At the initiative of the Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia in Brussels, the performance House Bolero in the heart of Europe will mark the year in which Slovenian town Nova Gorica and Italian Gorizia jointly hold the title of European Capital of Culture GO! Borderless.

The performance was also created as a tribute to the European Capital of Culture GO!2025 in Brussels, embodying its central concept – borderless collaboration. The project is the result of broad, creative, and truly “borderless” cooperation between artists, institutions, and the community. It is being developed in collaboration with internationally acclaimed Slovenian choreographer Matej Kejžar, the Pekinpah artistic collective, the Slovenian National Theatre Opera and Ballet Ljubljana with the support of the Government Office for Slovenians Abroad, the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia, Ministry of Culture and European Capital of Culture Go! 2025.

“It all began as an ode to dance,” says Matej Kejžar.

“About five years ago, we began exploring how to learn from dance, rather than learning to dance or to be. The wild, unusual, queer, and idiosyncratic dance styles that emerged from this experiment grew out of respect for physical presence and its treatment, focusing on kinesthetic writing in space and time, in a shared field of force, on dynamic terrain, precisely where constant shifts in dynamics are possible.”

The experiment continues. This edition will bring together members of the SNG Opera and Ballet Ljubljana ensemble with former ballet dancers of an older generation. House Bolero is, in essence, an intergenerational experiment featuring dancers aged between 21 and 69. Working with their bodies, different forms of physical presence, and a shared passion for dance, the performance suggests a new idea: that the writing of dance is a force that resists normalization.

For the Zagreb edition of House Bolero, Kejžar received the prestigious Croatian Theatre Award 2024 for Best overall performance in the dance category.