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.
A complex landscape of improvised situations immersed in the timeless network of coalmine shafts under the Slovene town of Trbovlje (hometown of Iztok Kovač and the main source of his inspiration). The realistic imagery of this post-socialist town, which still seems to exist out of time, triggered the impulse of this intimate introspection by a team of acclaimed dancers and filmmakers. The physical strain and ludist flashes of seven bodies cutting into the intentionally chosen closed situation, surrounded by the lightless warmth and humidity of the underground world, inhabit and create the poetic mood of the film, echoing Tarkovski and Beckett. The film, based on the motifs of the dance performance S.K.I.N. by the choreographers Iztok Kovač and Julyen Hamilton, is an audiovisual articulation of en-knapian language of bodies in motion which draws the viewer into an engaging atmosphere.