Maja Delak’s eleventh performance is the first production by the newly founded Emanat (Emanat Institute). A dance piece based on the pleasure of the physical and moving, Expensive Darlings is conditioned by the quasi-institutional status of contemporary dance in Slovenia.
The choreographer invited six dancers and actresses to participate in the process of exploring the coexistence of various types of personal engagement, as well as various kinds of aspiration of the contemporary dance corpus. How to realise the impacts of aspiration and one’s own openness? How to allow the coexistence of somebody else’s wish? (Katja Praznik)
Maja Delak: Expensive darlings – a revision (a note on the creative process of the performance), Reartikulacija magazine, no. 4, 2008
Concept and choreography: Maja Delak
Authors and performers: Maja Delak, Katja Kosi, Barbara Krajnc, Jelena Rusjan, Vlasta Veselko, Urška Vohar, Nataša Živković
Dramaturgy: Katja Praznik
Set design: Marko Peljhan
Original Music: Gipo Gurrado, Atilla Faravelli
Lighting design: Urška Vohar
Costume design: Nadja Bedjanič
Costumes: Dominika Zver
Design: Špela Drašler
Photo by: Zoe Vincenti
Technician: Janko Oven
Traslation: Katja Kosi, Melita Silič
Language editing: Simona Ana Radež
Production assistant: Nina Janež
Executive production: Sabina Potočki
Produced by: Emanat Institute
Co-produced by: Festival City of Women – Association for the Promotion of Women in Culture and Ljubljana Dance Theatre
Sponsors: POP TV / Kanal A, OBI, Airsoft Slovenija
Reviews
… The performance Expensive Darlings is a telling intertwinement of the universal and the individual, the social and the intimate. The seven dancers and actresses – beside the author Maja Delak also Barbara Krajnc, Jelena Rusjan, Vlasta Veselko, Urška Vohar, Nataša Živković and the translator into English Katja Kosi – find themselves in-between the opposing, though at once constitutively connected oppositions: between how they see themselves and how, in their view, others see them, between creative enthusiasm and fear of failure, between accepting their gender and the impression that it might have been easier for them in this profession if they were men, between the pleasure to be on stage and the financial privation behind the scenes of everyday life, etc… The performers embody different roles, from the gloomy Vampirella, the fragile angel, the bold toreador to Latino macho pop singer Adriano Celentano, excellently and wittily interpreted by Maja Delak… Perhaps the performance reaches its peak in the moment, when the seven performers seize the guns and raise them to the audience. Yet, already in the next moment, their ultimate gesture dissolves into a likeable dance entertainment, with the music from the film Barbarella playing in the background. They slip from their ethical, ultimate position on the sharp edge of existence into a strait of entertaining, dance decoration. … Expensive Darlings is a performance about the struggle for art as an individual ethical position (with all that pertains to this, the good, the bad, delightful, distressing, etc.), and is one of the most engaged performances of the past years in Slovenia.
Liminal Stories About the Centre, Mojca Kumerdej, Delo, 10.10.2007
… Expensive Darlings is a performance about the position of women in the cultural, social and political context of contemporary dance in Slovenia. And in this, it is of key importance. Why? Because it opens up, discloses, exhibits, authorizes, actualizes and problematizes the inaugural point of contemporary dance history in our space: contemporary dance was constituted by women already before the universal right to vote had been introduced in this geopolitical territory, and is as such principally a practice of emancipated women’s creativity.
Rebels, Artists, Masochists, Rok Vevar, Večer, 16.10.2007
…Expensive Darlings is a performance, engaged in the noblest sense of the word. Its engagement is directed into a search of new spaces for the movement of the body and thought.
Mapping Contemporary Performing Arts II, Tomaž Toporišič, Dialogi, 11-12/07
The viewer’s focus elegantly passes from one performer to the other, who – despite a rather large number of the cast – equally distributes the time and space for their stories, without repeating themselves, although they share many a thing. All are women, all devoted themselves to the stage, all work in unfavourable conditions, all reveal themselves to the audience, and above all, they all love the art of dance.
