Kate Mattingly goes to Serbia

Faculty member Kate Mattingly goes to Serbia to meet contemporary artists

The invitation to attend the Balkan Dance Platform from October 1 to 3, 2009 in Novi Sad, Serbia came from Dance Theater Workshop (DTW) in NYC, an organization that has an established reputation for supporting and promoting contemporary artists from around the world. In 2002, I worked with DTW on an Eastern European Criticism Initiative which recognized the essential role criticism plays in offering context and amplifying the work of new choreographers.



After living in Europe for close to three years, from September 2006 to January 2009, I was curious to return to see presentations of artists in the Balkan region. I was familiar with some of the choreographers because I had worked as a dramaturge for a contemporary performance festival in Austria, and I was particularly curious to meet and watch emerging artists.

Visitors to Novi Sad, where the festival happened, drive over bridges constructed after the original structures were bombed by NATO forces ten years ago. The country continues to face economic, social, and political problems resulting from the wars and their aftermath. Discrepancies between the generations seemed especially strong: younger generations characterized by curiosity and enthusiasm about possibility and older generations more cynical about any kind of transformation.

Coming to Novi Sad from the airport, I asked the taxi driver about his views on the wars and he replied simply: “War is business.” Novi Sad, located on the left bank of the Danube River in Northwestern Serbia, has a population of 370,000, and is the country’s second largest city and a major site for new construction and building projects.

An unusual happening occurred at one of the performances: I noticed a group of young people, about college aged, with one of the women wearing a Princeton sweatshirt. As a graduate of Princeton (class of 1993, Architecture), I had to ask if she had an affiliation with the university, not only since there were few Americans in Novi Sad, but also because this performance was a more experimental cultural event. She was not only enrolled at Princeton, but she and her friends are about to enter as freshman once they complete their volunteer projects in Serbia as part of the Bridge Year Program. At a time when many people are forced to cut back on expenses and projects given our economic climate, it was inspiring to see that some universities in the USA have not relinquished commitment to service. The volunteer work that the students are pursuing in Serbia ranges from Youth Projects to HIV/AIDS education programs. The group spoke with passion about the experience of traveling abroad and working within different communities.

In both groups of young people – the artists in the festival and the Princeton students – I noticed a similar vibrancy and commitment to conscious thought and action that can inspire creativity and community development. In times of changes and challenges, art and society undergo radical transformations.

The organizer of the Princeton students in Serbia, Milica Paskulov, encouraged them to attend the performance festival. As she explained to me in an email: “I thought the Balkan Dance Platform would be interesting for them firstly because they do not have much opportunity to see performances in Serbia, secondly because I trust in Per.Art’s selection of performances and lastly because the presence of Princeton in Serbia is breaking all the mutual barriers and prejudices.”

Per.Art is the independent artistic organization from Novi Sad that organized the festival in partnership with the Serbian National Theatre, TkH – Centre for Theory and Practice of Performing Arts, and Station – Service for Contemporary Dance. The 2009 Balkan Dance Platform (BDP) was the fifth installment of the festival: it happens every two years in the Balkan region. The first occurred in Sofia, Bulgaria in 2001, the second in Bucharest, Romania in 2003, the third in Skopje, Macedonia in 2005, and the fourth in Athens, Greece in 2007. Each year the gathering of artists has brought attention to developments in the Balkan region, and has provided opportunities for artists to meet one another and to discover ideas and approaches from other parts of the world. The regional partners involved in the platform included ArtLink (Bucharest), Full House Promotion (Athens), Lokomotiva – Centre for New Initiatives (Skopje), The Red House (Sofia), and Exodus zavod (Ljubljana).

