Bitef

- We plan to film thè original cast, when we invite them to watch together thè video of thè original performance. - We plan to film an old critic, reading his own review of the original performance, which back then was published in the leading daily newspaper and was a very emotional response to what he saw on stage... - Some of the scenes will be performed by guest performers. Por example, one idea is that a scene, in which a performer copulates with a globe, is always performed with and by a new guest performer. The cast for the reconstruction is composed of young artists coming from different backgrounds, who will approach the re-enactment as experts for certain tasks - dance, music, Improvisation, theatre, literature... The reconstruction of Pupilija will be a display of re-enactment approaches, procedures and techniques, which will communicate to a spectator thè relationship or a dialogue between two historical periods. It will follow the original dramaturgy of the 20 scenes and display 20 different approaches to re-enactment (performing the same task, perforening original actor performing the task, performing a video of the task, performing thè script, copying exact original scene, leaving open the inner execution of a task and improvising a topic...). “PUPILIJA" AND THE REINVENTION OF THE DANCE HISTORY Many questions that remain open concerning European dance in last 10 years were already put forward in the original performance. So for me, to do a reconstruction is also a politicai program for theatre and dance schools. To do thè archaeology of gesture and stage structure is an act of exchange, not an act of reproduction. Dance as an art form has always been considered as an art form of democratic societies. There is no other art form, which would be so closely linked to the contemporaneity (modern, post-modern, Contemporary) and freedom of dance. Dance is an art form par exellence of the first world. It is not surprising that in officiai histories of Contemporary dance no one mentions dance in non-democratic societies. There are folklore, ballet and military parades - all forms of pre-democratic regimes. Even in the second and third world countries the history of dance as an art form is seen exclusively through Western eyes. If there is a dance history, it is a history of a pupil of a great Western master, mostly Laban, Wigman or Palucca. What has to be done is to detect and find the places, areas and events where dance functioned as piercing through (in other words, it was in hiding, coming in/out through the back door), if I take for example thè environment I live in, the performances by the conceptual group OHO and a collective of poets, Pupilija Ferkewerk (both working in Slovenia in the late 60's) were the places where dance was piercing through. Dance could't achieve its own legitímate status until the communist regime began to tumble down (in Slovenia in the 80's), even though it was constantly present and appearing in the areas, which were the areas where there was room for experimental art- visual art, experimental music and theatre... Officiai interpretations ofthe performances by Pupilija Ferkewerk say that "they used elements of dance". But how could they used elements of dance if itdidn't exist? On the contrary, it was dance that found a place in their performance, however poeticthis might sound. In more simple terms, the notion that dance didn't exist in non-democratic societies is a highly questionatale thesis and what urgently needs to be done, is to redefine the history of dance. This would also shed a completely new light on the processes that have been going on in European dance scene over the last 10 years.