Radio Student, Festival term II.: City of Women; 8.10.2007, Alja B.
A calm but convincing protest with a clear concept, though reasons for the current position of contemporary dance in Slovenia could perhaps also be found within the wider social context and its values.
Maja Delak Is Not Laughing; Jasna Zavodnik, CoWeb
… “Maja Delak was especially interested in the open, relaxed structure, a result of thinking about how to construct a form that reveals the vision of seven creators. Not only do direction and choreography meet in the performance (a unique dance theater where the dance and movement material is connected to the singing and acting pieces), but the choreographer is at the same time the director who (together with six co-creators) conceives the performance. Such a method of work presupposes extensive preceding discussions that enable the articulation of individual positions as well as their common vision. The choreographer found her conceptual inspiration for the structure in Sedwick, who in accordance with Deleuzian topology and the consideration of alternative spatializing methods, introduces the concept of “beside” that enables an non-hierarchical coexistence of the seven solos. (…) Regarding the structure of the performance Expensive Darlings, it is especially telling, how the awareness of the power of the institution (a cultural and political instance that regulates art production and distribution) becomes an integral part of the performance. The realization of the set design by Marko Peljhan, who equipped the whole performance space with a surveillance system establishes a metaphor of a system that mostly surveys contemporary dance activities instead of appropriately supporting them.” …
“Female” Creativity in Slovenia: The Case of Contemporary Dance – Mojca Puncer, Maska Magazine – The Passage Of The Gaze, 113-144 – spring 2008
Drage drage je plesna predstava, ki izhaja iz kvaziinstitucionalnega statusa sodobnega plesa v Sloveniji in temelji na užitku do fizičnega in gibajočega. Koreografinja je k sodelovanju povabila šest plesalk in igralk, ki v komaj znosni bližini sinhronih fizičnih akcij zasledujejo osebne angažmaje in se soočajo s kulturnimi konvencijami in stereotipi. Formalno in vsebinsko predstava vzpostavlja več vrst želenja sodobnega plesnega telesa in v njej ustvarjalke ne soobstajajo po principih izločene sredine, nasprotij, poenotenja ali skladnosti. V predstavi so v položaju, ko jih zapeljujeta lastna želja in užitek. Obenem pa se poskušajo poistovetiti s svojo družbeno vlogo in se izogniti ujetosti v odnos, v katerem bi lahko upoštevale le učinke svoje maske na druge. Zato poskušajo uprizoriti odprtost v hkratnem sobivanju z željo drugega. (Katja Praznik)
Reartikulacija št. 4, poletje 2008
Maja Delak: Expensive darlings – a revision (zapis procesa nastajanja predstave) >>>
Koncept in koreografija: Maja Delak
Ustvarjalke in izvajalke: Maja Delak, Katja Kosi, Barbara Krajnc, Jelena Rusjan, Vlasta Veselko, Urška Vohar, Nataša Živković
Dramaturgija: Katja Praznik
Scenografija: Marko Peljhan
Originalna glasba: Gipo Gurrado, Attila Faravelli
Oblikovanje svetlobe: Urška Vohar
Kostumografija: Nadja Bedjanič
Prevajalka: Katja Kosi
Lektorica: Simona Ana Radež
Oblikovanje: Špela Drašlar
Fotografije: Zoe Vincenti
Tehnična izvedba: Janko Oven
Tehnična pomoč pri scenografiji: Bojan Mastilovič
Izvršna producentka: Sabina Potočki
Pomoč pri produkciji: Nina Janež
Produkcija: Emanat
Koprodukcija: Festival Mesto žensk – Društvo za promocijo žensk v kulturi, Plesni Teater Ljubljana
S finančno podporo: Ministrstvo za kulturo RS, Mestna občina Ljubljana
