and timing that slips into irregular pulses form the foundation of a shifting, embodied landscape. These elements appear not as literal folk material but as echoes—energetic traces embedded in weight, breath, and the way the group gathers, disperses, and realigns.

As the dancers negotiate shared rhythms and contrasting accents, the space becomes a living map: diagonals collide with stillness, circles fold into lines, and cultural borders blur through constant reconfiguration. Tradition, identity, and memory intersect within a small square of space, yielding a collective physicality that merges three distinct pasts into one evolving present. What emerges is a contemporary movement language shaped by regional heritage yet reimagined into something new, alive, porous, and unmistakably of today.

Glorious Epic Wet presented in VR (360°)

17 May / 1:00 PM / OPENS

Duration: 60 min

Concept and choreography: Sofia Mavragani

Co-creation and dancers: Tina Habun, Fiona Macbride, Carolina Alessandra Valentini, Nika Zidar, Mattia Cason, Matija Franješ, April Veselko, Tjaša Bucik, Tara Ukmar, Semina Rizou, Sebastian Zamaro.

Original music: Thalia Ioannidou

Costumes: Katarina Markov

Camera: Sašo Podgoršek

VR production: Omar Ismail

Audio production: Studio 001

Production: En-Knap and Contemporary Dance Association Slovenia

With the support of the European Commission, Ministry of Culture Slovenia, City of Ljubljana, Hellenic Ministry of Culture.

Storm-like and physically charged, Glorious Epic Wet, challenges inherited notions of heroism and hierarchy. It proposes a different epic - one written by many bodies navigating crisis and instability together. Glory is no longer monumental; it emerges through interdependence, shared endurance, and fleeting solidarities formed within uncertain terrain.