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, 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.

Concept, choreography and performance: Margareta Sinković // Dramaturgy: Jan Samek // Music: Elizabeta Marjanović // Costume design: Klaudia Curman // Video: Urh Pirc // Editing: Lucija Strugar // Visual design: Mia Štark // Promotional photography: Nives Knechtl

This dance solo explores the human body as one of the possible bodies of water. Works by various authors, viewed through the lens of ecopoetry, serve as the starting point of an artistic process that investigates the connections between natural aquatic environments on one hand, and the human body and its actions on the other. By combining elements of poetry, video, photography, dance, and musical material, the work aims to create a fluid and illusory performative environment — like the body of water itself.

This piece touches upon certain current ecological issues, but without necessarily entering an activist sphere. The ecological value of the artistic research lies in the poetic level of performance, which develops in relation to theatrical conventions and through the pursuit of a hybrid performative form that generates diverse sensory experiences within the performance. The sensory has the potential to create relationships between the surrounding environment and humans, thus generating a different perception of nature (even when displaced into a theatrical context) and inviting a transformation in our relationship toward it.

24 October 2024, 8 pm
GDK Gavella – Mala Gavella, Zagreb

Solo Performance Created & Performed by Kirstie Simson

Dramaturg and Compositional Assistant: Charlie Brittain

Lighting: Simon Gane

Sound: Steve Bull

Costumes:  Liubov Clapson & Kirstie Simson

Music:  Another World by Antony and the Johnsons / My Way by Sid Vicious / Relaxing Birdsong Nature Sounds

Ánima Film credits:

Director/Editor/Camera:  Isaac Zambra

Dancer:  Kirstie Simson

Camera: Mario Morales Rubí

Music: Jorge Zambra & Aaron Gibran

Costume : Agueda León

Poem:  Itzel A. Valle

Our challenge has been to ask the question: Could we make a film that embodies a sense of what Life is calling for from us humans at this time? Perhaps to quieten, to listen intently, and to reflect on how to move forward into our unknown future. How to merge ‘with’ Life, in lieu of asserting dominion over Life.

We were given a once in a lifetime opportunity to enter an underground site called Aktun Usil, a place held sacred by a civilization who lived a different understanding about the divine nature of Life.

Special thanks to ALL – friends, family, neighbours, fellow cancer patients, nurses, doctors, surgeons, integrative health practitioners, strangers, animals, nature, ancestors, the Earth, Life – who have supported me, and continue to support me throughout this ongoing journey.

Together we are strong – together we can make it!

‘Imagine if Life was listening to you. Would there be anything you would want to say to Life?’

Performance in Zagreb is part of SomaHut 2024 program of Multimedia Hut, supported by the City of Zagreb and the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia and realised in partnership with Gavella Drama Theatre and Academy of Dramatic Art Zagreb.

Tickets: https://gavella.mojekarte.hr/hr/subterranea-somahut/ulaznice-619586.html

This solo is the next step on Kirstie’s journey through dance and life.

Evolving from 45 years of dedicated dance practice, and wide renown as a leading light in the art of improvisation, Kirstie shares her story of dealing with a life-threatening health crisis: cancer, and its recurrence. Through her art, traversing movement and text, she conveys the underlying philosophies that have emerged through the embodied practices which have supported her to face, and engage with, life’s challenges.

‘When life is good there is a thrilling sense of freedom that calls to be fully engaged with, and joyfully expressed. When difficulties emerge, as they inevitably will, and the path forward seems perilous, the work begins in earnest and our understanding and grounding in holistic practice is put to the test. Emotionally this is not pleasing for us; yet it is where the profound satisfaction of humble learning, deepening understanding and strengthening occurs. Life inevitably will present us with challenges. Where did we get the idea that it should be easy? The good news is that as an integral part of the whole, we have everything at hand to be able to adapt, transform, uncover, and explore life-generating solutions, that are so much needed at this time.’

Subterranéa explores our resilience in the face of adversity, how we make sense of life through telling our stories, and Kirstie’s experience of the intersection between her health crisis & the planetary crisis we are collectively facing.

Kirstie Simson (UK) has been a continuous explosion in the contemporary dance scene, bringing audiences into contact with the vitality of pure creation in moment after moment of virtuoso improvisation. Called “a force of nature” by the New York Times, she is an award-winning performer and teacher who has “immeasurably enriched and expanded the boundaries of New Dance” according to Time Out Magazine, London. Kirstie is internationally renowned today as an excellent teacher, a captivating performer, and a leading light in the field of Dance Improvisation, with a dance practice that spans over four decades. From 2008 – 2020 Kirstie held a position as a tenured professor in the Department of Dance at the University of Illinois.
In August 2020 Kirstie returned to her home base in Wales from where she continues to share her work internationally. Kirstie frames her work now, in the light of our uncertain future, as practices that can help us develop resilience in the face of challenge. She uses her own experience of facing a life-threatening health issue in 2020/2023 as a foundation for her ongoing research into the power of embodied intelligence.

www.kirstiesimson.com

SomaHut festival 2023

Concept, choreography: Mia Štark

Performance: Ivana Bojanić, Valentina Miloš, Anna Javoran

Dramaturgical support: Anna Javoran

Work with voice: Jasmina Bojić

Scenography: Kristina Marić

The relationship to nature and the relations between modern life and past times are at the heart of Mija Štark’s first original play. The author’s interest is not motivated by ecological reasons, as one might suspect, although awareness of environmental preservation is present as a distant echo. The focus is on searching for connections with the origins of man in nature, recognizing elements of pre-Christian culture and agricultural ideas of the world related to the cult of the earth and fertility rites that, transforming over time, have managed to remain at least fragmentarily in the customs of the community, view of the world or language. Our relationship to phenomena is significantly different from the understanding of our ancestors. A closer relationship and life in harmony with the changes of nature can already be observed in the generations of our grandparents, and as we delve into the past, it becomes increasingly obvious that nature once defined man’s horizon, that is, that man viewed himself as a part of the universe conditioned, determined and subordinated to natural forces. With the advancement of civilization, man places himself in opposition to nature, diminishing the importance of its influence on life, suppressing its power, and at the same time suppressing nature within himself, while positioning and affirming himself as the creator who gives meaning and purpose to everything that exists.

Let the dew fall on us Rain focuses on the questions of whether dance and customs contained in folklore patterns, and inherited from agricultural rituals and Slavic mythology, emerged from a sacred or social moment, how the sacred conditions the social, and vice versa, how these rituals change with the transition to Christianity, and how to relate to heritage when even in rural areas there are no gatherings where communities used to address Nature with a symbolic gesture of customary repetitions, relying on its wisdom of cyclical balancing.

The performance was realized as part of the Pogonator and Koreospektar programs, produced by the Association of Professional Dance Artists PULS in co-production with Domino, with the support of the City of Zagreb and the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia.

SomaHut festival 2023

IZVEDBA KOJA SE DIRA

SomaHut festival 2023

DOBRA VODA