multitude of associations and layers of insight
The Front@ Festival is close to being of full age. Throughout these years, it has been produced with or without support. It came to life during economic, political, and refugee crises, climate change, pandemics, and, this year, war. The latter never stops; only the distance from the hot spots changes, as does our perception shaped by media reports.
What to present in a programme in such circumstances? An unfiltered picture of reality, or trust the power and subtlety of artistic expression and authorial poetics that respond through the more complex labyrinths of creative exploration? A straight answer would miss the point of art, which, when we are satisfied with the established view, can peel back another layer, exposing more questions that make us reconsider the image of the world and the state of affairs. This may well be why art is hated so passionately by people who believe that social relations are best dealt with a firm hand and hard blows.
The expressive power of the human body has no limits. In a dynamic relation to its surroundings and other bodies, i.e., dance, it carries inexhaustible creativity through direct communication. It is particularly effective in its use of metaphors, allowing the viewer to make associations and layers of insight on a selected topic. Contemporary dance is created in a dynamic and ecstatic relation to the environment, the world, and the issues of the time. It reflects the intimate in the individual body and the collective in the performances. At first sight, the programme may seem too stark. However, in its diversity, it bears the reflection of a broken mirror, as one might describe the fragmentation of our time characterised by a cacophony of ill-considered opinions.
The festival will open with the humorous, only seemingly light-hearted, but all bitter clown grotesque A Chair Tamer, which covers one life in less than an hour. The next performance, Made of Space, which won the Spanish critics' prize for Best Choreography in 2021, will add infinite movement through virtuous combinations and permutations of bodies that defy and surrender to gravity.
The second festival's day will witness two notable works. It will begin with a search for innovative ways of presenting dance performances through technology, which led to Blue Ink's creation. This impressive hybrid interweaves panoramic footage and performance. The programme will continue with the intertwining of two bodies, which change shapes in Where is the Golden Egg? and merge into a weird creature in the twilight of the stage.
An essential part of the future of contemporary dance will be seen on the third day in the presentation of the award-winning short dance pieces Opus1, which brings moving, inspiring, and impressive poetics from young artists. Next, a series of solos that blend into a polyphony of shifting shapes and sounds in public space will take us into an unusual interpretation of the world in Stand-Alones. In the dance-music spectacle Fusion Reactor, Žigan Krajnčan, together with an extraordinary group of dancers and musicians, will fuse different dance and music genres into a blast of energy.
The concept of the festival goes back to its origins. Seventeen years ago, we wanted to motivate younger audiences to see contemporary dance performances, so we planned the festival as a mix of dance and music. It has all turned out differently, but we have never abandoned the idea. After the official Front@ programme, we would often meet at MiKK where links with foreign guests were strengthened in a relaxed atmosphere and new ideas were born. This year we have paid more attention to this part of the festival and, together with the Nindri Indri team, we have designed a programme with DJ Kleemar, DJ .čunfa, the Moveknowledgment band, and DJs Anásta and Balana that will allow the audience, performers, guest artists, guests, and festival organisers to mingle and dance after 10 pm.
In three days, we will take a journey from the limited time of an individual life, through the infinity of travel and the exploration of gravity, to multimedia, mythological creatures emerging from the darkness of space, to a shocking look at the end of life, to sensitivity, virtuosity, rebellion, rock charge, and horror, past the bizarre imagery of dance cubism, to a reactive fusion of dance and music, not only at the end of the festival but also every single night of the festival.
Matjaž Farič,
artistic director
