Eminent choreographer and director Matjaž Faričone of our most prominent actors in the field of contemporary dance art of the last decades, will be with a new dance performance Fearswhich was produced by the Flota institute, marked the 40th anniversary of his professional activity in a very appropriate way, as well as the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Flota institute. In this performance, which will be premiered on Tuesday, May 26, at 8 p.m. in Spanski borke, he returned to the same movement material that he used in his 1986 solo, for which he received his first international award, and these starting points have now been reworked into an updated version that directly responds to today’s times and the associated (new) fears. A South Korean dancer will perform Jeong Bin Seo.
Link to turning points
Matjaž Farič, who started his dance career at the Maribor Ballet School, is a soloist Ghostwith of My Life created in 1986 and received an award for it shortly after at the New Dance Competition in Budapest. Already the following year, during his training at the Palucca Schule in Dresden, this solo – under the title Geister meines Lebens – arranged for the body of the dancer Mario Heinemann and won the award for choreography at the 10th GDR Ballet Competition for the performance. After returning to Slovenia, Farič gave the solo a new title Fears and included it in a full-length original performance Sanje Maria Hwhich premiered at the Youth Club in Murska Sobota, where the Youth Information and Culture Club (MIKK) is now located. But Farič danced this performance only once, as he was seriously injured a few days later, and after his recovery they were Fears included in the show in 1988 The sixth April of the Eastern dance project group, which he founded before that. In short, it is a solo that is directly connected to a series of turning points in Farič’s journey as a dancer and choreographer (beginning, departure abroad, return, interruption and restart), but now it will be connected with the round anniversary of his creation.
As Farič points out, in the reconstruction of the dance solo Fears it is not just a repetition: in the 40 years that have passed since the first version, we have indeed witnessed extraordinary technological progress and tectonic political shifts, even though the starting points remain similar – if decades ago a large part of the world was separated by an iron curtain, today (after a longer period of closer political and economic integration) they are again at the forefront of divergence and new divisions in the world order, including the threat of war of global proportions. And if the creator was once limited in particular by ideological, cultural and political frameworks, today he is “disciplined” above all by “economic” requirements for productivity and usefulness. The choreography, which basically came from personal fears forty years ago – these have turned into the ghosts of the past to this day – faced the question of how fears change, accumulate and inscribe in the body in the process of creating an updated solo.
Approaching two styles
In the new version Strahov danced by Jeong Bin Seo, whose personal dance style reflects both modern ballet practices and contemporary dance as well as the traditional movement heritage of the environment in which she grew up – as such, it is quite different from Farič’s, which was formed both through expressive and modern dance, i.e. education in ballet techniques, and through dealing with martial arts or gymnastics. These differences open up possibilities for a fresh interpretation and expansion of the original solo, supported by the distinctly similar dance sensibilities of the two creators.
In addition to Seo and Farič, who signed the choreography and direction, the play was co-created by a playwright Katja Markič and lighting designer Hotimir Knific. The organization Korea Dance Abroad and the En-Knap institute are also participating as co-producers, and tonight’s premiere will be followed by a conversation with Matjaž Farič. The first repetition will take place on Wednesday, May 27, at the same time in Spanski borke, and on Friday, May 29, there will be Fears on view at MIKK, where they were also performed for the first time.
