Maska Institute

Maska Institute is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation for publishing, production, education, and research, registered in 1993. It is divided into three departments: Maska Productions (performances, interdisciplinary, and visual artworks), Maska Publishing, and Maska Symposium. Its activities engage in contemporary art and theory, research, experimental performing practices, interdisciplinary art, and critical theory. Maska works on the Maska Symposium series in collaboration with the Cankarjev dom Culture and Congress Centre.

Maska Productions

Maska Productions produces performances and other interdisciplinary performing arts events by innovative, exploring artists as well as first projects of the youngest generation. The performances range from engaged interdisciplinary performances tackling issues, such as identity, intimacy, (Slovene) political reality, and mass entertainment to more genre dance works. Recently Janez Janša made reconstructions of founding performances of experimental Slovene theatre from the 60s (Pupilia Papa Pupilo and the Pupilčeks (Pupilija papa pupilo in pupilčki) (2006), awarded at the 41st Bitef in Belgrade, and Monument G (2009)). His Slovene National Theatre [Slovensko narodno gledališče) (2008) won the award for innovation and aesthetic breakthrough at 43rd Borštnik Meeting, Slovene Theatre Festival 2008. Irena Tomažin received the Golden Bird Award 2006 for her performance Caprice [Kaprica], co-produced by the City of Women festival. Maska also produced work by Ivan Peternelj, Magdalena Reiter, Mare Bulc, Neda R. Bric, etc.). Maska's productions regularly appear the Gibanica (Moving Cake) Festival of Slovene Dance. We Are All Marlene Dietrich FOR (2005) was a Maska's co-production with Iceland Dance Company, in collaboration with Reykjavik Arts Festival. The project received an EU grant as a part of Trans Danse Europe 2003-2004. Yasminne Hugonet's Of Other (O drugem) (2007) was co-produced by Synalephe (France), the French Cultural Institute Charles Nodier, Ljubljana, and City Museum of Ljubljana.

In 2008 Maska organised the East Dance Academy, a project aimed at interdisciplinarity and strong social contextualization of artistic production. The event included reconstructed performances, screenings of dance and performances from 60s and 70s, live archiving, debates, and lectures. With the project, Maska introduced the platform ARTCHIVE – Contaminated with History, a one-year programme intended to historicization of contemporary performing arts in Eastern Europe. East Dance Academy is part of the international project What to Affirm What to Perform?, a cooperation between Allianz Kulturstiftung, Centre for Drama Art Zagreb, The National Center of Dance Bucharest, and Tanzquartier Wien.

The 2009 event Shocking Gala Show, marking the 40th anniversary of the emergence of experimental theatre group Pupilija Ferkeverk, included performances, exhibitions, a conference, and lectures (among others by Hans-Thies Lehmann, Ramsey Burt. The events were financed also through Erste Stiftung, Allianz Kulturstiftung, and the European Cultural Foundation (ECF).

Visual and intermedia production includes co-productions with Cona Institute and Intima Virtual Base, whose project "Oppera Internettikka Bollywooddikka", co-produced by Maska, was performed live in in New Delhi, India, in the frame of the CeC & CaC - The Carnival of e-Creativity & Change-Agents Conclave, presented by The Academy of Electronic Arts and The India International Centre in 2006.

Maska's latest productions were on tour in numerous European countries, USA, Asia and Africa.

Maska Publishing

Maska is engaged in publishing books related to the broadest area of contemporary performing arts, from theatre, opera, contemporary dance and new ballet to performance, multimedia and new-media art.

The TRANSformations (TRANSformacije) book series covers contemporary performing arts theory, introducing some new terminology and conceptual frameworks by Slovene or foreign authors, including titles such as Hans-Thies Lehmann's Postdramatic Theatre, Amelia Jones' Body Art. Performing the Subject, Nicolas Bourriaud's Relational Aesthetics and Postproduction, Bojana Kunst's Dangerous Connections, Alexei Monroe's Plural Monolith. Laibach and NSK, Jacques Attali's Noise, Aldo Milohnić's Theories of Contemporary Theatre and Performance Art, etc.

