Superfluous
EnKnap
@DigitalBigScreen 2021
Washing hall of Trbovlje Coal mine (Google maps)
Due to space limitations prior reservation is recommended.
The performance is based on Ilija Trojanow’s essay The Superfluous Human, in which the author takes a look at the devastating, destructive force of capitalism that, in the name of profit, systematically renounces humans as well as humanity. If we add the current epidemiological situation and all of its restrictions, his questions become all the more meaningful: Who is redundant and for whom? Who among us is unnecessary? If we do not produce or consume, do we even exist? What is the thin line between the useful and the unnecessary?
During the quarantine times in the spring of 2020, the dancers of the EN-KNAP Group recorded their research, ideals and challenges in the form of short videos. Daily, they exchanged the material amongst themselves and published it online. In June 2020, after two months of isolation, the specifics of their individual work were transferred into the studio and onto the dancefloor, where they further developed some of those sequences and created the above-mentioned performance.
The elements of the show comprise a series of predictable and unpredictable sequences that are being rediscovered and restructured by the dancers during each performance. This gives rise to all the different subtitles, which further illuminate the fundamental theme of the performance.
Every staging is accompanied by a live performance of guest musicians (Damir Avdić, Tomaž Grom or Samo Kutin) and lighting artists (Jaka Šimenc or Leon Curk), who add their own dramaturgical line, which challenges as well as encourages all the dancers of the EN-KNAP Group.
“The dance floor, therefore, opens the space for an intense and immediate power of improvisation, which gives birth to subtle sense perceptions that harmoniously flow, and follow and upgrade one another, not so much in the sense of jamming, but even more than that; it is about something that has to be mastered and build inside the self, inside our own agility and sensibility in harmony with the inner senses – inside the group or with the music itself. The performance is a deep narrative that combines music and dance, almost a novel that paints and narratives emotional states. Superfluous can be relatively easily be read as a choreographic creation that cuts into the time and into the community, exposes the duets of struggle and consonances, solo cries, as well as arrogant displays of superiority, brought about by the entry of an alleged illusion.”
Daliborka Podboj
Daliborka Podboj, paradaplesa.si, 5th november 2020
Production: The EN-KNAP Institute
Author: EN-KNAP Group
Dancers: Mattia Cason, Luke Thomas Dunne, Katja Kolarič, Rada Kovačević, Tamás Tuza, Carolina Alessandra Valentini
Live music: Damir Avdić, Tomaž Grom, Samo Kutin
Lighting artists: Jaka Šimenc, Leon Curk
Space design: Iztok Kovač, Jaka Šimenc
Costume design: Katarina Škaper (Atelje d.o.o.)
Props: EN-KNAP Group
The original cast: Giorgia Belotti, Luke Thomas Dunne, Katja Kolarič, Rada Kovačević, Radoslav Piovarči, Tamás Tuza
Conceptualisation: Iztok Kovač
After the book of Ilija Trojanow, The Superfluous Human
Photo and video: Andrej Lamut
Practice leaders EN-KNAP Group: Nohemi Barriuso, Ana Štefanec Knez, Luke Thomas Dunne
Technical coordinator: Jaka Šimenc
Technical implementation: Leon Curk, Omar Ismail, Hotimir Knific, Gal Škrjanec Skaberne
Executive producer: Karmen Keržar
PR and editorial: Nina Smerkol
Marketing: Goran Pakozdi
Financial and business management expert: Zala Česnik
Program management and coordination of educational activities: Katja Gabrijelčič
Head of finance: Julija Travančić
Španski borci General Manager, Program and Production Manager of the EN-KNAP Institute: Marjeta Lavrič
Španski borci Artistic Director, Director of the EN-KNAP Institute: Iztok Kovač
Financial support for the program of the EN-KNAP Institute and Španski borci:
City of Ljubljana – Department of Culture, and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia
