Centre for Dance and Performing Arts F.R.E.E. D.A.N.C.E. is an independent and non-profit organization founded in 2004 that brings together artists and professionals advancing contemporary dance art and culture. It focuses on education, then the organization and production of performing projects and the development of dance art. It continuously and openly engages creators and recipients of dance art, promotes cultural and educational goals and strives to create positive conditions for the development and improvement of an independent cultural scene and contemporary dance art. Free Dance operates in two locations and gains experience in various contemporary cultural and social projects in the community, including work with children, young people and wider citizenship. 

Organized by Free Dance 2011, the Karlovac Dance Festival (KDF) was launched as an initiative and open place for different collaboration, exchange knowledge and experiences. It tends to achieve and enrich socio-cultural, educational and creative values. The goals of the KDF are to organize the creation and maintenance of an international partnership dance project, with an emphasis on the production platform, multicultural and artistic collaborations, residencies, research projects and open dialogue of artists, audiences and national and international festival participants.

Vision

We tend to connect different artistic disciplines with other areas of human activity and include experts in our work, learning from them, but also passing on our experience to them and thus encouraging them to apply imagination and creativity in their disciplines. In addition, we directly involve spectators in the performances, especially the younger audience, which we prepare for participation in workshops, teaching them how to approach dance material, stage speech, the relationship between text and dance. This encourages togetherness, raises awareness of the value of artwork and different aesthetic approaches.

As a core philosophy Free Dance seeks to explore new pathways into performance and endeavours to discover different ways of approaching art practice and the viewing of dance. We strive to create original and distinctive work, embracing multiplicity as a core value.

Artistic works

Visible Time and A Dipper, An Artist and Doctor of Natural Sciences were preceded by research in collaboration with natural science experts because we want to encourage cooperation between science and art, these necessarily creative but separate areas of activity, given that one enriches the other by innovating culture in a broader sense and opening new possibilities of modern of life. We apply a similar principle of connection and inclusion to the work to the various artistic disciplines. Both performances are multidisciplinary, we strive to create a coherent tissue in which artistic disciplines permeate and mutually influence development with concrete performing solutions. The vertical dance represented in the performances is applied in both circus and dance art. Contemporary dance and circus in many aspects touch and overlap, and as related arts they can rely on each other in production and develop in parallel. Multidisciplinary approach requires the search for new performative formats with which different audiences become familiar and engage and are increasingly willing to embrace similar events in the future. 

Goal

We want to present our work to international audiences, share our vision and knowledge with our partners, and embark on new collaborations. Get insight into other contexts of art creating, draw inspiration from them. Create a more permanent space for performing and circulation of works of art.

Keywords

FOCUS
RESEARCH
EXPLORE
ENDEAVOR

DARE
ASPIRE

NETWORK
COLLABORATIVE
EXPERIENCE