BENO NOVAK
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Quartet
Project Type
Contemporary Dance piece
Date
2023 December
Loaction
Ljubljana / Slovenia
Team
Choreography and video direction: Magdalena Reiter
Dancers and co-created by: Jerca Rožnik Novak, Beno Novak
Video design: Sandi Skok
Music: August Braatz
Set design: Urša Vidic, Maruša Mali
Light design: Mojca Sarjaš
Costume design: Pia Gorišek
Production: Zavod Mirabelka
Co-production: Cankarjev dom
The show is co-financed by the Municipality of Ljubljana – Department of Culture and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia
Quartet is a performance for two dancers and two cameras. The exploratory excursion is dedicated to the internal and external architectures of our relationships. The cameras monitor the actions live, acting as a mirror and voyeur; they emphase and change what is already visible and reveal what is hidden from view.
The primary processes of the choreography and the performance itself are reduction, duplication and montage. Reduction to the most basic elements of relationship, movement and physical proximity. The walk, touch and gaze that blend together to form the score of the quartet. The gaze of the couple, the gaze of the cameras, and the gaze of the spectator. And play, as the intrinsic nature of relationships and the very act of performance. A game of the possible combinations of reduced and re-extended elements. The focal point between body and two-dimensional image is the game of dichotomy between pleasure and violence, coexistence and alienation.
Shown from different perspectives, the fabricated story reveals itself to the spectators enabling them to observe the construction of performative reality.

