A GUIDELINES

for mentors and young performers

OPUS 1 – SHORT DANCE PIECE 2013
Topic: Everybody dance now!* / Dance and rebellion

In 1953, Slovenian dancer and choreographer Živa Kraigher performed her original solo dance piece Resistance in Ljubljana’s National Theatre in which she presented her experience of the National Liberation War. In recent months, the protests and demonstrations, which have for some time swept through European cities, have also increasingly appeared in Slovenia. There seems to be a mood of defiance in the air and dance has been linked to rebellions since ages past. The emergence of contemporary dance is often interpreted as a rebellion against ballet and traditional use of movement on the stage. With its defiance, contemporary dance actively researches and looks for different types of movement and can therefore be clearly linked to the notion of rebellion. It moreover never existed outside of social currents and changes.

The prescribed topic can be approached by asking oneself what an individual’s or a group’s act of rebellion actually means, why people have been rebelling since ancient past, why and against whom is it necessary to rebel today, what type of resistance to choose…and how to rebel through the use of dance.
But the topic can also be approached by investigating the body and physical characteristics of resistance (physics states that resistance is a nonconservative force acting upon a body in motion). In which circumstances is a body in motion subject to greatest resistance? In this manner, the topic can be made more comprehensible to younger performers. However, children do resist various types of authority from an early age, giving performers of all ages a wide variety of means of expression.

The obligatory part of the creative process should also be translating your ideas and procedures into words. The same as every year, you have to attach a description of your creative process to your application (literary origins, thoughts, procedures, decisions…). Think about it and work on it so as to genuinely delve into the depths of your short dance piece.

Mentors should discuss the topic with the young performers, while the latter should be autonomous and creative in shaping their ideas and pieces. Mentors should also spend more time with younger dancers in order to bring the topic closer to them on a level that they can understand.
The role of mentors in creating the short dance piece is to counsel, lead and guide the children/young performers in creating their own ideas, dance expressions and autonomous choreographies.

The topic is meant to provide a large number of options to all performers, regardless of their age, be it by allowing them to study the force of resistance on movement, create an intimate expression of feelings, reconstruct historical events or provide a critical commentary of the current issues in contemporary society.
Approach the topic with an explorer’s lust and a creative inspiration.

In the words of dance theoretician and publicist Jasmina Založnik: “We need new and independent choreographies, which will allow us to dance through life independently. Choreographies with which we can resist all the announced cuts, all the appeals that the masters hide between the lines of their messages. We address a different choreography. One that defies order and discipline. When dance is given the power to communicate to all society members. To encourage a change from passive consumers of spectacles to active and autonomous choreographers! Choreographers of a better life.”

* Everybody dance now! (in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian: Svi marš na ples!) is a compilation album released by Jugoton in 1980 in SFR Yugoslavia.The compilation's title is a verse from the refrain of the ska song "Ha, ha, ha" by Bijelo dugme from their Doživjeti stotu album.
Doživjeti stotu was being prepared and eventually released in the wake of the Yugoslav lifetime president Josip Broz Tito's death. His death on May 4, 1980, triggered an extended mourning period that saw most of the entertainment activities throughout the country temporarily quiet down.