9 and 10 May 2026

KONTEJNER / BUREAU OF CONTEMPORARY ART PRACTICE

Odranska 1/1, Zagreb

SomaHut is an initiative launched in 2020 under the umbrella of the Zagreb-based art organisation Multimedijalna koliba. It is dedicated to connecting people and to the development and dissemination of knowledge arising from the exploration of the phenomena of body and movement through different approaches, disciplines and fields of human activity: art, science, education, care…

This year’s SomaHut festival is a two-day event which, on 9 and 10 May, gathers international and local artists and somatic practitioners in the premises of KONTEJNER in Zagreb, Odranska 1, to share through performances, workshops, ‘warming up the audience’ and conversations with visitors the results of artistic processes, as well as the impulses and questions that guide their research.

The festival is centred around an interest in the body as a place of conditioning, imperatives and fears – fear of stopping, of the future, of the unknown – but also of their continuous processing, transformation and opening of new possibilities. For two days, KONTEJNER will thus become a space of encounter, socialising and exchange of somatic experience, performative possibilities and knowledge.

The Saturday programme begins with the CONTINUUM PRACTICE WORKSHOP led by Sylvain Méret, dance artist, movement and dance therapist, educator and somatic practitioner, whom Zagreb audiences have already had the opportunity to encounter through the Improspekcije festival.

In the afternoon there will be an experiential anatomy workshop for children between 6 and 10 years of age on the theme WHAT ARE BONES FOR?, led by Marina Brajdić and Zrinka Šimičić.

The evening programme brings the performances SHIFT INTO AN UNKNOWN PAUSE by Anja Bornšek, dance artist and somatic movement educator, VOLUME OF MEMORY by Tina Valentan, dance artist and trainee in expressive therapy at the Tamalpa Institute, and HOW CAN WE WATCH? by dance artist Ana Kljujev, a final-year undergraduate student of Contemporary Dance at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb.

On Sunday morning the CONTINUUM PRACTICE WORKSHOP continues, while the afternoon programme begins with a discussion on SOMATIC EDUCATION AND THE SOMATIC IN EDUCATION, bringing together members of the SomaHut study group, teachers from the Department of Dance at the Academy of Dramatic Art, somatic practitioners, educators and everyone interested in the processes of embodied learning and teaching.

The evening programme presents the performance work KONTAMINA by Mateo Babić and the ritual performance FLUID i T by Sylvain Méret.

SCHEDULE

Saturday, 9 May 2026

10:30-13 h CONTINUUM PRACTICE WORKSHOP with Sylvain Méret

13–15 h Lunch break and social gathering in the KONTEJNER courtyard

15–16 h WHAT ARE BONES FOR? Experiential anatomy workshop for children with Marina Brajdić and Zrinka Šimičić

18 h  SHIFT INTO AN UNKNOWN PAUSE, performance-experiential work by Anja Bornšek, with an introduction to the performance by Tina Valentan

VOLUME OF MEMORY, performance work by Tina Valentan, with audience warm-up  by Anja Bornšek

21 h  HOW CAN WE WATCH?, performance work by Ana Kljujev

Sunday, 10 May 2026

11 – 14 h   CONTINUUM PRACTICE WORKSHOP with Sylvain Méret

14-16 h Lunch break and informal gathering in the KONTEJNER courtyard

16-17:30 h Round table: SOMATIC EDUCATION AND THE SOMATIC IN EDUCATION

19 h  KONTAMINA, performance work by Mateo Babić

20 h  FLUID i T, work-in-progress performance by Sylvain Méret

Conversation with the performers and the audience

The fee for participation in the Continuum Practice Workshop is €90, or €60 with an early registration discount (until 30 April 2026).

All other programmes are free of charge, with donations according to your possibilities.

To participate in the workshops, please register at: somahut.mmk@gmail.com

Initiator and programme director of SomaHut: Zrinka Šimičić

Festival programme and organisation: Zrinka Šimičić and Mia Štark

Assistance in organisation and promotion: Lara Šercar

Production: Multimedijalna koliba in collaboration with KONTEJNER – Bureau of Contemporary Art Practice

Visual identity: Vanja Cuculić

Production: Multimedijalna koliba, 2026

The SomaHut 2026 programme is co-funded by the City of Zagreb, the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, and the European Union.  

