People
Dragana Alfirević
Dragana Alfirević (1976, Belgrade, Serbia) studied art history at the Belgrade University and later finished specialist training in the frame of the Body Unlimited programme. She is active as a performance artist, writer, curator and producer in the area between practice, theory and activism. She is interested in choreography in the widest sense and believes in art’s potential to extend beyond the confines of the stage. Dragana is the co-founder of the international contemporary dance platform Nomad Dance Academy (NDA)and the Belgrade-based STATION – Service for contemporary dance and the now defunct Kondenz Contemporary Dance Festival. She has been living in Ljubljana since 2007, working closely as programmer, initiator, curator and performer with different organisations and artists, especially with the Nomad Dance Academy Slovenia and CoFestival.
Darío Bardam
Darío Bardam is a Canarian freelance dancer who works in the field of dance and choreography. He works simultaneously in Stockholm, Sofia, Skopje and Tenerife. His artistic work revolves around the emancipation and autonomy of dance as a form of knowledge and the decontextualization and disidentification as artistic mediation mechanisms. He studied at the Teatro Victoria, Institut del Teatre and DOCH. He is currently studying a Master in Choreography and Performance at Justus-Liebig-Universität, Giessen, directed by Bojana Kunst. Darío has worked as a dancer, co-creator and collaborator with Cullberg, (with productions by Édouard Lock, Deborah Hay and Jefta van Dinther), Cristina Caprioli, Ofelia Jarl Ortega, Aleksandar Georgiev and Philip Berlin among others. Darío is a member of ICC (Imaginative Choreographic Center), STEAM ROOM, Lokomotiva, NOMAD Dance Academy, Interimkultur, PiedeBase and TenerifeLAV Laboratorio de Artes vivas y Ciudadanía.
Marijana Cvetković
Marijana Cvetković has graduated in art history (Belgrade) and completed MA in management in culture and cultural policy (Belgrade and Lyon). Currently, she is a PhD candidate at the University of Arts in Belgrade (museum management and development).
She has initiated and realized various programmes and projects in the fields of cultural policy, international and Balkan cultural cooperation, contemporary dance, visual arts and museums.
She is co-founder of Station Service for contemporary dance and Nomad Dance Academy, Balkan platform for development of contemporary dance and performing arts, as well as a cultural activist at the independent cultural scenes of Belgrade and Serbia.
Marijana Cvetković is a lecturer at the University of Arts in Belgrade (UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policy and Management and MAIPR – MA in International Performance Research).
Aleksandar Georgiev
Aleksandar Georgiev has been part of formal and no-formal educational programs. He graduated at the Master program in Choreography at DOCH in 2014. In the last 6 years when, while working, he defined four places he consider home/locality, (Stockholm, Sofia, Skopje and Tenerife). It is rather politics of parallel/holographic existing than of constant self-shifting. This is translated also into his artistic interest, from long years of exploring principles of collective authorship, at the moment he is rather focusing on co-existing practices. Lately he initiated the choreographic research CO-series. The research works with different artistic practices and methods exploring the ideas of co-existence, hyper and holography through the prism of dance and choreography. Recently he is very busy with the project called ICC (Imaginative Choreographic Center) together with two other choreographers, Darío Barreto Damas and Zhana Pencheva, reimagining the institutions as their activation.
Viktorija Ilioska
Viktorija Ilioska is a Macedonian choreographer and performer who lives and works between North Macedonia and Germany. For over a decade now, she has been actively working at programs for support and development of contemporary dance, both collaborating with institutions as well as strengthening the independent scene. Since 2010, she has been a member of Nomad Dance Academy, through which she works on bringing connections and collaborations within the local and national contexts of the Balkan region. Viktorija holds a Master’s degree in Choreography and Performance from the Institute of Applied Theatre Studies at Justus Liebig University, Gießen. Playing with different forms of provocation, her work often addresses the notions of labour, identity, and female representation in the public sphere.
Aleksandra Janeva Imfeld
Aleksandra Janeva Imfeld was born in Macedonia and moved to Croatia at early age.
She graduated from the School for contemporary dance Ana Maletić in Zagreb and studied dance in Bruges and Lier in Belgium. In 1998 she was a DanceWEB scholarship student in Vienna and in New York she was a scholarship student in The Jennifer Muller Company.
In 2012 she completed the postgraduate program a.pass (Advanced Performance and Scenography Study) in Brussels in which she developed a method of work ”the connector” or collective authorship and is using it within all of her works. Aleksandra was a close associate of BADco from Zagreb.
She worked as a performer with Ismael Ivo, Anna Mondini, The System Castafiore, Brice Leroux, David Hernandez and many others. As a choreographer she collaborated with the majority of companies and collectives in Croatia. She is one of the co- founders of Nomad Dance Academy and Nomad Dance Academy Croatia.
