Jonathan Burrows
A CHOREOGRAPHER’S HANDBOOK
Edited by Nikolina Pristaš and Mario Županović
Translated by Sana Prpić

The Academy of Dramatic Art, University of Zagreb, and the University of Zadar have published the cult classic A Choreographer’s Handbook by British choreographer and performance artist Jonathan Burrows, arguably the most highly regarded book in the field of performing arts and choreography. Since its first release in 2010, the book has been in continuous circulation among dance schools and academies worldwide, offering both professional and creative support to artists working in performance and choreography. Now, in its second, revised edition, the handbook becomes available in Croatian for the first time, opening its pages to dancers, choreographers, performance artists, and, most importantly, students of dance and theatre in a broader sense. The Croatian edition, translated by Sana Prpić, presents the most recent and expanded version of the book, edited by Nikolina Pristaš and Mario Županović.

This updated and revised edition invites readers to explore how and why to make a dance performance. Through an inspiring sequence of stories, questions, ideas, and paradoxes, internationally acclaimed choreographer Jonathan Burrows draws on decades of experience and workshops to explain how one might navigate this complex process. Open and candid in tone, the text grants access to a set of principles, exercises, meditations, and ideas on choreography, enabling artists and dancers to find their own aesthetic process. This is a book for anyone interested in creating performance, at any level and in any style.

Burrows’ work is a unique manual in the performing arts world, developed as both a pedagogical and methodological framework for choreographic practice. It offers a fresh rethinking of core concepts used by both choreographers and dancers — such as improvisation, repetition, habit, research, risk, and the language of dance. Its originality lies in the unprecedented treatment of these concepts through playfulness and experimentation, and through the exploration of boundaries via practice and rehearsal.
– from the review by Petra Hrašćanec

Jonathan Burrows danced for 13 years with The Royal Ballet in London, while also performing regularly with experimental choreographer Rosemary Butcher. He has created an internationally acclaimed body of work, including The Stop Quartet (1996), Weak Dance Strong Questions with Jan Ritsema (2001), and a long series of collaborations with composer Matteo Fargion: Both Sitting Duet (2002), The Quiet Dance (2005), Speaking Dance (2006), Cheap Lecture (2009), The Cow Piece (2009), Body Not Fit For Purpose (2014), and Rewriting (2021). He is a founder and visiting member of the teaching faculty at P.A.R.T.S. School for Contemporary Dance in Belgium. For many years, he collaborated with hip hop theatre artist Jonzi D on the Back To The Lab project, mentoring for Breakin’ Convention at London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre. His second book, Writing Dance (2022), was published by Varamo Press. He is currently Associate Professor at the Centre for Dance Research, Coventry University.

Nikolina Pristaš is a dancer, choreographer, and co-founder of the performance collective BADco. Since 2015, she has been a faculty member at the Dance Department of the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. She holds a degree in English Language and Literature and Comparative Literature from the University of Zagreb, and completed an eight-year programme at the Ana Maletić School of Contemporary Dance in Zagreb. Since 2000, she has been working with BADco. members and numerous artistic collaborators, driven by friendship, shared work ethics and ideological beliefs, a commitment to experimentation, and the desire to push the boundaries of her understanding of performance, dance, choreography, theatre, and collaboration. The artistic insights and knowledge generated within BADco. through a series of theatre–dance productions, video installations, thematic symposia, workshops, and several publications have earned her invitations from prestigious European art academies to lecture and create projects within educational contexts. At the Academy’s Dance Studies programme, she teaches courses on improvisation in dance performance and contemporary choreographic practices. She is a member of the Croatian Dancers’ Association (UPUH).

Mario Županović is an Associate Professor at the Department of Hispanic and Iberian Studies, University of Zadar, where he teaches courses in film and the arts. He earned his PhD in Film Studies in 2015 and published the scholarly monograph Latin American Film and Identities in 2018. He is the author of numerous performances and art projects, including PAT, Konstantin, and Symposium/Disintegration. As a member of the performance group Antiudruga, he created projects such as Violator and Mushroom Management. His writings have appeared in Vijenac, Plesna scena, Kazalište, Kretanja, and 15 dana, among others. He is a co-founder of the independent cinema Kino zona. As a photographer, he has won awards at international competitions such as the ND Awards, Sarajevo Photography Festival, IPA Awards, and Monochrome Awards. He has exhibited solo in Split and participated in group exhibitions at the Sarajevo Photography Festival and the Split Photo Salon. He has collaborated with festivals including Zadar snova, Perforacije, Monoplay, and the Contemporary Dance Week.