SomaHut is part of  INTERLACE: Art and Action in Contemporary Dance Education, a project funded by the European Union, Erasmus+. INTERLACE aims to provide dance educators with learning environments and peer-to-peer exchanges for knowledge transfer and for developing inclusive methodologies for teaching creative dance to diverse local communities. The INTERLACE project provides dance educators with an environment for learning and peer-to-peer exchange, with the aim of transferring knowledge and developing inclusive methodologies for teaching creative dance in local communities.

Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or OeAD-GmbH. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Continuum Practice Workshop with dancer, choreographer and teacher Sylvain Méret

Saturday, 9 May 2026, from 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. / Sunday, 10 May 2026, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

SomaHut Festival 2026

The fluidity of Gel/Sol, movement practice and composition from expression to dissolution.

Sylvain Méret is a dancer, choreographer, and Continuum teacher. A graduate of the Bordeaux School of Fine Arts, trained in contemporary dance at PARTS and then in CODARTS dance therapy, his career has developed in France, Europe, and particularly in the Netherlands and South Korea.

The fee for participation in the Continuum Practice Workshop is €90, or €60 with an early registration discount (until 30 April 2026).

To participate in the workshops, registration is required at somahut.mmk@gmail.com

An experiential anatomy workshop for children

Saturday, May 9, 2026, from 3 to 4 PM

SomaHut festival 2026

Facilitators: Marina Brajdić and Zrinka Šimičić

In this workshop, participants – children aged 6 to 10 – will get to know their bodies through play, movement, touch, and imagination. A special focus of the session will be our bones, the connections between them, and their role in the functioning of the entire body. This workshop is an introduction and preview of the Experiential Anatomy for Kids program, which is launching soon at SomaHut.

To register for the workshop: somahut.mmk@gmail.com

Saturday, 9 May 2026, at 6:00 p.m.

SomaHut festival 2026

SHIFT INTO AN UNKNOWN PAUSE, performance-experiential work by Anja Bornšek with an introduction to the performance by Tina Valentan, and VOLUME OF MEMORY, performance work by Tina Valentan with an introduction to viewing by Anja Bornšek.

Within the context of the SomaHut festival, dance artists Anja Bornšek and Tina Valentan propose a dialogue between related methodologies emerging from somatic and process-based work. In this shared format, the authors are interested in how one practice can prepare and expand perception for another, how the spectator gradually shifts from observer to participant in the experience, and how the process is recorded and continued through trace, without the need for immediate explanation.

Anja Bornšek will perform the work Shift into an Unknown Pause, based on a shared experience of slowing down, attention, and collective introspection, followed by an invitation to an experience inspired by the Tamalpa (Life/Art Process) approach, led by Tina Valentan, in which participants translate their own experience into a trace — drawing, writing or another medium. This part is not intended as analysis or interpretation, but as an extension of experience. In the second part, Anja guides the audience through a Physical Introduction that gradually softens the position of the spectator and moves them from the role of observer toward a state of perceptual presence. The evening continues with the solo performance Volume of Memory by Tina Valentan. The material of this performance was developed according to the principles of Tamalpa expressive arts therapy. The performance opens a space in which the viewer does not follow a fixed form, but witnesses a living process of the body — oriented toward sensation, presence, and internal movement.
Shift into an Unknown Pause is a group experience that understands pause as a space of exploration rather than something passive or predetermined. Through shared slowing down and postponing habitual modes of action, participants enter a state of heightened perception. In this space, attention moves between the internal and external, between one’s own sensations and the presence of others. The pause becomes active and dense, filled with subtle micro-events. The work opens a space of collective introspection in which the group does not share the same experience, but shares the conditions in which experience emerges as a shared perceptual field in constant formation.

Anja Bornšek completed the SEAD dance school in Salzburg and graduated in contemporary dance pedagogy (MACoDE Frankfurt). She has furthered her training in somatics (Body-Mind Centering®), which strongly shapes her artistic and pedagogical approach. She collaborates with dance artists Maja Delak, Andreja Rauch Podržavnik, Snježana Premuš, Mala Kline, Begum Erciyas and Matija Ferlin. She develops and leads educational and artistic-pedagogical formats, including participatory formats for audiences (Physical Introduction and Physical Traces). She is the recipient of the Ksenija Hribar Award for promising choreographer.

Concept and artistic direction: Anja Bornšek

Performed by: Anja Bornšek and Tina Valentan

Sound: Tomaž Tomljanović

Lighting: Toni Soprano Meneglejte

Production: Nagib Maribor / Executive producer: Petra Hazabent

Project partners: MKC Maribor, Plesna Izba Maribor, Tanz Graz and DACE – Dance Art Critical Ecology

Financial support: Ministry of Culture and City of Maribor

Volume of Memory is a solo performance in which the body is revealed as a living interface between the individual and the world. Through movement, voice and presence, the artist opens a space of bodily memory and the unconscious, in which the solid merges with the fluid, form with overflow. In the dialogue between body, space and sound, a living structure of relations emerges – a space that breathes, listens and returns to the source.

