SIDE PROGRAMME: Performances, Installations, Exhibitions

13–17 May 2026

Dis Giselle

Saša Asentić

13 May / 6:00 PM / SKUP

14 May / 8:00 PM / SKUP

Sound performance

Duration: 45 min

Author: Saša Asentić, in collaboration with Jelena Stefanoska and Olivera Kovačević Crnjanski

Voices: Jelena Stefanoska, Frosina Dimovska and Saša Asentić

Audio Description Collaboration: Violeta Vlaški and Boris Dončić

Recording, Editing and Sound Design: Rastko Ilić

Musical Improvisation in the Fourth Scene: Dunja Crnjanski

Production: Per.Art

Support: Norwegian Academy of the Arts Oslo, School for Primary and Secondary Education “Milan Petrović” with Student Dormitor

Dis Giselle is a sound performance based on the staging of the dance piece Жизела / Giselle as interpreted by Jelena Stefanoska. In this innovative production, audio description, typically used as an accessibility tool, becomes an artistic method. Through voice, music and the choreography of sound, this work explores new artistic forms that make dance and choreography accessible to blind and visually impaired audiences.

In this piece, Jelena Stefanoska examines the similarities and differences between Giselle’s experience and her own personal experience within a society that often restricts personal freedoms and a dignified life. Through four sound scenes, the performance evokes emotions and bodily states that Jelena highlights as essential human values: honesty, loyalty and forgiveness, as well as values that bring fulfillment, joy and meaning to life - such as a connection with nature, a passion for artistic expression, the need for love, and, above all, the desire for a dignified life.

Something Very Special

Dalibor Šandor

15 May / 4:30 PM / SKUP

Lecture-performance

Duration: 50 min

Author: Dalibor Šandor

Artistic collaboration: Marcel Bugiel, Frosina Dimovska and Saša Asentić

Production: Saša Asentić & Dis- is not included project (Berlin)

Partner: Per.Art

Acknowledgements: Olivera Kovačević Crnjanski, ŠOSO “Milan Petrović” with the student dormitory, and the Gallery of Matica Srpska.

The lecture-performance Something Very Special was created within the framework of the DIS_Lecture project, a series of lecture-performances delivered by artists with intellectual disabilities, invited to reclaim this performative format in their own way and to critically examine its ableist features. Together with their long-term collaborators, they take their place in a field from which they have historically been excluded: the discourse on dance and performance.

DIS_Lecture was conceived by Saša Asentić as an accessible format that contributes to critical culture and solidarity in dance.

The performance is in spoken Serbian.

Work in Pitch Dark

Natalija Vladisavljević

12–17 May / 10:00 AM–10:00 PM / Biro

Video installation

"There is contemporary dance without music, and there is contemporary dance without dance."— Natalija Vladisavljević

Natalija Vladisavljević writes and creatively edits text in various ways. She reads, underlines, cuts, rewrites, copies, draws, and assembles.

In order to present her work, she assigned roles to friends and collaborators who know her best – together with Natalija, they discuss her work. The result is a choreography of text, movement, and sound in complete darkness, based on Natalija’s score, performed by her close friends and collaborators: Olivera Kovačević Crnjanski, Milena Minja Bogavac, Frosina Dimovska, Tatjana Tucić, Dunja Crnjanski, Alexandre Achour, and Saša Asentić. 

The video performance Work in Pitch Dark was created as part of the performance-lecture series “DIS_Lecture.”

Spirit of Place – The First Century of the District

13–16 May / 10:00 AM–4:00 PM / ECOC Gallery

Exhibition

Exhibition Spirit of Place – The First Century of the District is a multimedia, immersive exhibition that dramatises and explores the District’s space through time. Once an industrial complex, the District is now a contemporary art centre that has undergone an extraordinary transformation over the past century. This journey serves both as inspiration and the backbone of the exhibition, which uses digital art, artefacts, artistic and theatrical devices, and scenographic methods to tell a lesser-known story.

What sets this permanent exhibition apart is its focus on human stories and the creation of new experiences, rather than a dry presentation of facts and objects. Through six thematic sections, contemporary technology, and tactile elements, visitors can easily engage with the District’s history – following its evolution from the founding of the factory, through the Second World War and the NATO bombings, to its role as the European Capital of Culture.

The exhibition does more than recount local history; it also provides insight into global changes that influenced the industrial development of Novi Sad and the District, reflecting causal links with world events.