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.
The system produces. It produces numbers, profits, humans, masses. It produces more, it produces ever more, it produces superfluous. No matter where in the system one finds oneself, where in the system one is stuck, or sticks out, the force, the compulsion remains: consume. One is superfluous, one consumes. One does not consume, one is branded.
Intertwining choreography of movement, words and music, Superfluous examines personal and social positions, facets in which the “superfluous” are a symptom, an effect of the system, its antagonisms, struggles, from the economy of gratification and the jobless to the democracy of choice and the homeless. Who is superfluous and who is useful, and for whom? Do we exist if we do not produce or consume? Who do we give up on last when we have given up on humanity? Based on The Superfluous Human by Ilija Trojanow, an essay on late capitalism, a system that systematically renounced humanity in favour of profit and abundance, destruction and collapse, the performance was created during the pandemic that laid bare the system of “superfluousness”. Stage sequences developed as a follow-up to video tasks, reflections on the essay during isolation, combined with a spontaneous, open dramaturgy in which original music and lighting inspire action to uniquely complement, complete the structure.