NagiB Contemporary Dance Festival

Private spaces, NagiB Festival, 2009

Launched in 2005 in Maribor, NagiB Contemporary Dance Festival (until 2010 known as NagiB Experimental Movement Festival) invites emerging talents from the field of contemporary dance and performance from Slovenia and abroad to present their work. During the past few years, NagiB has moved away from the "traditional" definitions and realisations of a dance festival and has strongly focused on the presentation of artistic processes. The realisation that artistic processes can benefit from a festival platform and that the festival can pave the way to new production forms and not only present those already created were the principles behind the festival's search for new forms and modes of presentation and creation. Accordingly, the festival's name NagiB (tilt, motive) highlights the necessity of alternative visions to established conceptions of artistic creation and art product.

In the period 2005–2008, the festival was organised by Pekarna Cultural Centre, and from 2009 to 2013 by Plesna izba Maribor. In 2014, NagiB launched the programme NagiB on Stage in co-production with Narodni dom Maribor, which offers monthly presentations of contemporary performing arts performances.

Past editions programme

Prior editions of NagiB festival have presented works by emerging international authors, such as Yasmine Hugonnet, Maria Jerez, Ioana Popovici, Pere Faura, Silke Z., Radharani Pernarčič, Adva Zakai, Jolika Suderman and Alma Söderberg, Keren Levi, Hugo Dehaes as well as performances of renowned authors, such as Katie Duck, Sebastijan Horvat, Snježana Premuš, Katrina Brown. Besides presenting international performances to the Slovene public, the festival also encouraged the exchange of artistic experiences and knowledge through offering workshops by international artists and pedagogues, such as Katie Duck and Mary Oliver from Magpie Music and Dance Company, Rebecca Murgi, Igor Dobričić, Bojana Kunst, Maja Delak, Rok Vevar, Aimar Pérez Galí, etc.

Since 2012, the festival is focusing on supporting artistic processes and presenting them to the wider public in the form of practical or oral presentations, discussions, and especially sharing practices, where the artists share their working processes to gain new insights and reflections on their work. In this format, the festivals has hosted Jasmina Križaj, Mala Kline, Tina Valentan, and Luka Martin Škof, as well as a number of international artists.