With the movement research ‘the dots” she is a guest teacher at SNDO Amsterdam, ISAC Brussels and Dance Academy in Zagreb. New inspiration complementary to her physical practice is painting murals and editing videos/dance related movies.
Iva Nerina Sibila
Iva Nerina Sibila (1971) is a dance artist and writer, educator, and organiser / curator. She received her dance education at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds graduating in 1995, and in 2021. MA in Performing Arts in Academy for Arts and Culture in Osijek. In many of her projects she works on accessibility and visibility of dance, investigating of the emancipatory potential of dance education and positioning dance in its broader social context. She is the founder and artistic director of DIVERT Inclusive Dance Collective, a performative and educational project for dancers with and without disabilities. This project received Special award for exceptional artistic achievements and organisation of dance events of outstanding importance, awarded by Croatian association of dance artists. As an educator of contemporary dance, improvisation and inclusive dance she has taught at the School of Classical Ballet in Zagreb, the Student Centre Zagreb and the Centre for Women’s Studies in Zagreb, including many other independent workshops, TALA Dance Centre, Zagreb Dance Centre and the Dance Department of the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb.
Iva Nerina has been part of editorial board for 20 years of the dance magazine Movements (Kretanja), she contributes regularly to online portal Plesnascena.hr and her texts have appeared in numerous as publications in Croatia and abroad, including the leading European dance magazine Tanz. Her work as expert and communicator includes giving lectures and presentation on various dance and performing arts topic different contexts – from audience development workshops, post performance talks to seminars of dance criticism and dance history.
As curator and organiser, she is currently involved in ATISEZONA – collaborative and co-curatorial project of presenting dance and dance related arts in Museum of Contemporary art in Zagreb, and in TALA PLE(j)S, newly opened performing and residential space by Dance centre TALA.
Gisela Müller
Gisela Müller studied dance in Paris, Amsterdam (SNDO) and New York. She was a member of several dance companies before founding, in 1992, The Move Company for which she choreographed numerous pieces. She was granted scholarships for artistic work both in Germany and abroad. Since 1988 she is teaching regularly in various institutions and studios. Since 2004 she is member of the board of Tanzfabrik Berlin and responsible for the artistic and educational programme of Berlin’s Tanzfabrik School and the director of the Dance Intensive programme. From 2006 until 2010, Gisela Müller was visiting professor at the Inter-University Dance Department / HZT in Berlin (Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum Tanz) where she invented and co-directed the BA course in Contemporary Dance, Context, Choreography. Beside she is a member of the Nomad Dance Academy since 2012.
Sonja Pregrad
Sonja Pregrad (Croatia) is a dance artist, performer, organizer and collaborator, being based in between Zagreb (Croatia) and Berlin (Germany). Growing up in an East-European, ex-socialist country, is probably one of the things that shaped her understanding of art as always relational, collective and contextualized endeavor. She has been involved in different grass-root initiatives within the art community of Zagreb. She is a founder and producer of the festival Improspekcije (since 2007), Fourhanded artistic platform and Antisezona program at Contemporary Art Museum. In her work as a choreographer, dance is always thought of as a relational gesture, her choreography extending from re-inventing body-based practices to re-appropriating performance formats. Sonja made works on her own and developed different long-term artistic collaborations, performing her work internationally. She received Croatian Theatre Award for the best female performance and the best work in total, two collective Croatian Dance Union Awards and a special mention at the 26th Slavonian biennale. As a performer she has been working with choreographers Meg Stuart, Isabelle Schad, visual artist Sanja Iveković, and others.
Dejan Srhoj
Dejan Srhoj (1978) is an independent performer working in contemporary dance. He is currently developing the long term project Composing Differences in which, through improvisations, the sharing of practices, and education he explores choreographic principles that deal with community.
Realizing that a robot can awaken emotions, Dejan created a performance in Sweden for the robot Nao who speaks, dances, and thinks.
Since 2001 he works as a freelancer, and is one of the establishing members of Fičo Balet, in the frame of which, together with Goran Bogdanovski, he has performed or collaborated on many performances. He is co-founder and active member of regional Nomad Dance Academy network.
As a performer he has also worked on projects with Janez Janša, Ivica Buljan, Sebastijan Horvat, Betontanc, Magdalena Reiter, Silvan Omerzu, Kaja Lorenci, Snježana Premuš and others. Before that, between 1998 and 2001 he was a soloist at the SNG Opera and Ballet in Ljubljana. In his three years there he mainly danced main roles, for example the Prince in Swan Lake.
As a pedagogue in dance he leads a regular training in improvisation under the name Composing Differences for a number of years already. With Nina Božič he teaches Arts & Business workshops, in Slovenia and abroad. Within the frame of the NDA network, he researches innovative teaching methods through workshops and trainings such as “CoTeaching” and “Teaching without a teacher”. In 2008 he has graduated at the Open University in London – (BA in Humanities).
