VENUS: between captivity and flight

Mala Kline
VENUS: between captivity and flight 

2021, 30′

Free admission

The film is made from materials for the dance performance of the same name, based on Botticelli’s painting The Birth of Venus depicting the moment of her emergence from sea foam. The birth of Venus occurs as a cut that distinguishes between heaven and earth, thus creating an in-between, wherein creation occurs continuously. Without a cut, there is no gaze and no creation. Only inertia.

The painting is the starting point for the text and the dance material whic

h, each in their own way, offer the possibility of different readings and meanings. The film juxtaposes the two worlds simultaneously present. The world of dream images constantly interrupts the here and now of the body, inhabiting it, challenging it, and transforming it. The space between is one of boundless creativity, from which a multitude of forms and their variations emerge. They create a visual poem in time, one that poses questions about corporeality, sentience, relationality, the gaze and the fertility and transience of nature. The film’s imagery invites us to contemplate the constant birthing into space and time, creative imagination and the beauty of creation.

Concept, choreography, text and performance: Mala Kline; direction: Mala Kline, Hana Vodeb; visual dramaturgy: Petra Veber, Hana Vodeb, Mala Kline; scenography: Petra Veber; light: Jaka Šimenc; camera: Hana Vodeb, Darko Herič; video sinchronisation in original performance: Darko Herič; montage: Hana Vodeb, sound: Nenad Sinkauz; costume: Mala Kline, Petra Veber; set assistance: Omar Izmail, Špela Škulj; executive production: Ajda Kline; production: ELIAS 2069 and Mercedes Klein; co-production Zavod En-Knap, Mesto Žensk; supported by Ministry of Culture of Slovenia, City of Ljubljana, Department for Culture. Thanks to Domen Hajnšek, Vid Martinčič, Katarina Morano, Blaž Celarec, Gašper Puntar and Matija Zvezdan Puntar Kline.