CHEZ MICHOU (The Mystery of Blue) | KDF016 Autumn Edition
Performance: CHEZ MICHOU (The Mystery of Blue), Žak Branko Valenta
Friday, 23rd October at 8.00 pm
“Zorin dom” City Theatre, Karlovac
Duration: 50 minutes
Tickets:
➡️ Info & booking at: info@freedance.hr
Limited seating available.
By purchasing a ticket, you directly support the artists’ work and the organisation of future performances.
ABOUT
Mobilizing the format and legacy of the cabaret genre, the project Chez Michou by Žak Branko Valenta entangles the image of the French singer and drag artist Michou with a poetic reflection on dis-orientation. The bodies on stage activate a queer spatiality that blurs the border between the inner and the outside world, between abstraction and the realities of fiction. Navigating imagination into the muddles of identity, the choreography unfolds a cartography of dislocation saturated with the vibrant textures of objects, gestures and words. The collapse of heteronormative structures is radicalized through the potentiality of flesh to push against fixed coordinates and perform the subject being somehow out of place. As an invitation to get lost, Chez Michou celebrates the disappearing horizon and retraces the affective territories of Otherness.
Authorship and choreography: Žak Branko Valenta
Co-creators and performers: Toni Flego, Maria Arkouli / Eleonora Magdalena Vrdoljak,Ekin Tunçeli, Hannah Krebs, Žak Branko Valenta
Dramaturgy: Andrej Mirčev
Visual identity: Nikoleta Mirčev
Music: Dušan Maksimovski
Production: Artistic Organisation TRAFIK; RIjeka, MDT Moderna Danstatern Stockholm, SKH Stockholm University of the Arts
Duration: 50 min
Special thanks to:
Thanks to my supervisors Dinis Machado, Dr. Andrej Mirčev and Siegmar Zacharias .
Special thanks to my mentor Jennifer Lacey.
Many thanks to Karin Hauptmann, producer MA Choreography SKH.
Biographies
TRAFIK Arts Organisation
TRAFIK is an independent theatre and dance organisation from Rijeka, founded in 1998. It is dedicated to the development of contemporary dance and performing arts, placing a strong emphasis on research, experimentation, and openness in creating new forms of scenic expression. Choreography serves as the organisation’s central medium, while international collaboration enables a dialogue between local contexts and global audiences.
Žak Branko Valenta is a choreographer, author and educator in the fields of dance, physical theatre and eurythmy. He holds an MA in Choreography from the Stockholm University of the Arts, and his work is characterised by the exploration of biographical queer performance, post-punk poetics and a somatic approach to the body. As a co-founder and author within the TRAFIK collective, as well as through independent projects and collaborations with national theatres (HNK Rijeka, DK Gavella, HNK Zagreb), he has created numerous highly acclaimed performance pieces (such as Europa pleše, Kinopredstava and Chez Michou). His artistic achievements have been recognised with the state’s highest accolade, the “Vladimir Nazor” Award for Theatre Arts, alongside the Silver Medallion of the City of Rijeka for choreographic work, the Tbilisi International Grand Prix, the “Žar ptica” professional award for best non-verbal performance, and multiple nominations for the Croatian Theatre Award. He teaches at art schools and academies both in Croatia and abroad. He lives and works between Rijeka, Zagreb, Katowice and Stockholm, developing research-based choreographic works that connect local contexts with universal human experiences.
Karlovac Dance Festival — Credits
Supported by: Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, the City of Karlovac, and Karlovac County
Media Partner: HRT3