Sponzorji: POP TV / Kanal A, OBI, Airsoft Slovenija
Kritike
Predstava Drage drage je prepričljiv preplet občega in posamičnega, družbenega in intimnega. Sedem plesalk in igralk, – poleg avtorice še Barbara Krajnc, Jelena Rusjan, Vlasta Veselko, Urška Vohar, Nataša Živković in prevajalka v angleščino Katja Kosi – je razpetih med nasprotujoča, a hkrati konstitutivno povezana nasprotja: med to, kako vidijo same sebe in jih, po njihovem vidijo drugi, med ustvarjalnim entuziazmom in strahom pred porazom, med sprejemanjem svojega spola in razmislekom, da bi jim bilo najbrž kot moškim v tem poklicu lažje, med užitkom na odru in finančno depriviligiranostjo v zaodrju vsakdanjosti itd. … Nastopajoče utelešajo različne vloge, od mračne Vampirele, krhkega angela, drznega toreadorja do latino mačo šlagerista Adriana Celentana, ki ga izvrstno in duhovito interpretira Maja Delak. … Morda je vrhunec predstave trenutek, ko vseh sedem nastopajočih pograbi puške in jih nameri v občinstvo, a že v naslednjem trenutku se njihova ultimativna gesta ob glasbi iz filma Barbarella zmehča v všečno plesno zabavo, s svojega etičnega, ultimativnega položaja na ostrini eksistencialnega roba pa zdrsijo v strugo zabavljaške, plesne dekoracije. … Drage drage je predstava o boju za umetnost kot individualno etično pozicijo (z vsem kar spada zraven, dobrim, prijetnim, slabim, mukotrpnim idr.), je ena najbolj angažiranih slovenskih predstav v zadnjih letih.
Robne zgodbe o središču, Mojca Kumerdej, Delo, 10.10.2007
To je predstava o poziciji ženske v kulturnem, socialnem in političnem kontekstu sodobnega plesa v Sloveniji in v tem je ključna. Zakaj? Ker odpira, razpira, razstavlja, avtorizira, aktualizira in problematizira inavguralno točko sodobnoplesne zgodovine pri nas: sodobni ples so ženske zasnovale še preden je bila na tem geopolitičnem teritoriju uvedena splošna volilna pravica in kot tak je prvenstveno praksa emancipirane ženske ustvarjalnosti.
Upornice, artistke, mazohistke, Rok Vevar, Večer, 16.10.2007
Drage drage so predstava, ki je angažirana v najžlahtnejšem pomenu besede, saj je njen angažma usmerjen v iskanje novih prostorov za gibanja misli in telesa.
Tomaž Toporišič, Dialogi, št. 11-12, 2007
»Namesto preverjenih koreografskih postopkov je Majo Delak tokrat posebno zanimala odprta, zrahljana struktura, ki je nasledek spraševanja, kako skonstruirati formo, ki razkrije vizijo sedmih ustvarjalk. Ne le da se v predstavi srečata režija in koreografija (svojevrsdtno plesno gledališče, kjer je gibalno-plesni material povezan s pevsko-igralskimi vložki), koreografinja je hkrati režiserka, ki s šestimi soustvarjalkami snuje predstavo. Takšen način dela predpostavlja obsežne predhodne diskusije, ki omogočajo artikulacijo tako posameznih pozicij kot skupne vizije. Koeografinja je konceptualni navdih z oblikovanje strukture našla pri Sedgwickovi, ki v skladu z deleuzovsko topologijo in razmislekom o alternativnih načinih uprostorjenja vpeljuje koncept zraven, ki omogoča nehierarhizirano sobivanje sedmih likov. (…) Glede strukture predstave Drage drage je posebno pomenljivo tudi, kako zavedanje o moči institucije (kulturnopolitične instance, ki kroji umetniško produkcijo in distribucijo) postane integralni del predstave. Z realizacijo scenografske zamisli Marka Peljhana, da je celoten prostor predstave opremljen z nadzornim sistemom, je vzpostavljena metafora sistema, ki sodobnoplesno dogajanje predvsem nadzira, namesto da bi ga ustrezno podpiral.”
Mojca Puncer, Maska – Pasaža pogleda, št. 113-114, pomlad 2008…»Ženska« ustvarjalnost v Sloveniji: Primer sodobnega plesa