What distinguishes these performances from events I see in the United States is their rigorous questioning of what it means to create and to perform. In the United States we have a long history of choreography as movement invention and multi-media events that can dazzle the eyes with their slick configurations of bodies and space. The most impressive performance in Serbia, Madalina Dan’s “Dedublarea,” was a simple yet eloquent exploration for four performers. The two men and two women began by standing in a row facing the audience, watching us watch them. Their eyes roamed through the audience and their expressions shifted from smiling to gazing to inquiring. They were wearing street clothes and appeared natural, casual. Then they left. Four solos followed, each in a ridiculous costume of some animal: first a porcupine, then a toucan, then a donkey, then a sheep. Taking the stage the porcupine told us about how to be a dancer through a series of platitudes about “presence” as essential and the weight of the body being emphasized. She illustrated these with dramatic actions. Then she sat close to the wings as the toucan entered and continued the didactic tone… then the donkey… then the sheep. It was an investigation of the clichés that have become commonplace in dance and composition, the layers of artifice that smother communication, and an attempt to transcend and dismantle these constructs.

It is eye-opening to return to the States after such an event and to recognize how powerfully our environment shapes artistic creation. Sasa Asentić, director of Per.Art and a multi-disciplinary performer, has created an international reputation through a solo he made called “My private bio-politics.” In this solo Asentić questions the exclusion of Eastern European artists from discussion – and definition - of contemporary performance. In March of 2009, Dance Theatre Workshop in New York City became the first place to present “My private bio-politics” in the United States. I had seen Asentić perform in Germany and Austria in 2007 and 2008 and attended the DTW performance to see how the solo was transformed by this new context. It was well-received and tapped into issues being explored from different angles by artists in the United States. Asentić brings a unique perspective to questions regarding contemporary performance, particularly the relations between place and creation, presentation and interpretation.

The questions Asentić raises in his work are relevant today: most university syllabi for Dance History and Contemporary Performance exclude not only Eastern Europe, but also Africa, China, Korea, India and South America. The excitement I felt when I met the students from Princeton in Serbia emanates from the idea that we are dismantling borders when we engage with one another in conversation and artistic dialogue. And the more global and intertwined our world becomes, the more essential is this awareness and understanding of people and ideas from other places.

The performances within BDP 2009, like the festival, propose new definitions for contemporary performance. As Asentić explained:

“We have to invest in people and in collaboration to develop common interests and trust in a new cultural sphere. Then this will penetrate the institutions on levels which are relevant but not usual or typical for these institutions. Ultimately these projects not only [vitalize] the institution and its audience, but these partnerships also produce high quality work by independent artists.”

The performers in Serbia approach the creative process not only attentive to the political and social implications of their work, but also with a deep understanding of theory and practice. In the United States many dancers still define training and choreographing as moving in spectacular ways. Other parts of the world are developing practices that complement these physical pursuits with questions about the intelligence of the body, why we perform, and why we ask someone else to take part in this experience. Choreography is not only about the body but also engages philosophy and politics.

In discussing language and culture, the theorist Raymond Williams quotes the author V. N. Volosinov: “consciousness takes shape and being in the material of signs created by an organized group in the process of its social intercourse. The individual consciousness is nurtured on signs; it derives its growth from them; it reflects their logic and laws.”

If the word “performances” replaces “signs,” this sentence manifests one of the important ways artists contribute to social discourse: by recognizing different approaches and creations by varied artists, dance platforms offer perspectives on how we see the world and our interactions and, even more importantly, how these perspectives distinguish themselves from one another.

Williams adds: “Creative practice is thus of many kinds... the reproduction and illustration of hitherto excluded and subordinated models; the embodiment and performance of known but excluded and subordinated experiences and relationships; the articulation and formation of latent, momentary, and newly possible consciousness. Within real pressures and limits, such practice is always difficult and uneven. It is the special function of theory, in exploring and defining the nature and variation of practice, to develop a general consciousness within what is repeatedly experienced as a special and often relatively isolated consciousness. For creativity and social self-creation are both known and unknown events, and it is still from the grasping the known and the unknown – the next step, the next work – is conceived.”

I wish to thank Dance Theatre Workshop, particularly DTW’s Suitcase Fund, for the funding to attend BDP 2009. It was inspiring to see the creations of artists from the region and to engage in conversation with artists and theorists. My participation in BDP 2009 was made possible by Dance Theatre Workshop’s Suitcase Fund as part of the East/Central Europe Cultural Partnerships Program, with support from the Trust for Mutual Understanding.