Tina Valentan is a dancer, choreographer and educator who explores a wide spectrum of expressivity, from playful and humorous to intimate, sexual and animalistic. She graduated from the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam. She continues her education at the Tamalpa Institute through a program of expressive arts therapy based on movement.

Author and performer: Tina Valentan

Outside eye/ear: Anja Bornšek

Sound design: Tomaž Tomljanović

Physical introduction: Anja Bornšek

Costume design: Tomaž Tomljanović

Graphic design: Megajver

Production: Tina Valentan

Co-production: Project Space DUM – Association of Artists, NAGIB Maribor (executive producer: Petra Hazabent), MKC Maribor

Partners: LGM and Plesna izba Maribor

Financial support: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia – two-year author project, City of Ljubljana and City of Maribor

Saturday, 9 May 2026, at 9:00 p.m.

SomaHut festival 2026

The work explores audience perception within a dance performance, with an emphasis on the audience’s activity, the possibility of choice, and discontinuities in attention. Through practical work, it raises questions about how shifts in gaze and attention shape the viewing experience, and how reflective surfaces influence the perception of the body and space. It is based on the personal experience of daily commutes and experimenting with gaze as a way of exploring one’s own viewing experience.

Author and Performer: Ana Kljujev

Sound collaborator: Miro Manojlović

The work is a continuation of a research project developed at the Academy of Dramatic Arts, University of Zagreb, under the mentorship of Assoc. Prof. Art. Nikolina Pristaš and Assoc. Prof. Art. Una Bauer.

Reservations: somahut.mmk@gmail.com

Sunday, 10 May 2026, from 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

SomaHut festival 2026

A round table conversation with members of the SomaHut study group, teachers at the Department of Dance at the Academy of Dramatic Art (ADU), somatic practitioners, educators, and everyone interested in processes of embodied learning and teaching.

Sunday, 10 May 2026, at 7:00 p.m.

SomaHut festival 2026

Author and performer: Mateo Babić

‘Kontamina’ opens an interdisciplinary space between participatory performance, exhibition, and lecture. It displaces the audience from the familiar position of spectator, seeking to expand the experience through the somatic and meditative practices included in the performance. Thus, the issue of water contamination is sought to be conveyed through the practice of awareness of one’s own body, and then the imagination of the body in different states and relationships. The audience is invited to actively participate in the performance, with personal consent and working within their own boundaries.

Choreography and performance: Mateo Babić
Drama: Jan Samek
Sound design: Jurica Nikolić
Technical and performance support: Lea Brcko
Production: queerANarchive

Sunday, 10 May 2026, at 7:30 p.m.

SomaHut Festival 2026

Ritual performance by Sylvain Méret

Work in Progress

The material presented for the Somahut festival is an improvised performance revisiting and compiling elements of the project Fluid i T. This showing is a work in progress, an attempt to share a somatic, ritualistic experience with an audience.

“I have always felt the aquatic aspect of my existence. I am fluidity, my body resonates, I am in constant and profound resonance…” Kim de L’Horizon, “Blutbuch”, 2023.

Fluid i T is the result of several years of introspection and research into the question of identity, how it lands in the body’s physiology, and how it creates traumas. This autobiographical project draws on the somatic, emotional, psychological, and spiritual experiences of a person with a dual identity. Since childhood, Sylvain has been animated by two voices, two entities: the girl and the man. Largely experienced as an inner conflict, the writing process acted as a form of reconciliation and has been the primary motor to share this quest through a performance.

At the heart of the narrative, the concept of Cultural Anatomy (Conrad) or Somatheque (Preciado) is central to move beyond the cultural matrix dictating our unconscious behaviours. Our lived experiences are intrinsically woven into the fabric of the social and political body; in this sense, the intimate sense of self becomes a reflection of culture and transcends the mere individual experience. Tissue fluidity, intuition, trance, somatic awareness, and the acceptance of extraordinary experiences are the paths taken to break free from this setup. The identity conflict found a form of resolution through contact with the native cultures of the Indigenous peoples of North America and their chosen terminology, Two-Spirit. Far from being a matter of cultural appropriation, the issue is rather spiritual and also historical. The colonial imprint left on Indigenous populations has created shame, guilt, the disintegration of vitality, sexuality, and a harmonious relationship with the Earth’s environment. This perspective from another culture was, for the author, the trigger for a process of acceptance and a return to a unity that is complex, sometimes disarming, but rich. Furthermore, the act of ritual performance attempts to subvert theatrical mechanisms to explore a form of radical presence and its action on the present moment.

