En–Knap & Maja Delak

6agon

#earlier en–knap works#co-productions

2001

In today’s world of constant expectations, people are expected to be strong and to conceal their sadness, as if sadness were a negative emotion. Yet mourning brings catharsis. It is a ritual through which people release their anguish and take the time to come to terms with loss. Exercising the right to mourn. 6agon is Ana, Barbara, Bara, Nataša, Neda and Špela.

6 AGON1 C

Sadness and love are similar in their intensity; they exist very close to one another. Love often turns into sadness, and love is also what helps us overcome it. Both sadness and love evoke strong emotions: they open us up, cut deeply into us, and both can become forms of enslavement. Love is also love for one's brothers and sisters, a commitment to preserving family traditions and values that are increasingly disappearing today. In contemporary society, one can leave the family at any time. Western culture has condensed the meaning of love into a single notion, into a form of excess. Love has become the most important thing in life. It tells its own stories, as well as the stories of time.

At any given moment, we can wear only one mask. On stage, the mask redirects attention from the face to the hands and the body; the body begins to speak through movement. A mask is a place of enclosure. It offers comfort, conceals the face and allows us to present ourselves differently. Through movement, it becomes easier to transmit energy. People's blindness is their own mask; social pressures encourage us to hide behind it and adapt. A mask introduces strangeness. With it, you become something you are not. People often believe they can hide behind a mask, yet by choosing a particular mask at a particular moment they reveal even more about themselves. A mask is a metaphor: it reveals and conceals at the same time. A mask is a world of its own. Suicide is a convergence of circumstances. Perhaps it is a way of preserving one's faith. When you die once, you cannot die again. Suicide draws a person backwards, beyond a certain threshold. It is an act that is ultimate and irreversible. Let hope always remain.

The chorus is a compositional and narrative element that shapes the dynamics of movement. The individual stands in contrast to the chorus. The relationship between the two resembles that between a singular character and the collective. In Greek tragedy, the chorus offers a broader perspective than the individual; it speaks of history, invokes the gods, and carries knowledge and vision. At certain moments, an individual emerges from the chorus. The chorus may support them, but ultimately leaves the decision in their hands. It is an authority that advises rather than commands.

Every person is, in some way, a unique character, with their own style and mode of expression. Unique characters are compelling. You are what you live, so live what is within you. Those who fall outside social norms stand out, and society often attempts to push them back into line. Yet it is precisely such individuals who enrich life with different qualities and perspectives. To move only within the realm of the average is to lose some of life's magic and to miss the possibility of reaching the limits and extremes of human experience.

bio

Maja Delak is a choreographer and dancer. She studied contemporary dance at CNDC L’Esquisse in Angers, France, and at numerous dance seminars, lead by internationally renowned pedagogues. She was, from 1993 to 2002, a member of the international dance group En-Knap, and a programme leader of the realization of a high school programme for contemporary dance, provided for at the Pre-School Education and Grammar School Ljubljana. In her choreographic opus, Maja Delak has traversed numerous worlds, which – despite the different themes and approaches to work – whirl into an anchorage of the author’s dance and performative poetics, with which she is making a clearer and clearer definition of the methodologies of contemporary art and dance. In 2006, Maja Delak established institute EMANAT, with which she aims for the affirmation of contemporary dance – both with performance production as well as with a book programme (Transitions series) and education (variety of research and educational projects). In 2010 she won the Prešeren Fund Award, the highest recognition for achievements in the field of art in the Republic of Slovenia.

credits

Performed by Neda Hafner, Barbara Kanc, Bara Kolenc, Špela Medved, Ana Štefanec, Nataša Živkovič

Music Sutek, Robert Normandeau, Ambient System 4 

Sound Damjan Delak 

Set design Marko Peljhan 

Costume design, mask, drawing and design Neda Hafner 

Light and set design Jaka Šimenc 

Text Karla Železnik

Executive producer Marija Skodlar

 

Production En–Knap 

Co-production SLKD Ptuj

With support: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, Municipality of Ljubljana - Department for Culture and research activity