Iztok Kovač is a choreographer and founder of En–Knap. Following the international success of his solo How I Caught a Falcon (1991), he became one of the key figures in the development of Slovenian contemporary dance. He founded En–Knap Group, Slovenia's first permanent contemporary dance ensemble, and serves as artistic director of both En–Knap and the Španski borci Cultural Centre. His works have toured internationally for more than three decades. Additionally, his artistic practice includes six dance films, international pedagogical work, guest choreography and the direction of major national events in Slovenia. During the Covid period, he initiated Stage360, developing dance works in virtual reality.
Slovenian artists are haunted by ... gravitation! Živadinov is lured into gravitation by nothingness, Gregorič makes his stand by hanging his models upside-down, Losic tends towards the infinite – Kovač and Podgoršek confess, in most stunning way, the reason for their running away from the ground: to have a better look at the world they come from. The world, where black colour was the colour of the miners' brass band, red was the colour of mom’s nylon blouse and white was the colour of sister’s ballet shoes.
Dom Svobode is not only a code for the world the eyes of our generation see when looking back - it is also a code for the spaces of freedom an artist tries to create, wanting to rise above the banality of everyday life, wishing to inflame his imagination and to untie his body. To make a body stand upright when hanging from the wall is a gesture that in its heresy resembles the fluttering of a bird on top of a gigantic chimney: goodbye, Earth! But the bird is not alone anymore, it has its flock of black birdies, which in a fleeting, unfocused shot become one with black dots on a die and with black dots on a piece of white paper. The chance of the cast dying, caught into Kovač’s system, becomes an irresistible combination, pulling down not only bodies, but walls as well.