En–Knap’s activity unfolds across multiple formats of dance practice. Since its founding, En–Knap’s stage production has played a pioneering role in establishing contemporary dance as an internationally recognised artistic practice in Slovenia. En–Knap’s film production grows out of its stage works, expanding them through the unique landscapes of Iztok Kovač’s hometown of Trbovlje and its long-standing collaboration with filmmaker Sašo Podgoršek. The VR production explores choreography in immersive 360° environments, presenting dance through collective Stage360 events. Through its Generations programme, En–Knap creates performances for young audiences, bringing dance closer to them in a way that is both accessible and meaningful. Interventions expand choreography beyond the theatre through site-specific works, public events and community-based projects that integrate urban environments and diverse audiences.
Productions
Stage. Dance performances.
Since its founding in Belgium in 1993, through the establishment of En–Knap Group in 2007 and continuing to the present day, stage production has remained at the heart of En–Knap’s artistic practice. While the early decades of En–Knap’s stage production were shaped by the distinctive choreographic vision of Iztok Kovač, the following period opened the repertoire to artistic collaboration, with more than 40 guest choreographers and theatre directors creating works for and with En–Knap. For more than three decades, En–Knap has contributed to shaping the contemporary dance landscape through performances, co-productions and international touring, both in Slovenia and abroad.
Film. Dance on the big screen. And the small one.
Through the collaboration of Iztok Kovač and Sašo Podgoršek that started in 1995, dance migrates into cinema as a distinct audiovisual language. Emerging from the experimental atmosphere of contemporary dance in the late 1980s, the duo gradually shaped a hybrid cinematic language that resists conventional categorisation. In the words of Slovenian film theorist Stojan Pelko these are not “dance moments captured on film”, it is more as if the film itself begins to dance.
VR. 360° Dance.
Since 2019 En–Knap’s Stage360 explores new ways of experiencing dance through virtuality. This is a stage that, in its marriage with technology, transcends the trope that in such reality we are “alone together”, or “together alone”. Through immersion and participation, it allows for the transformation of audience into community, of sociability into sociality. Presented in the formats of guided group VR screenings or gallery VR setups, it transforms spectatorship into shared immersion, where the audience sometimes becomes a participant and digital space becomes a stage.
Generations. Dance for young audiences.
Since 2010, En–Knap’s Generations programme has been dedicated to children, young people and educators. With a strong focus on contemporary dance – an important artistic field that often remains absent from formal curricula – the programme introduces movement as a way of thinking and critical inquiry. Through performances, VR experiences and a live experience of dance led by professional dancers, young audiences encounter dance both, in the theatre and in their classroom at school.
Interventions. Dance beyond the stage.
In the context of Interventions, choreography enters squares, parks, heritage sites as well as ceremonial spaces and cultural institutions. Interventions bring contemporary dance into dialogue with communities, histories and everyday life since 1999.
