Dark Landscapes / Bolero - April 4th 2017, 20h

Ballet of the Croatian National Theater
Zagreb, Croatia

Dark Landscapes

music: Thomas Koener
choreography, direction: Marjana Krajač
costumes, sets: Silvijo Vujičić
light concept: Marjana Krajač, Silvio Vujičić
light design: Aleksandar Čavlek
dramaturgical collaborator: Andrej Mirčev
assistants to set designer: Ivan Škugor, Ante Serdar

premiere: Croatian National Theater, 2016
duration: 42’

dancers: Guilherme Gameiro Alves, Tomaž Golub, Adam Harris, Natalia Horsnell,  Duilio Ingraffia, Asuka Maruo, Miruna Miciu, Ovidiu Muscalu, Kornel Palinko, Lucija Radić,  Cristiana Rotolo, Andrea Schifano, Takuya Sumitomo, Rieka Suzuki, Valentina Štrok, Iva Vitić Gameiro

Choreographic poems about dark traces, intuitive spaces and areas of disappearance. In another words, everything that is inscribed in to the world and that has not yet found its possible form. Amplitudes ofimagination that are creating deep volume of space, rhythm, time and sound are focal points of this piece and its dark visions. This work for 16 dancers defines performing gesture as poetic, intuitive and durational practice. In a long dance sessions, in which the body passes through the deep layers of patterns, what slowly emerges is a confidence in the unknown. There is a trust that creates a space of a movement as a mutual place of thinking and sensing. Singular body, able to self-determine itself in a relation to the whole is re-creating it anew. This gesture of creation with the fragments of the future, with something that is freshly formulated and therefore still fragile, is precisely what dance can offer as a meaningful understanding of the world. In this regard, something sensitive and open to reformulation can only be a dark landscape, a dark trace, a space with many unknown emotions. 

Marjana Krajač

Choreographer Marjana Krajač is based in Zagreb and working throughout Europe. Her works are providing intriguing, engaging and deep choreographic landscape and her approach to choreography is simultaneously a poetics of dance expertise, invested choreographic thinking and a deep understanding of the nature of a dance medium. In 2011 she was a Choreoroam Europe artist (selected by CSC Bassano del Grappa/Opera Estate Festival, The Place London, Rotterdam Dansateliers, a-2/Certamen Choreography Paso de Madrid and Croatian Institute for Movement and Dance).  She collaborated and danced for and with numerous choreographers in Germany, France and Croatia. She worked with Groupe Dunes in Marseille and her dance expertise was also formed by some of the relevant masters of European ballet and dance, like prima ballerina Marcia Haydée and Croatian avant-garde choreographer Milana Broš.  In 2014 she was awarded with Croatian Theatre Award for the outstanding choreographic achievement and Annual Award of the Croatian Dance Artists Association for the choreographic achievement of the year.

Bolero

music: Maurice Ravel
choreography, direction: Maša Kolar
music adaptation: Višeslav Laboš
sets, costumes: Petra Pavičić
light design: Nuno Salsinha
assistant to choreographer: Maja Marjančić
assistant to set designer: Ante Serdar

premiere: Croatian National Theater, 2016
duration: 30’

dancers:  Milka Hribar Bartolović, Atina Tanović, Iva Vitić Gameiro, Natalia Horsnell, Takuya Sumitomo, Andrea Schifano, Guilherme Gameiro Alves, Simon Yoshida, Kornel Palinko, Asuka Maruo, Mutsumi Matsuhisa, Sabrina Feichter, Duilio Ingraffia, Tomaž Golub, Lucija Radić, Catarina Meneses, Saya Ikegami,  Adam Harris, Sebastian Šimić 

Bolero represents steady, tenacious, and relentless pulsating of a community’s being. Minimalised, but obsessively repetitive rhythm of an individual, contagiously spreads its hypnotic influence onto another and others, until the group mirrors it in the rhythm of the collective. Cohabitation with others through mutuality gradually turns into competition and predation, and grows into a dizzying climax of collective ecstasy, through which it finds resolution in a kind of a communal purification.

Maša Kolar

Born in Zagreb, Maša Kolar has finished the School for Contemporary Dance “Ana Maletić” in her home town and later was studying at the Vlaamse Dansacademie in Belgium. Her professional career began in 1986 at the Zagreb Comedy Theatre, and continued in 1992 in Ballet Dresden. In 1997 she won the Mary Wingman Award for special achievements in performing works of John Neumeier, Stephan Thoss and Mats Ek. In 1998 she joined Thoss TanzKompanie in Kiel, and two years later moved with the same company to Hannover. With the role of Carmen, choreographed by Mats Ek, she toured Asia. Since 2000 she collaborates with Queensland Ballet in Brisbane. In 2007 she became a member of Aterballetto in Italy where she worked with choreographers Mauro Bigonzetti, Ohad Naharin, Marco Goecke, Waltero Matteini… Today Kolar works in Zagreb Youth Theatre as a teacher and choreographer and continues her international career as a freelance artist. Together with Serbian dancer Zoran Marković, she choreographed several works in Belgrade and Zagreb. As choreographer, she also worked with the National Youth Ballet in Hamburg and National Ballet in Rijeka.

The Ballet of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, that will soon mark 140 years of its own history (the first mentioning of ballet dancers in program leaflet was on November 4th, 1876) is the oldest, the largest and the most important ballet ensemble in Croatia. Owing to a variety of cultural-historical and sociological factors this ballet ensemble has always had a special place in the development of Croatian culture and its bonds with Europe. The company continues to demonstrate and promote its high artistic standards in classical repertory and works of contemporary choreographers, such as Derek Deane, Youri Vamos, Hans van Manen, Uwe Scholz, Marco Goecke, Nacho Duato, William Forsythe, Patrice Bart, Giorgio Madia, Vladimir Malakhov, Derek Deane, and many other significant authors. The Croation National Ballet is paying a considerable attention to the national heritage as well as to contemporary works, currently expressed through full length performances of Milko Šparemblek, Leo Mujić and Staša Zurovac. From 2014, Leonard Jakovina, internationally acclaimed dancer and former soloist with Berlin State Opera, has become the Company’s Artistic Director.