The Mediactions (Mediakcije) book series introduces critical writing on media and society. The series brought translations of 'New Watchdogs' by Serge Halimi, followed by Naomi Klein’s No logo and Monopoly by Sandra B. Hrvatin and Lenart J. Kučič, dealing with the issue of ownership in Slovene media. Includes also A Hacker Manifesto by McKenzie Wark, Mike Davis'

Buda's Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb, and Ariel Dorfmann's and Armand Mattelart's How to Read Donald Duck.

Special issues include books related to performance practise and its refelection, such as Janez Janša - Life [in Progress], containing 55 instructions from the performance and exhibition of the same title and is accompanied with critical writing, Marcel Stefančič's Janez Janša: Biography (in Slovene), and two joint issues of Maska magazine with the Crotian Frakcija Magazine and Performance Research.

Maska Magazine

The performing arts magazine Maska (in English: The Mask) is a successor to the modernist magazine of the same name which was launched in 1920. Since 1999, when the magazine was re-launched, the bilingual (English and Slovene) magazine appears three times a year and is mostly topic-related. So far over 50 theoreticians and writers have written for the magazine.

Some recent titles include: Art, Society, and Feelings; Performing Visuality, Performing Life: practices in Slovenia from the 60s to 80s; History, Experience, Archive; Europe in Capitalist A(rt) Minor; Nomenclature of Space; Art of Writing; two issues devoted to an overview of Slovene contemporary dance and art production Does Production Dance Alone?; Art in the Grip of Education, etc. Each issue includes also interviews with artists and theoreticians, reviews of performances and books, as well as articles on the cultural politics.

With the fall/winter 2006 issue of Maska, the magazine is designed by the Slovakian designer Martin Mastrik, who received an honorable mention at the Slovak National Prize for Design. Mistrik was chosen as Maska’s designer on the basis of a design competition.

Maska magazine has participated in numerous collaborative projects: Fama, a bilingual (English and German) magazine, published in co-operation with Frakcija magazine of Zagreb to coincide with the Munich Dance Festival, which was dedicated to the thematisation of the status of the body in different cultures and artistic practices; together with Performance Research and again Frakcija, Maska prepared an issue devoted to the positioning of aesthetic forms, the re-mapping and reconfiguring of East and West Europe, reflecting on the similarities and differences in assumptions about form and relational structures within the apparently shared European frameworks. The online journal in Kassel 2007, which compiled the articles that had been published on the leitmotifs of Documenta 12 in the more than 100 media around the world, also involved Maska magazine.

In 2008, Maska launched the project Library Under the Trees, where you can borrow Maska’s editions and enjoy the books and magazines for free. The Library is located in the meadow by the Tivoli Lake in Park Tivoli, Ljubljana.

Maska Symposium

Maska Symposium's basic project is the Seminar of Contemporary Performing Arts, co-organised by Cankarjev dom Culture and Congress Centre. Seminar is an all year programme, with lectures by internationally acclaimed scholars, artists, and writers. The 2009/2010 seminar takes place under the heading Artistic and Social Assemblage of Bodies: Contemporary Performing Arts and the Powerlessness of the Political, including lectures, talks, debates, workshops, etc.. Previous seminars discussed topics, such as historization of contemporary performing arts, dance dramaturgy procedures, parallel practices of contemporary art, etc..

Maska regularly organises workshops and lectures connected to dramaturgy of dance in collaboration with international experts in the field of contemporary performing arts. Thus in 2009, it has prepared dramaturgical advising by Elke van Campenhout, a Belgian dramaturge and researcher in the field of art, Ivana Ivković, a dramaturge, and Toni Cots, a choreographer of L'Animal A L'Esquena, Spain. The sessions encourage open and critical dialogue on dramaturgical questions that arise during the creative process. In 2008 and on, the participants of the seminar are taking part in the productions and projects of Ukrep Festival, organised by Ljubljana Dance Theatre (PTL).

In June 2009, Maska's Symposium organised a panel Difficulties With Contemporaneity. On Historicization Processes in Contemporary Performing Arts in the frame of the 15the Performance Studies International Conference, held in Zagreb, Cratia, the purpose of which was to reflect on the processes of historicization in contemporary performing arts which were analysed through theoretical reflections, presentations of working methods, and artistic research. The panel was part of Maska's one-year programme East Dance Academy and the project ARTCHIVE - Contaminated with History.

External links

Maska Institute website

Maska Institute

Contents

Maska Productions

Maska Publishing

Maska Magazine

Maska Symposium

See also

External links

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