Iskra Šukarova
Iskra Šukarova accomplished her contemporary dance studies at the National Conservatorium Superior in Lyon. In 2002 she obtained her Masters Degree at the Laban Center – London and in 2014, her PhD at the state faculty of Theatre Arts in Skopje. She has completed numerous dance trainings with established artists, and her pieces have toured regionally and internationally. Shukarova has been honored with fellowships such as CEC ArtsLink and DanceWeb. She was a principal soloist in the Macedonian Opera and Ballet beginning in 1991, and one of the founders of Lokomotiva- Centre for New Initiatives in Arts and Culture. She was also the co-founder and co-programmer of the contemporary dance festival Locomotion in Skopje and one of the founders of the Balkan Dance Network and the NOMAD Dance Academy project. Since 2010 Sukarova has been a professor at the University St. Cyril and Methodius- Music Faculty – Department of Dance pedagogy in Skopje.
Biljana Tanurovska-Kjulavkovski
Biljana Tanurovska – Kjulavkovski is cultural producer, researcher and a curator at the intersection of dance, theatre and visual arts performance. She is co-founder of Nomad Dance Academy platform (NDA) (2005-) Kino Kultura (KK) – project space (2015-2020), Locomotion – festival for contemporary dance and performance (2008-2015) and program director of NGO Lokomotiva, Skopje (2003-). Currently she works on Archive of dance and performance in N.Macedonia as part of NDA project (Non)Aligned Movements; she is course leader of “Curatorial practices and context” at Stockholm University of Arts and co-mentor of the Critical Practice (made in Yu) program.In the past two years, she co-curated the exhibitions “REALIZE! RESIST! REACT! Performance and Politics in the 1990s in the Post-Yugoslav Context” in 2020 at the MOCAM Ljubljana and “Ecstatic Bodies: Archive of Performative Queer Bodies in Macedonia” at the Skopje Pride Weekend festival 2022 and collaborates as co-curator on the festival program for dance and performance on MOT festival in Skopje. She teaches and is author and editor of texts, journals and book “Modeling art and cultural institutions”. She holds PhD from the Faculty of Drama Arts in Belgrade. in 2019, won ENCATC International Research Award on Cultural Policy and Cultural Management for her doctoral thesis and in 2021 AICA Macedonia “Ladislav Barishic” Award for the research “Political Performance as extended field in Macedonia in 90s”, among other.
Rok Vevar
Rok Vevar is a dance historian, curator and activist, living and working in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In 2012 he established the Temporary Slovenian Dance Archives in his own apartment, moving it to MSUM (Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova) in Ljubljana in April 2018. He has also presented his archive at Harvard University, USA. Since 2012 he has co-curated the international dance festival CoFestival, an international festival of contemporary dance (Nomad Dance Academy Slovenija, Kino Šiška) in Ljubljana. A selection of his reviews and articles was published in the book “Rok za oddajo” (Deadline) in 2011, and in 2018 he edited the book “Dan, noč + človek = Ritem: Antologija slovenske sodobnoplesne publicistike 1918–1960” (Day, night + man = Rhythm: An Anthology of Contemporary Slovene Journalism 1918-1960), for which he selected materials and wrote accompanying texts. In 2020, his new monograph “Ksenija, Xenia: Londonska plesna leta Ksenije Hribar 1960–1978” (Ksenija, Xenia: The London Dance Years of Ksenija Hribar 1960-1978) was published. In 2019 he was awarded the Ksenija Hribar Award for his work and in 2020 the Vladimir Kralj Recognition Award for his achievements in the field of dance history and archivism in Slovenia.
Jasmina Založnik
Jasmina Založnik is a freelance dramaturge, dance publicist and producer. She is active locally and internationally as a writer, dramaturge, curator, moderator, consultor, researcher, and art collaborator. She is an active member of Nomad Dance Academy Slovenia, regional network Nomad Dance Academy, and a cofounder of CoFestival, international festival of contemporary dance. She is an active member of The Contemporary Dance Association Slovenia (CDAS), Slovenian Association of Theatre Critics and Theatrologist and City of Women association, as well as member of the editorial board of Dialogi Journal. She has edited a number of art catalogues and a few journals’ special issues, lately coedited The Voice of Dance (Maska, 2021), and Female artists in the field of performing art (Dialogi, 2022). She is an occasional contributor to journals and magazines; writing reflections, portraits and in-dept analyses on various topics of her interests, including dance phenomena, research on the notion of body in different socio-political domains, and knots of politics. She holds a master’s degree in philosophy and PhD in visual culture. In 2015 she received Ksenija Hribar Award for dance in the category criticism/dramaturgy/theory.
