NIKA DISNEY
2 STEPS FORWARD, 1 STEP BACK
Wrong timing, insufficiently extended feet, a body that does not fit the mold. Apparent failures have shaped contemporary dance as we know it. This performative lecture explores how I respond to criticism through the lens of history – an attempt to strengthen my inner voice and follow it, even at the cost of failure. Did Martha Graham read about her “poor posture” in the newspapers? How did Isadora read critiques that called her movements “chaotic”? I engage in a dialogue with the pioneers of contemporary dance about our responsibility as artists when confronted with criticism. At the same time, I question the critics themselves – those who give negative reviews without any experience of the artistic process. Who has the right to issue negative criticism in art?
Concept & performance: Nika Disney
Artistic consultation & thanks: Igor Zenzerović
Nika Disney is a choreographer and dancer from Pula, Croatia, and a graduate of the Academy for Theatre and Dance in Amsterdam. Her works have been presented in Croatia with Studio for Contemporary Dance (Murmurations, Summa Summarum) and at the Zagreb Dance Centre (Unisono, Prolazno), exploring questions such as: Are we ever truly alone? She encourages dancers to bring personal experience into their work, creating bridges between audience and performer through dialogue and reflection.
Laura Vojnović
0.0002 Hectares
0.0002 Hectares emerged from a research process developed during the courses Research Project 1 and 2. Throughout the work, my focus was on the logic of movement of an unknown creature, organic yet not human. Through analysis and deconstruction, I developed material that aims to create a simultaneous image of recognizability and abstraction. The performing body becomes a terrain where different bodily forms meet and intersect, evoking the presence of a third, unfamiliar being.
The performance treats the body as an experiment in which, through gradual build-up, the life of this unknown being is established. The confined performance space places the body at the very center of the room and heightens the sensation of observing an unfamiliar creature.
Laura Vojnović was born in 1999 in Split and is currently based in Zagreb. After completing high school, she enrolled in Italian Language and Literature and Art History at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Split, earning a bachelor’s degree. That same year, she began her studies in Contemporary Dance, teacher training track, at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb, graduating in 2025. She has experience leading dance classes and workshops, as well as creating several performance works during her time at the Academy. As part of her studies, she performed in works by renowned Croatian and international choreographers.
Isabela Eva Ljubičić: The Non-Breathing Circle: Detail I.
Revival
Thin, wet, porous, white. They cling to the skin that absorbs. The body savors, submits, returns petrified life. It cares, strokes, smears into itself. It places it on its legs, gives it attention with its gaze; tender, scanning. Bodily, it transfers the potential for continuation onto the mask, out of affection for the inanimate. It moves softly, delicately, over the surface to support the mask’s face. This face does not breathe and does not beat, but it slides and tightens, binds, reaches beyond purpose, beyond itself. It slides, spills onto the body; (flabby clear e)nd. It moves softer, shallower, looser, with tremor. Thin-wet, porous, and white. One life through another. One with another. Pressed into another. a. one … slo ooww
oh a
The body remains loose and white, unable to give everything. Still, it stands with the mask, endures its sheet, draws it in; gaze petrified behind the mold. It peeks out from behind former layers, timidly pounding toward there; the face of the non-breathing.
“I move across my bellllyyy, shshshhoulder, th-th-thigh, chee
eeek, and back.”
Thinanwet and porououswhaite.
It passes through the skin, the mask. It passes through the maskskin. It passes throughmsakksin. It findspassesthroughskin.
This work represents a further choreographic development of my interest in the theme of deadening–reviving, and the relationship between the living and the non-living through dance performance. The research began as part of the course Research Project in the final year of the Dance Studies program at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb, and this extended detail represents its first variation.
Choreography: Isabela Eva Ljubičić
Performance: Lea Filipčić
Mentorship: Nikolina Pristaš, Goran Sergej Pristaš
Contemporary dance artist Isabela Eva Ljubičić works in the field of contemporary dance, where she develops her performance, choreography, research, artistic, and theoretical interests. She completed her primary and secondary education in contemporary dance at the Silvije Hercigonja School of Dance and further honed her skills through the program Podmladak 2.0. Together with Maja Drobac, she created the original project Nepoznato, which premiered in 2022 at the Zagreb Dance Center (ZPC). She is currently completing her undergraduate studies in contemporary dance at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. She has participated as a performer and/or choreographer in numerous festivals and dance events, including Improspekcije, Požeški Plesokaz, Monoplay, and activities organized by the Kružok association. She performed at the Monoplay festival as a choreographer, and this year she presents her work again, opening and sharing the research process she has been dedicated to over the past few months.
Lea Filipčić is in her third year at the Department of Contemporary Dance at the Academy of Dramatic Art. She began her dance education at the Ana Maletić School of Contemporary Dance and further developed as a performer through membership in Podmladak 2.0. She has participated in numerous workshops and dance festivals, including the Dance Week Festival, Požeški Plesokaz, Improspekcije, Plesada, and Queerada. She also performed at Monoplay last year and is looking forward to participating again this year.
