Manifestacija introverta

The sculptor Camille Claudel struggled for thirty years for her work and creative space. For this, she was rewarded with thirty years of total solitude in the madhouse. In neither part of her life has she succeeded. Clotho danced her Waltz.

My granny started dancing her Waltz in her twenties. What will happen to the tempo of my waltz?

Maja Delak

Anyone concerned with dance in Slovenia knows Maja  Delak. She is a dancer, a choreographer, one of the most dynamic members of the Slovene Association for Contemporary Dance, and the driving force behind the first school for contemporary dance in Slovenia (which is about to open its doors next year). We know Maja Delak as a worker, a hard worker. After her initial  training at the Secondary School for Ballet in Ljubljana she chose, in the mid-eighties, the path of contemporary dance, a direction which  was at that  time still totally non-institutionalised, and was considered to be "alternative".  In Slovenia there were no schools, nor professional   training programmes for contemporary dance. So, if you were eager to learn, you basically depended on "private initiative". Excited about the potential of this new form of expression, Delak, like many of her generation, pursued her professional training by following almost every workshop given by foreign dance teachers invited to Slovenia, and by studying abroad (CNDC  L'Esquisse in  Angers, France).Since 1986 she has been accumulating an enormous amount of baggage, not only through her diverse training, but also by having wide stage experience. She has performed work by some of Slovenia's leading contemporary choreographers.  In the last five years we have seen her excel in the work of the internationally renowned dance company En Knap, led by Iztok Kovač.

In 1995, Maja Delak presented her first choreography Manifestacija introverta. The piece is inspired by the life and work of Camille Claudel. But the references to the French sculptor are of a more associative nature. Manifestacija introverta is a stream-of-consciousness, “automatic writing”. Delak shows us search for her own expression. She often sways between prescribed movement patterns and highly personalised movements.

The music for Manifestacija introverta was written by Croatian singer/composer Tamara Obrovac. In her live performance of the score, she is joined by the percussionist Kruno Levačić. The architect Kaja Lipnik dug for information about Claudel’s life and work to create her lighting, costume, and set designs.

Delak first presented Manifestacija introverta in November 1995, but was unfortunately unable to perform it more then 3 times (twice in a completely packed MGL, and once in Tamara Obravac’s hometown of Pula).

Manifestacija
introverta

Dance: Maja Delak; music: Tamara Obrovac; music performed by: Tamara Obrovac and Kruno Levačič; visual image and lighting: Kaja Lipnik.

Organised by City of Women in collaboration with Cankarjev dom / Touring in Murska Sobota, Maribor and Ljubljana supported by Open Society Institute Slovenia