Heartmeat/Cacti

  • A Ballet Evening of the Choreographies by Rosana Hribar, Gregor Luštek and Alexander EkmanI
  • Premiere 29 October 2015
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The ballet evening made up of two parts, is conceived as a project that puts together the creativity of the most current generation of choreographers. With a new choreographic piece presented in the first part, we will be devoting our attention to the most creative artists in the field of contemporary theatre practice in Slovenia. Thus a brand new choreography will be specially set up for our ballet ensemble by two exceptional dancers and artists, as well as holders of the prestigious Perešeren Award, Rosana Hribar and Gregor Luštek in collaboration with a group of young artists who have already distinguished themselves with their creations for the theatre stage. Presented to our audience in the second part of this evening will be a performance that has significantly marked the present European dance art, and hence belongs among the conceptions that have been exciting extraordinary curiosity of both professional and general public all over the world. The ballet evening will be conducted by Živa Ploj Peršuh.

Alexander Ekman is a free-lance artist - a stage director and a choreographer -, renowned for his heightened sense of time, humour and transformations. Striving for an overall comprehensible creation, he is on a constant look out for the contact/connecting points with his audience. Since 2006 he has been creating some outstanding performances - both amusing the audience and asking questions -, with which he has acquired fame as an exceptionally talented choreographer of younger generation. One of his most successful performances Cacti was premiered at the Lucent Dans (Den Haag, Netherlands) in 2010. This choreographic piece, which has received quite a number of eminent international awards, has been performed by many renowned ballet ensembles around the world. It features sixteen dancers, four musicians and an orchestra, who are creating their rhythms together in front of a live audience. In this performance Ekman uses his signature art form – a pure contemporary dance. Cacti are a joyful and knowledgeable parody of the greatest excesses of this form of art, and simultaneously a warm, sharp and hilarious deconstruction of the artificiality of dance as well. The dancers, who are captives of an over dimensioned Scrabble desk, are running, falling, twisting and trying to escape the invisible chains. However, which is obviously most essential as well, each and every one of them has to secure his or her own cactus. But what does that really mean?