Contemporary Dance Festivals in the Former Yugoslav Space

This book expands the understanding of conditions defining the creation and circulation of contemporary dance that differ across Europe. It focuses on festival-making connected with the Balkan regional project 'Nomad Dance Academy' (NDA), and highlights collective approaches to sustain a theorisation of festivals using the concepts of dissensus and imperceptible politics. Drawing from anthropological methods, three festivals PLESkavica, Slovenia; Kondenz, Serbia and LocoMotion, North Macedonia, are explored through social, political and historical currents affecting curatorial practice. This book closely follows how festival-makers navigate the values of international development that during and after the Yugoslav wars looked to art as part of peacekeeping and nation-building processes. This coincided with increasing discourse and practices of contemporary dance that gained momentum in the 1980s alongside European festivalisation. I show how contemporary dance acts as an agent for transformation, but also a carrier of older forms of social organisation, reflecting methods and values of Yugoslav Worker Self-management that are deployed by the groups creating the festivals. This book will be of interest to dance scholars as well as researchers tracing the long-term effects of the dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Alexandra Baybutt (PhD, RSME, CMA) works as a freelancer across Europe in dance and movement research, education and art with a commitment to interdisciplinary practice and collaboration.

Acknowledgements List of acronyms and abbreviations Introduction Chapter 1: The former Yugoslav space and contemporary dance in context Chapter 2: Introducing Nomad Dance Academy: a foundation for imperceptible politics Chapter 3: LocoMotion festival: curatorial praxis and balance Chapter 4: PLESkavica festival: the Balkan beef-burger, Defestivalisation and Refestivalisation Chapter 5: Kondenz festival: controversies and the scene Chapter 6: International development and contemporary dance festivals Conclusion Appendix: Festivals of dance and choreography database Index