See you soon at our 24th edition - see what to expect

San Vincenti will once again host many dance artists and lovers of the performing arts! The 24th edition of the San Vincenti Dance and Non-Verbal Theater Festival will take place from July 21 to 23.

During the three days of this year's edition, the festival will present a selection of striking works that attracted the attention of the artistic selector Snježana Abramović Milković, also its founder. Each July, organized by Zagreb Dance Company for almost a quarter of a century, this Istrian town becomes the backdrop for dance performances from around the world. This summer, with performances and artists coming from Italy, France, Spain, Austria, Slovenia, Serbia, Cyprus, and Croatia, and in collaboration with the international Aerowaves dance platform and regional Pan-Adria network, the festival is ready to present a selection of the most exciting works and authors.

The first festival evening starts on the town square with "Sous-sol," the first creation of the French Cie Allongé, imagined and choreographed by Arnaud Deprez, in which six break dance performers take the audience on a journey to explore other worlds in the galaxy.

After that, in Castle Grimani, where the main stage is set, we will see "Gran Bolero" performed by Zagreb Dance Company and En-Knap. In this piece, choreographer Jesús Rubio Gamo, inspired by Ravel's composition Bolero, creates new rhythmic patterns based on repetition and loops through repeating movements and exploring small variations and details that question relationships.

The opening of the first day will be concluded with a gathering of the audience and artists with music at the location of Poli Ferlin, i.e., behind Oštarija Ferlin.

On Saturday, July 22, Jovana Zelenović will share her practice during the "Bodies in Encounter" workshop at the Mediterranean Dance Center.

With a focus on awareness of their own body and its weight in relation to other bodies in the space, the participants will deal with different mechanisms of movement and explore their own energy and strength through a series of sequences. The workshop combines elements of improvisation and predefined phrases in order to achieve a better understanding of the learned elements and their incorporation into their own dance language.

Saturday’s evening program will begin with "Playground 22" by Jovana Zelenović, which she created in collaboration with Margareta Firinger. Motivated by the melancholy and joy of memories of some old, forgotten playgrounds from childhood, the authors created a new playground in the safe space of the theater. Dancer Margareta Firinger and musician Jerko Jurin wanted to record and capture the passage of time and pay tribute to the meeting and the game.

Right after, in Castle Grimani, Cia. Lali Ayguade will perform "Runa,” a piece telling stories from another world and/or another time. Two performers explore the ruins, trying to re-imagine and feel what once was. They turn ruins into allies, into games for understanding reality.

Late Saturday night, artist Andréa Givanovitch will perform “Leather Better” at the town’s Loggia. Intrigued by transformation and its influence, Andréa questions how the body feels through the process of repetitive but always changing rhythm, how to hypnotize the audience with repetitive patterns, and what remains after the performance process.

The third day opens with "In Memory of..." by Milena Ugren Koulas, a Serbian artist with a Cypriot address, in which the author questions traumatic experiences and their physical outcomes. The conscious or unconscious memory of the past influences the actions, tension, and interactions of the five dancers.

Then, the Italian Compagnia Bellanda, Giovanni Leonarduzzi, and Claudia Latini, dancers and choreographers of “Symposion," will perform in the castle. They embark on a journey within the couple's relationship and within themselves, focusing on a conscious search for identity. Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Feast served them as an idea for this piece - desire inspires and moves bodies. A relationship always assumes movement, exchange, and a step toward the other.

And finally, another bolero - "House Bolero" by Matej Kejžar and Studio for Contemporary Dance is a kind of ode to dance created as an experimental answer to how to learn from dance instead of how to learn to dance. The unusual, queer, idiosyncratic dance styles used in the performance were developed through working with physical presence, kinesthetic inscribing in time and space as matter, in a common energy field, in a dynamic territory, and in a place where a constant change of dynamics is possible.

This year, the 24th in a row, we will celebrate the dance in San Vincenti in the best possible way - dancing and socializing with the audience and artists.

You can reserve your tickets via e-mail petra@svetvincenatfestival.com