Premiere Snježana Premuš – Every now is time, space

In the frame of the Creative Crossroad activity, Snježana Premuš  was selected by NDA Slovenia to receive a 2 years structural support by the LLB network to work on her latest production "Every now is time, space ?"

This support includes various residencies in Ljubljana and in Budapest, hosted by Workshop Foundation and a co-production support by Uferstudios. The co-production support by Uferstudios is realized in 2 residencies, 13.-22.03.2020 und 2.-12.07.2020.

Title of the performance:Every now is time, space (Tina Valentan, Dragana Alfirević, Dejan Srhoj, Anja Bornšek, Gregor Zorc, Boštjan Perovšek,Špela Škulj).

Working periods:

1. - 10.2. Studio Moj korak Ljubljana

11. - 20.2.2019 SMEEL Ljubjana

8. - 19.7. 2019 SMEEL Ljubljana

16. - 23.8.2019 Artus Studio Budapest – 1^stresidency
View her experience report in the upper right column.

23. - 2.10.2019 SMEEL Ljublana
PREMIERE: 30.09. – 20.10.2019 at Stara Mestna Elektrarna Ljubljana

The work has been the result of a creative collaboration between a choreographer and five performing artists working substantially with a lighting designer and a sound artist in the framework of a newly configured collaboration to mix performing arts, visual arts and sound arts using not only the latest digital sound technologies (HyperSound) but also by confronting challenging and relevant questions about the how we perceive the body (both as self and as other) in today’s time, about perception in our hyper-speed world and about open principles of collaboration that even extend into the role and position of the audience as active co-creators of a (holistic) artistic experience, not merely passive observers or overstimulated tuned out bodies. The two main methods that were implemented into the process and the outcome was the notion of editing (real-time editing) and the notion of simultaneous spaces. The idea was implemented as followed: working and testing various frames by opening presentation formats, such as a laboratory and a workshop, were people were intimately involved in the process. The team set up the choreo-social frameworks as environments for sensitizing bodies, their basic material senses, spatial relationships and increased attention, what surrounds them.

As the team was working on co-existence with the audience, the idea of simultaneous spaces, was developed with the help of installation with special speakers (Hypersonic, directed speakers). This helped the team to create smaller, to a certain degree ‘isolated’ spaces within the original stage and auditory space of Old power plant in Ljubljana. The microenvironments were available to the participants to discover and were initially marked on the map, that participants received at the beginning of the laboratory. 

Inside view of the participant in the laboratory - sociologists and dance critic Maša Radhi Buh who was participating in some of the laboratories during the year.

In the second part of the rehearsal period - July, the team focused on rehearsing the scores for the dancers. The basic multi-perceptual space established in February was a base for development of the next stage: dance scores and scores for the public.

The idea was to create a mapping, where both the dancers and public could co-exist and intertwin with their action and decisions in the space, thus creating a multilayered event.

The two scores that finally Snježana Premuš chose for the performance event, where based on the work with the question - where a personal becomes collective and how collective leaks into the personal. The work with the detail was first score. It helped the dancers to bring not only personal into the common space but also physiological (what we do not control) When a certain layer of the motion or gesture was getting imprinted in all the bodies, the group would recognize this for the detail of the group. From there were many strategies how to work with the detail, how to reappear with it in the next session, how to develop it back into the personal space and how to diminish it to the neutral position. 

The second score was based on the repetition of the position in the space. Snježana introduced basic score: find a space on the diagonal and enter. The dancers kept re-entering the same position and through time they start to modulate it, because each person noticed something specific in the previous position and this influenced how he/she inhabited it. Slowly from very inner micro-changes, the group started to operate with a huge vocabulary of momentums, gestures, motions, that kept appearing, vanishing, being developed, always leaving one person on the initial diagonal.

In the residency in August in Budapest, the team created a setting, which incorporated both what have been developed in the first part (simultaneous spaces within the installation and in the second part (score work for the dancers and public). The presentation was on the last day of the residency on 29th of August, where public/audience were invited and a feedback session was arranged. 

Audience was at the beginning given a minimum information: the map of the space, with the assigned spaces where the speakers were. And the score that was introduced in the halfway of the presentation, created a new social-performance situation, where the audience was being active and discovering the perceptual spaces also felt free to join the scores of the dancers at certain points. The participants were creating the whole experience out of the observing, perceiving, acting.

The last part was developed in the Power plant in Ljubljana, where the whole system was developed and became more sophisticated. As Snježana Premuš interest lies in creating the environment where different, sometimes contradictory social roles can engage and can be present at the same time and same space, she became aware that the montage/editing is the key for this performance. So the environment was developed, where the spectator not only perceives (installation - micro space, where different perceptual activity is sensitized), but also edits. Similar as K-effect (experiment in film), which shows the basic influence of the editing on human perception and proves, the reading of the image is dependent on the context of the image before and after. 

The space was divided into smaller areas, where micro spaces introduced different environments (listening to the natural sounds like birds coming out of the area in the wall, the corner where the stories where bouncing into the air, the area of shower - different qualities of drops, two areas with microphone, where anybody could go and take a reading score and project the voice into different isolated areas in the space, the sitting corner with sofa, the diagonal, where a dance score was happening).

All these rich and picturesque situations started to evolve in the eyes of the spectator.  As the roles had to be changed (at one point one can be observing the image in the corner, the next point one can be reading the text, or closing the eyes and listening to the score or drops of the water) a landscape of images was pouring into the common space and spectators where  indeed editing, while  mapping their unique trajectory through the event.

Residency in Budapest:

Snježana Premuš, choreographer, artistic director’s used this residency (provided by Workshop Foundation) for the new state of their research. These artists had spent their third time at Workshop Foundation and are looking for these answers: Can we see the sound? Can we touch what we see? Can we hear the visual space? What do we see when our eyes are closed and our other senses are taking in the experience? How does the word touch us?

In Premuš’ work there’s a special focus on sound and light. Unfortunately, for independent artists it is very rare that they can rehearse or research surrounded by technical and a technician support on a stage. Workshop Foundation offers and organises these technical residencies to find a solution to this matter.

Premuš and her companion had spent 1+5 days at one of the studios of Workshop Foundation and at Artus Studio’s stage. Bostjan Perovsek, sound designer has been making sound installation for this research, this installation is made out of recorded sounds and live ones as well, such as noises, musical tunes, oral texts. These make a homogenized experience and it defined the space. The space and attention changes with the sound. Spela Skluj, light designer used not just the lights but the given space natural and artificial lights as well. Skluj’s work gave a frame, new viewpoints and focus for this research. The four performers worked as equals with the sound and light and in this formed space, they experimented with dance, movement, standing and oral texts.

This programme had its end on the 29^thof August with the Laboratory installation, where professionals artists who were invited could attend. Premuš and her companion asked the audience to not to be a regular/traditional audience (observer) but to join in however they like and shape this work to a shared sound-light-movement experience. Everyone could decide how she/he wants to be a part of this event.

Artists from abroad: 6 ppl
Choreographer and artistic director: Snježana Premuš
Instant composition (performers): Dragana Alfirević, Dejan Srhoj, Tina Valentan,
Soundscapes: Boštjan Perovšek
Lightscapes: Špela Skulj
Audience: 8 ppl (professionals  5, organizers, experts 3)