FESTIVAL IN OPPOSITION | KUDA ORG | NOVI SAD, SERBIA


FESTIVAL-IN-OPPOSITION
Art & Politics of Improvisation

08 – 11, June 2023
KC Lab, Dr. Hempta 2, Novi Sad, Serbia
kuda.org

Moving Together: Movement Improvisation Workshop 
Thursday 08/06, 4pm

NOW NOW NOW: Dance Improvisation Performance
Sunday 11/06, 4pm

Festival-in-Opposition is a platform for establishing a relationships of art, education and the politics of improvisation. This platform is oriented towards creating temporary zones of groupness, exchange and support for improvisational practice that works / produces in sound, with sound and around sound. Permanent ongoing drives - OUR 'Accompanyings' (Improvisations and Performance), JukeBox (Exchange of Materials), Sound Installation and Reading Desk - initiate artistic production in festival format, with the intention of affecting and conceptualizing improvisation as artistic, cultural and socio-political (against)an attitude opposed to the commercialization, trivialization, depoliticization and predatory utilization of art. Based on Company Weeks (the annual free-improvisation festival organized by Derek Bailey from 1977 to 1994) and Rock in Oppostion (a movement of music bands which opposed the monopoly of the music industry during the 1970s), the Festival-in-opposition does not aspire to a place of institutions with authority, it already persists as a fragile hub of intersecting fluxes from the local and regional scene, just like the influences of creative energy coming from European and world metropolises.

As part of the OUR 'Accompanyings' program, presentations, performances and workshops will be held, through experimental and participative musical and poetic productions in which different lineups of participants and musicians will mix. The JukeBox drive is a playlist in the process of creation by all the participants and visitors of the anti-festival, which will be activated and used via the Wi-Fi network and directly on the JukeBox computer in the KC Lab area. At the Reading Desk, brochures, leaflets, texts that are part of independent production and art criticism and analysis will be displayed for free exchange, while a permanent Sound installation will be active in the premises of KC Lab during the event.

The motivation for holding the event stems from the contemporary social and uncertain economic context, which strongly reflects on the cultural sector and constantly shortens the time for artistic experimentation and questioning of creative potential. The upcoming event aims to establish the development of new forms and relationships within artistic production, including the exploration of new forms of art education.

Participants:

Jaka Berger (Ljubljana), Zahra Mani (Graz), Dejana Sekulić (Brussels), Luka Čabo (Zagreb), Ksenija Stevanović (Belgrade), Ilia Belorukov (St. Petersburg/Novi Sad), Alisa Beck & Sara Zlanabitnig – echoraum (Vienna), Artan Sadiku (Skopje), Davorka Begović (Zagreb), Brigitte Egger (Innsbruck), Ivar Roban Križić (Vienna/Zagreb), Andrej Mirčev (Berlin), Jonas Kocher & Gaudenz Badrutt - Bruit Association (Biel/Bienne), Janez Leban (Tolmin), Marianna Karava (Athens/Belgrade), Anna Belorukova (St. Petersburg/Novi Sad), Nenad Marković (Novi Sad), Jelena Anđelovski (Novi Sad), Stevan Bradić (Novi Sad), Marko Jovetić (Novi Sad), László Lenkes (Novi Bečej), Nemanja Tasić (Novi Sad), Vlada Rašković (Novi Sad), Milana Zarić, Karolina Baeter, Vladimir Blagojević - Ansambl Studio 6 (Belgrade/Novi Sad/Kragujevac), Daniil Gorokhov (Kotor/St. Petersburg), Vitaliy Ovchinnikov (Novi Sad/St. Petersburg), Pavle Jovanović (Zagreb), Bojana S. Knežević (Belgrade), Filip Vlatković (Novi Sad), Rab Rab Press (Helsinki), Ben Watson (London), Zavod Sploh (Ljubljana), kuda.org team: Zoran Pantelić, Borka Stojić, Zsolt Polgar, Olja Homa, Minja Smajić (Novi Sad).

The Festival-in-Opposition program is realized within a wider international collaborative network of organizations from Novi Sad, Zagreb, Skopje, Ljubljana, Helsinki, Biel/Bijen, Brussels, Graz and Vienna.

The event is supported by the FiIA – Foundation for Art Initiatives, the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, KC Lab, City of Novi Sad Administration for Culture, Austrian Cultural Forum from Belgrade, Goethe Institute Belgrade and the Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia in Belgrade.

Editor, organizer & producer: New Media Center_kuda.org, Novi Sad