Temporary Slovene Dance Archive

The Temporary Slovene Dance Archive (TSDA) was established in 2012 when Rok Vevar, its founder, started to compile the documentary and audiovisual archive of contemporary dance as his personal cultural-activist project. TSDA stemmed from his own need for documentary records and an archive, and out of his own curiosity about the history of the artistic practices and the community.

The aim of TSDA is the historicization of contemporary performing arts and covers mostly the material regarding contemporary scenic arts, dance, and theatre of the non-institutional scene in Slovenia. Since March 2018, it is located at Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (MSUM) in Ljubljana. With its curator present, it is a performative installation, a live archive-in-progress.

Background

Rok Vevar, born 1973, is a contemporary dance historian and archivist. He has dedicated a great deal of time and effort to create a historical overview of the development of dance in Slovenia, in the process of compiling his own documentary and audiovisual archive. In 2012, he opened his private collection, called the Temporary Slovene Dance Archive, to the public in his apartment in Ljubljana.

Mission

Over time TSDA evolved into a platform for documenting and historicizing contemporary dance and scenic arts in Slovenia, mainly practices that are closely linked to modernism, historical avant-gardes, neo-avant-gardes, retro-gardes, and contemporary art. For the most part, these are scenic artistic practices transpiring outside the cultural institutions, and as a consequence, have been left by the wayside as far as public institutional archives and records departments are concerned.

TSDA is referring to artists and their practices that are not only present in Slovenia but are internationally extremely active and dynamic, despite the fact that they are for the most part institutionally underrepresented. In this respect, TDSA is an emancipatory, activist project aimed at making marginalized artistic practices more visible and providing study material for artists, theorists, and historians.

Collection

TSDA is comprised of a massive collection of materials that include printed material, in-house process documentation, register of Slovene dancers and choreographers, correspondence between artists and producers, photographic and audiovisual material, choreographers; and artists; files, dance festival catalogues, dance films, footage of performances, contemporary dance pedagogy programs, and a variety of other objects related to relevant artistic practices.

TSDA consists of Vevar's private collection, the donations of the Maska and Exodos Institutes, the materials collected by Neja Kos, the contemporary dance consultant at the Public Fund for Cultural Activities of the Republic of Slovenia between 1977 and 2006. Subsequently, the material was gathered also from the legacy of the choreographer and contemporary dance activist Ksenija Hribar (1938–1999), dancer, pedagogue and critic Marija Vogelnik (1914–2008), and photographer Božidar Dolenc (1950–2008). Donations were given also by many cultural workers and organizations connected to contemporary dance, for example by Eka Vogelnik, Aleksandra Rekar, Vlado Repnik, Mateja Bučar, Snježana Premuš, Tomaž Toporišič, Amelia Kraigher, the Contemporary Dance Association Slovenia, Bunker Institute, Mladinsko Theatre, Slovenian Theatre Institute, Slovene National Theatre Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, and many others.

Location

In March 2018, the Temporary Slovene Dance Archive was transferred into the keeping of the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (MSUM) in Ljubljana. The invitation of the MSUM represents the first bona fide initiative on the part of a cultural institution in the Balkans to offer its capacities to this type of work, materials, and use.

The archive is accessible on the first floor, where Vevar also performs a live archive-in-progress: the archiving procedure – from collecting and systematizing to providing public accessibility – is all made visible. The TSDA has thus become a performative, time-specific and site-specific installation presenting the archive as a structure evolving over time and without end.

Networking

TSDA is also linked to the group of dance archivists, theorists and historians, since 2013 working on the project "Archiving Choreographic Practices in the Balkans", initiated by the Balkan dance network called the Nomad Dance Academy.

External links

vevar/ MSUM web page about the TSDA]

v-msum-u-tudi-kot-zivi-arhiv-v-trajanju/452219 On the TSDA on the RTV Slovenia]

Gallery

Temporary Slovene Dance Archive

Contents