NagiB, International Contemporary Dance Festival

Cooper test or how fit is the culture in Maribor?

How fit is the culture in Maribor in the wake of the upcoming European Capital of Culture 2012? Let’s test it! NagiB Festival is inviting artists, makers, producers, cultural workers, residents of Maribor, and others to join us in the Cooper test and run two laps around the streets of the inner city centre. Stops, refreshments, talks, and hints are welcome! Doping agents and methods which would considerably change the test’s results are strictly prohibited. This Cooper test is a result of the common “labours” of the three Maribor-based performing arts festivals, Crossings, NagiB, and Platforma. In the event of rain the event will take place on the next sunny day.

Taste of NagiB: Through the Backdoor to the Artist's Kitchen

Step 1: Looking into the kitchen
Step 2: Group tasting with Robert Steijn (Austria), Coraline Lamaison (France), Michelle Rizzo (Italy), Fanni Futterknecht (Austria), Vlasta Veselko (Slovenia), and a selected guest
Step 3: Video aperitif
Step 4: Pleasures of socialising

Creative process is one of the most precious forms of individual expression and as such presents the central point of NagiB 2011. By shifting its focus from the format of the performance as the art product to the creative process, this year’s NagiB Festival will be the meeting place of artists, experts, and all who are not indifferent to contemporary performing arts.

United Party and a concert by the group Laka

United Party is a joint opening of three performing arts festivals NagiB, Platforma, and Crossings and at the same time the closing event of summer film projections Udarnik Open Air. The concert is a celebration and also an “introduction” to the two week dose of dance, performance art, theatre, and socialising that will take place until September 10 2011.

United Party will be paced in the rhythms of the “family duet” of Elvir Laković – Laka and his sister Mirela, who represented Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest and that same year also received MTV’s Best Adria Act Award. Their music has caused quite a stir in the Balkans – now it’s Maribor’s turn.

Tickets are available at all outlets of the Eventim system, in the time of Udarnik Open Air also at Udarnik Institute, and at Maribor Dance Room (Plesna Izba) during the office hours. Entrance fee is EUR 10.
* A special discount on the price for all who will join us at 8 pm at NagiB Festival’s Opening specialty.

Showing of the documentary

A showing of the documentary film Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis by Mary Jordan (USA) about a legendary New York performance artist and film director who did not want to be part of the American art market.

Discussion breakfast

Having some coffee and croissants in a cosy and relaxed atmosphere of the discussion breakfast, we will talk about the role of the choreographer within the mechanism of the art market. Based on the themes discussed in the film Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis, the talk will be moderated by Robert Steijn (Austria).

Intuition on a Plate

The first Saturday event “Intuition on a plate” is conceived as a journey through the construction of a dance performance. As a mediator for the art works in progress by the festival’s guest artists, namely Coraline Lamaison (France), Michelle Rizzo (Italy), Fanni Futterknecht (Austria), Vlasta Veselko (Slovenia), and a selected guest, the dramaturge Robert Steijn will try to reveal to the audience that which is usually hidden from the viewer’s eyes. The “plate” will thus have to offer the processes of opening up of imagination, accepting intuitive decisions, and going into the unknown, as well as some specific questions: Does the knowledge of how a performance is made increase our understanding of what is seen in the end? How much do we know about how a performance is made, how informative it is to know with what intentions, desires, and ideas the performance has been made?

Dinner with an Artist

Meet the artist personally. Ask what you want to know.
Spend a culinary evening with an artist. Prepare her/him dinner; invite her/him to your home or to a selected location. Applications can be made at the festival’s venue in the time of the festival.

Discussion breakfast

Everything for the audience, breakfast included

Guests:
- Christina Gillinger (Mediation & Audience Development, Tanzquartier Dunaj, Avstrija), www.tqw.at
- Zvonimir Dobrovic (Queer Zagreb Festival, Perforacije, Zagreb, Hrvaška), www.queerzagreb.org in www.perforacije.org
- Moderator: Igor Medjugorac, www.rdecioblak.si

Dear producers, cultural workers, artists, directors, thinkers and makers,

Join us for a session of exchange, debate, stimulation and indulgence. Our Breakfast Table lends itself to opening up a round table on the theme of Audiences: how to identify and attract them.

In the light of the weak support from our local government and the pressure upon us of being European Cultural Capital in 2012, PIM and the Network of Slovene Contemporary Dance would like to use this opportunity to explore innovative, low-budget and tailored concepts to prove our creative superiority over budget. Working in difficult conditions (with lack of funds and lack of labour), we’re driven, whether as artistic director, artist, administrator or producers to find simple ways of engaging civilians from the most absent-minded to the most ignorant.

Complain: we encourage you to bang your fist on the table. Why is the grass always greener on the other side? Why, despite catering for different needs, do we find ourselves in the same boat of poorly-attended venues? How can we please without pleasing? How can we seduce without being dull? How can we seduce, provoke, engage, attract, raise awareness and become indispensable to the city?

Contemplate: take some time to digest all the anger, frustration and concerns. Have a sip of coffee and retreat from the blame! Let’s settle for a mood where we can operate both sensibly and intuitively. Reflect upon your output and audience. Who will ideally attend your programme? Quality versus quantity…Ponder about those certain needs and interests of your audience.

Construct: let’s unite forces and build a grid of assisting each other in materializing ideas. Come out of your shell and use this opportunity to share opinions and experiences. Let’s brainstorm, play, lose track of rules and regulations, terms and conditions and dig into the deep waters of our pleasures and delights. What was the nicest compliment you received on your programme? What drew the individual in the first place to come see a production? Let’s play with ideas that have proven useful to others and may apply to our own institution? Think of all the artists you’ve been working with: which idea inspired you? Edgy, quirky, off the beaten track but applicable concepts are most welcome.

Let’s stir up the town!

Nail Soup

The second Saturday event is conceived as a journey through the actual situations in a creative process. The dramaturge Igor Dobričić (Serbia/Holland) offers the story Nail Soup as an example of a production of something out of “nothing”, where the real nothing is always more than the imagined nothing of absolute emptiness. Here the question of what limits the artist in his/her imagination or execution will be posed. Besides other the frame of a residency itself limits the artist: with its limited time frame, with spatial positioning, financial resources … However, as is framed in the story, creativity is in itself related to survival, an urgency to respond to difficult, even extreme circumstances by an ingenuity of a solution, and to action as a result of a recognition of an “insignificant possibility”, thus you can in the end of the two week residency see the presentations of works in progress by NagiB 2011 “residency artists”: Coraline Lamaison (France), Michelle Rizzo (Italy), Fanni Futterknecht (Austria), Vlasta Veselko (Slovenia), and the selected guest.