IAS Book Launch: Contemporary Dance Festivals in the Former Yugoslav Space
22 May 2024, 6:00 pm–8:00 pm
Join former IAS Postdoctoral Fellow Alexandra Baybutt for the launch of her first book 'Contemporary Dance Festivals in the Former Yugoslav Space: (in)dependent scenes'
This event is free.
Event Information
Open to
- All | ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº staff | ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº students
Availability
- Yes
Cost
- Free
Organiser
-
Institute of Advanced Studies
Location
-
IAS Forum, G17 and OnlineGround floor, South Wing¹û¶³Ó°Ôº, Gower St, LondonWC1E 6BT
ABOUT THE BOOK
Contemporary Dance Festivals in the Former Yugoslav Space: (in)dependent scenes 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.
For a first impressionÌýof Alexandra Baybutt's writing and herÌýbook, read The First Page on the IAS online review Think Pieces .
Contemporary Dance Festivals in the Former Yugoslav Space wasÌý in 2023.
ABOUT THE EVENT
In celebration of her book Alexandra Baybutt will hold a conversation with some of its key contributors: , artistic director of Service Station for Contemporary Dance, Belgrade, Serbia; , curator, scholar and co-producer Nomad Dance Slovenia/CoFestival, Ljubljana, Slovenia; and , director of Lokomotiva, Skopje, North Macedonia. Joining in person will be independent curators from the London dance and performance scene including (H2Dance / Fest En Fest),Ìý (Trip Space) and (H2Dance).ÌýWe will use the book as a point of departure for a conversation across about working conditions for dance practices and the functions of festivals, thinking from and across our specific contexts.
Ìý
Ìý
About the Speaker
Alexandra Baybutt
at ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº
Alexandra Baybutt (PhD, CMA, RSME) convenes performance practice modules (BA Creative Arts and Humanities, ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº East), and is a freelance somatic movement educator and artist. Research interests include politics of space and ethics. Recent commissions include ‘equity in working conditions in dance’ for the European Dance Development Network (2023).