ALWAYS CONTEXTUALIZE!

The book is the result of a theoretical experiment initiated within Practice (Made in Yugoslavia) platform in cooperation with 10 curators of different dance festivals and programmes. The participants were Gigi Argyropoulou, curator of several festivals in Athens; Florian Malzacher, curator of the Impulse Festival in Dusseldorf; Sina Saberi, curator of the festival in Tehran; Christa Spatt, curator of Tanzquartier in Vienna; Agnes Quackels, artistic director of the Buda Arts Centre in Kortrijk, Ana Janevski, curator for performance and new media of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, Dragana Alfirević, curator of Ko-Festival in Ljubljana, Anastasya Proshutinskaya, dance curator of the ZIL Cultural Centre in Moscow, Biljana Tanurovska Kjulavkovski, curator of the Platform programme in Skopje and Marijana Cvetković, curator of the Kondenz Festival in Belgrade

The basic concept  came from Ana Vujanović, theoretician and mentor of the Critical Practice Programme. In a society we call global and a time universally called post-historical this experiment re-analyses the meaning and value of the context, interrelatioship of phenomena, influences, texts, bodies, friendships, alliances, enemies, history... making our environment. Following this stream, the main subject of the research is the importance of the socio-political and cultural context for the artistic and curatorial practice. As a result, we have a book demonstrating the multifacetteness and homogeneity on the „international contemporary dance stage“ and what it means to be active locally and internationally under these conditions.

Everyone of the invited curators suggested a performance so that the 10 performances served as an imaginary programme of a festival which the curators would contextualise in their respective milieus (their festival, their institution and the like). The texts in this book are the upshot of this mental process. They give answers to important initial questions: how inclusive is the international context and how authentic is the local context.

The book is a contribution to the theory and practice of curatorial studies and is intended for a broad range of readers involved in curator activities, production in performing arts and research. It is a part of Life Long Burning project, supported by Culture 2007 Programme of the European Commission