STUDIO SHOWING

Resident artist sharing / STUDIO SHOWING

March  2023: STAŠA ZUROVAC 

5.3.2023

18:00

Tickets: Open doors

About the artist:

STAŠA ZUROVAC

Author and choreographer, former Principal Dancer of the Croatian National Theatre (CNT) Ballet in Zagreb. Graduated from the Croatian Ballet School in Zagreb in the class of professor Tatjana Lucić-Šarić. He continued his studies in St. Petersburg at the Vaganova Ballet Academy where he graduated under the supervision of V. K. Onoschko. He collaborated with many world-renowned choreographers such as Milko Šparemblek, Martino Müller, Ted Brandsen, Vasco Wellenkamp, Gagik Ismailian, Peter Breuer, Patrick Delcroix and many others. From 1996 until 1999 he danced and choreographed in the Compania Portuguesa de Bailado Contemporaneo in Lisbon. With choreographer Mark Boldin he started the independent arts organisation the Atelier Choréographique. From 2003 until 2012 he was the Artistic Director of the Ballet of the Croatian National Theatre Ivan pl. Zajc in Rijeka. From 2012 to 2018 he worked at the University of Rijeka as a guest lecturer, teaching stage movement for actors in the studies of Acting, Media and Culture.

He is the choreographer, author and director of numerous choreographies, full-evening ballets, dance pieces and drama plays.

About the residency:

We invite the audience to the sharing of our work in the form of an open rehearsal on the 05 th of March

2023 at 18.00h at Sonnenstain LOFT. Materials were created through the time spent in the residential

program of the RedSpata Tanzfabrik association. A 15-day residency is the initial part of the process

of creation of the dance theatre piece Flights/Unrast inspired by the novel "Flights" written by the

Polish writer and Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk.

By establishing a dialogue with Tokarczuk's novel we are creating new realities. The creative process

intends to reveal links between the experiences of the performers, the characters of the book and the

audience. It is also an attempt to create through some kind of identification with the writer, a narrator

herself, with the one who reads reality from the entire flux of motion.

The piece will interfere with the topic of a journey, travel, escape, wandering, and movement - while

today more than "half the world" is running away from various kinds of horrors and tragedies or

simply driven by the motives of their longings, it is more than a current topic. Travellers – Pilgrims –

Refugees.

Travel has never been done like today. And yet, travel has retained its poetry. But what does it mean to

be a body in motion in this world gone mad? To travel not only through space but also through time?

The project is an encounter that promotes the exchange of artistic experiences, mutual enrichment, and

above all, how to sensitize viewers by addressing themes that deeply affect the issues of the day: the

search for spirituality, the need for care and depth in contact with other people, great respect for nature

and most importantly - solidarity with every existence.

The project is a collaboration of several international dance artists: Yuko Harada, Japanese dance

artist, current rehearsal director and dancer of Musiktheater Linz and former soloist of Kibbutz

Contemporary Dance Company, Núria Giménez Villarroya, Spanish dance artist, former soloist of

Musiktheater Linz, Kasija Vrbanac and Lucija Kukor, two Croatian dance artists, Shao Yang Hsieh,

Taiwanese dance artist, also a former soloist of Musiktheater Linz, and Juliana Vargas Rodriguez, a

dance artist and student of the IDA Institute of the Anton Bruckner University in Linz.

Set and costumes will be created by Bjanka Adžić Ursulov, Slovenian costume and set designer.

The original music will be composed by Alexander Balanescu, a violin virtuoso and a founder of the

world-famous Balanescu Quartet with whom he will perform alive in the piece. Alexander Balanescu's

music is inspired by people who are constantly in motion, aligned with the theme of travel, escape and

movement.

Alexander Balanescu will join the residential program aiming to establish a creative dialogue between

music and the choreographic process.

The project will be created in Linz, Austria and it will be world premiered at the 40th jubilee edition of

the Contemporary Dance Week in Zagreb which will take place from the 11th – the 19th of June

2023. Dance Week Festival is an international festival of contemporary dance and movement with the

longest tradition in Croatia and one of the largest festivals in the region.

Credits: 

Flights/Unrast - a dance theatre piece inspired by the book "Flights" by the Polish Nobel laureate

Olga Tokarczuk.

Author/choreographer: Staša Zurovac

Music: Alexander Balanescu https://www.balanescu.com/alexander

Set and costume designer: Bjanka Adžić Ursulov

Light designer: Marko Mijatović

Sound engineer: David Kent