A Portrait of a City

LocoMotion – Movement as Meaning,
Contemporary Dance Festival opens at Centre for New Initiatives in Arts and Culture and Goethe Institute, Skopje, Macedonia, 30/10/2009.

With Still Lives, Co-production of Lokomotiva – Centre for New Initiatives in Arts and Culture and Goethe Institute Skopje, was opened LocoMotion – Movement as Meaning
Contemporary Dance Festival.

With Still Lives every city gets its very own portrait: on the streets of the respective cities, passers-by were asked
for their thoughts and comments on a photograph by Jeff Wall depicting an urban scene. Their responses form the
soundtrack of the Still Lives stage project and reveal much about social backgrounds, personal perspectives and city life.

Versions of Still Lives have been created for Bucharest, Halle, Lille, Essen, Berlin, Hanover, Antwerp, Potsdam, Zürich and Bern. The recorded commentaries are juxtaposed with scenic and choreographic elements performed by the group and amateur participants from the city in question, combining to create an impressive, thought-provoking multimedia performance on the subject of reality and fiction, illusion and manipulation.

Still Lives is part of the Good Work Productions project, an artist network initiated by Isabelle Schad, Bruno Pocheron and Ben Anderson in 2003. Good Work examines the representation, presentation and perception of the body on stage as well as its status and visibility in society, and aims to circulate ideas, knowledge, information, body practices and choreographic styles by means of a horizontal work structure.

Performed by: Biljana Stefanovska, Maja Taneva, Nataša
Geleva, Marija Stojanovska, Nadica Vasilevska, Bojan
Kraljevski, Tina Tasevska, Aneta Spaseska, Tatjana Ilić,
Katerina Petrovska, Maja Kambovska, Elena Stankova,
Liljana Pešovska, Irina Stefanovska, Ana Urumovska,
Nigjar Nagavci, Luana Basha, Sahar Sadiki, Petra Schön,
Biljana Pavlova, Iskra Dimitrova, Jane Danevski, Dragana
Zarevska, Kliment Poposki, Viktorija Dineva, Ivailo Dimitrov, Isabelle Schad.