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's 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, based on an idea by Venelin Shurelov, 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 has collaborated with authors, such as Snježana Premuš, Gregor Luštek, Žigan Krajnčan, Matej Kejžar, Ivan Peternelj, Leja Jurišič, Jurij Konjar, Magdalena Reiter, etc., and with a number of Slovene co-producers, such as Maska Institute, Dance Theatre Ljubljana.

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.

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.

It is part of "1Space", an international platform dedicated to the development of intercontinental exchange, collaboration, production and distribution of artists and artworks from Europe, Africa and the Middle East, co-produced by Exodos Institute, KVS (Belgium) and Alkantara (Portugal), and of the "2018–2019 China-CEEC Cultural Cooperation Project", in the frame of which Exodos has been co-producing performances and running other cultural and educational programmes.