The 13^th Monoplay begins: big news, top performers and visually impressive performances ahead of us

The thirteenth edition of Monoplay, a unique festival of solo dance and performance being held from August 23rd to the 28th, brings to Zadar top international and domestic performers, presents numerous novelties and hints at the changes happening within the Zadar dance scene.

The festival is organised by the Zadar Dance Ensemble, which has done a lot of work in recent years in terms of the decentralisation of the dance scene. 

For the first time, Zadar dancers will have their own dance evening and open the festival in the new hall of the Zadar Puppet Theatre.

‘This year’s Monoplay brings the best of domestic and European dance solo performances. While selecting the performers, we were guided by the innovation and freshness of the choreographic approach, contemporary dance performance and the author’s approach. All performances are extremely visually and performatively expressive, and we are especially proud that in the main program we have the first two full-length solo performances by Zadar artists – last year’s winner of the Croatian Acting Award Marin Lemić and promising Filipa Bavčević’, the new festival programmers Matea Bilosnić and Lada Petrovski Ternovšek have stated.

Lemić, a performer with an enviable international career in the play Bi-Polar – B (E) AR / E will explore the limits of endurance and happiness. 

The extremely musical dancer Filipa Bavčević raised the bar high – she has translated the oldest known literary work, Epic of Gilgamesh, into dance and created a performance that is not to be missed.

This year’s Monoplay brings to Croatia for the first time Viktory Černicky, an artist included in the prestigious European dance network Aerowaves, who will close the festival with a performance that bends the imagination and takes your breath away.

The provocative Ferenc Feher arrives in Zadar with an intriguing play, Schiele, in which he deals with the theme of exhibitionism and explores the desires of the body and our need to discover it.

Established Slovenian artist, Maša Kagao Knez, in her play YAAMAAM, for it’s been what it’s been explores a personal journey through life’s milestones and the present moment using various dance styles that have shaped her dance expression, from contemporary dance techniques, through to African dances and Japanese butoh dance.

After the performances, the audience will be able to attend a conversation with the performers moderated by Mario Županović in English, all of which is a part of the lavish accompanying program of this year’s Monoplay.

Along with the presentation of works from the STREAM program of dance workshops, the festival’s first day will be spiced up by a concert of Zagreb singer-songwriter Nina Bajsić, followed by chillaxing with music and great beer in Brlog, the festival’s living room. 

The second day of the festival is reserved for visual artist Josip Kresović NAONAR and his audiovisual performance that will result in the exhibition Roller.

Mario Županović will present an exhibition of photographs through which six authors explored neglected spaces of Zadar. 

Traditionally, dance students of the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb will present their final works, followed by an intriguing audiovisual performance by Mia Martinović on the outer wall of the Zadar Puppet Theatre. 

Those interested in how visually impaired people experience dance will have the opportunity to take a look at the exhibition of the Association of Blind and Visually Impaired People of Zadar County, while the presentation of the book BADco: Exercising the Impossible by Una Bauer is planned for the penultimate day of the festival.

During the last day of the festival, the audience will attend screenings of dance videos by Croatian and Zadar artists. DJ – G and DJ Bo Yan, an award-winning multimedia artists and longtime collaborators of the festival, will be in charge of throwing an after-party to remember. 

The entire program of this year’s Monoplay aims to highlight the dance and general artistic potential of the city of Zadar.

‘We want to position our beautiful city as a place of dance excellence and dance encounters,’ says Natali Perić, the producer of the festival. ‘We invite all dance lovers and practitioners and lovers of contemporary art to welcome the end of August in the city with the most beautiful sunset, at our unique dance festival with a great program and lots of great company.’

The schedule and detailed information about the program and the tickets can be found on the official website of the festival, www.monoplay.eu.