Exodos Institute

Snježana Premuš: Stories of the Body III: YOU, dance performance. Performers: Anja Bornšek and Milan Tomasik, produced by Exodos Institute, 2007

Established in 1999, Exodos Institute is a non-profit, independent theatre and dance production centre, which organises the Exodos International Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts (biennial since 2011). Exodos Institute also produced the first four editions of the biennial Gibanica (Moving Cake) Festival of Slovene Dance (2003–2009) and continues to participate as a co-producer of the festival.

Exodos's recent permanent in situ project involves the creation of a Labyrinth of Art, a living space for walking and contemplation on the outer edge of Ljubljana, created in the framework of the World Book Capital Ljubljana 2010 project.

Background

Exodos Institute was founded by Miran Šušteršič, Tomaž Toporišič, Jana Pavlič, Jedrt Jež Furlan, and Nataša Zavolovšek with the aim of producing the Exodos International Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, a prestigious event which has been taking place in Ljubljana since 1995 and which has presented numerous resounding performances by foreign artists.

Productions

Since 1999, Exodos has been producing independent theatre and dance performances by established makers as well as supporting young, emerging artists. Exodos regularly collaborates with authors, such as Snježana Premuš, Matej Kejžar, Ivan Peternelj, Leja Jurešič, Jurij Konjar, Magdalena Reiter, etc., and with a number of Slovene co-producers, such as Maska Institute in Janez Janša's performance Fake It! (2007), Dance Theatre Ljubljana in Snježana Premuš's Stories of the Body: Move As and Magdalena Reiter's Forma Interrogativa, which won the 2005 Gibanica (Moving Cake) Festival of Slovene Dance Award. Exodos has also co-produced several works by international authors, such as Ana Stegnar and Saïd Gharbi's Thirst [Žeja] (2006), produced by Les BGM; Koen van Sutter's international multidisciplinary production The Attendants' Gallery–Stories of Europe, produced by Lod and supported by Theorem through ECF, featuring 5 actors–attendants supported by artistic images and objects as well as live music; a co-production with Wax Factory, New York in Ivan Talijančič's staging of Sarah Kane's Cleansed, etc.

International networking

Exodos Institute is a member of several international networks, including the Informal European Theatre Meeting (IETM), Festivals in Transition (FIT), European Dance Education Network (DANCE) and the Trans Danse Europe network of production houses.