This performance blends text, voice, movement, and music to generate a vibratory, somatic, and memorial experience for the audience. The spoken and recorded texts, samples, and effects pedals that transform the voice into sonic material contribute to a sensory collage that manipulates memory to create expressive material.

As part of the SomaHut – a space to meet, learn and care project, Zrinka Šimičić, Ana Jelušić, and Mia Štark invite you to individual sessions and study meetings lasting 30 minutes.

On Saturday, March 7, between 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM (by appointment),
at the Šestine Local Committee, Šestinski trg 10.

This event offers interested participants the opportunity to explore, in a half-hour session, something of personal interest related to their body and movement, anatomy, possible movement challenges, or another current focus.

Zrinka Šimičić: Body-Mind Centering® hands-on sessions
Ana Jelušić: sessions based on the Feldenkrais Method® (FI)
Mia Štark: study meetings related to specific topics within BMC® learning

You can register via email: somahut.mmk@gmail.com

Participation is free and open to everyone until all spots are filled.

Please indicate in your application which session you are applying for and what time would suit you.

SomaHut – a space to meet, learn and care is a project by Multimedijalna koliba, co-funded by the European Union.

Led by: Zrinka Šimičić, dance artist and certified somatic practitioner and developmental movement educator (CMA-SP, RSME, IDME).

The workshops will be held according to the following schedule:

24 January, 10 a.m.–2 p.m.: IMMUNITY AS A PROCESS
14 February, 10 a.m.–2 p.m.: EMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT – Simplicity in Complexity
14 March, 10 a.m.–2 p.m.: CELLULAR AND INTRACELLULAR STRUCTURES

Venue: MO Šestine, Šestinski trg 10, Zagreb

The content of the workshops is based on the Body-Mind Centering® approach and learning, the LBMS system, the principles of Bartenieff Fundamentals, and the facilitator’s many years of personal experience in researching and teaching somatic movement.

The workshops are intended for everyone who wishes to:

• – deepen their experience and knowledge of the body and movement for professional or personal reasons
• – connect with the resources of their own body for survival, maintaining balance, and learning
• – dive into the vast wealth of knowledge and experience stored in the body before birth, at the very beginning of embryonic development
• – become aware of some of the fundamental structures that build our body

1st workshop in the series: IMMUNITY AS A PROCESS

The immune response ensures the balance and health of the organism through a complex process of intercellular communication, evaluation and learning through relationship with the environment. An appropriate response requires a process and time: not to rush, to rest, to store information, but also to be ready to encounter what is new and unknown.

Through the immune system, the body learns about itself: what it needs and what benefits it, what it does not need and what may harm it; what it recognizes as part of itself and what as a potential threat; where what I call “I” ends and the other begins, and whether the boundary that defines us is clear or imagined.

Drawing on the study of anatomy and physiology, in this workshop we will embody some of the principles that can support the awareness and strengthening of the immune system.

Starting from personal experience of the body, movement and touch, we will open some of the questions that form the basis of understanding immunology from a somatic perspective: questions of boundary, identity, dynamic balance, relationship and proportion.

2nd workshop in the series: EMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT – Simplicity in Complexity

In this workshop we will return to the very beginnings of our existence and, by embodying some of the processes that shaped us, rediscover the extraordinary intelligence, complexity and clarity that guided our path – from cell to community.

3rd workshop in the series: CELLULAR AND INTRACELLULAR STRUCTURES

The theme of this workshop will guide us toward awareness of the fundamental structures that build our body – cells and intracellular parts; their structure, function, mutual relationship and connection with particular systems and the organism as a whole.

What can this dive into the microworld of our body teach us about ourselves as individuals and as a community?

Registration

It is possible to participate in each workshop individually or in the whole series.

The recommended donation is €50 per workshop. If you are able, please pay the full amount; if not, donate what you can. If you are currently unable to pay anything and would still like to participate, you are welcome. Your donation supports the continuation and development of the SomaHut initiative and programme. One of SomaHut’s goals is to make somatic work accessible to everyone it can empower, support and inspire.

Please register your attendance by e-mail: somahut.mmk@gmail.com