Every year the AMEU Dance Academy proudly presents its closing Gala evening, in which students dance in works created with the teachers and choreographers who work with them throughout the year. This year’s evening will be danced under the thoughts of the dance legend Martha Graham. This conversation with Rosana Hribar, head of the Department of Contemporary Dance, was recorded just before Tuesday’s performance. It was prepared for the Parada plesa portal by Barbra Drnač.
Dear Rosana, your closing dance evening is approaching, and it always carries a theme. Where are this year’s ideas directed — the ones we will admire on 9 June at Španski borci?
This year’s Gala Dance Evening of the Dance Academy carries a thought by Martha Graham, Freedom is born of discipline, which also captures very precisely the essence of dance education. Over their years of study, students acquire technical knowledge, discipline and an understanding of the body; only then can they develop a truly free and recognisable artistic expression. This year’s evening is therefore not tied thematically to a single story but explores precisely that passage from form to creativity through different choreographic poetics. On stage, contemporary dance, jazz, tap and urban dance styles will be interwoven, and each choreography presents its own view of the world, co-created by the young dancers together with their mentors. Each choreography carries its own character, and together they testify that freedom in art is not the absence of limits but the ability to create something authentic and alive out of knowledge, discipline and experience.
How many choreographers and teachers will present their work, and how many students?
The evening will feature 13 choreographers and teachers, as well as several students-as-authors who are already taking their first independent creative steps. Altogether 24 students of the Dance Academy will perform, from the first to the third year and from different fields of study. It is precisely this meeting of different generations, aesthetics and dance languages that gives the Gala evening its special energy and offers an insight into the future of Slovenian dance creativity.
And what marked this season, something you are especially glad or proud of?
I am most glad that this year we were very present at important dance and cultural events. We took part in the Dioniz festival of art academies in Đakovo, in the Ples za vse festival and in the Gala ballet evening in Celje; and it was a special honour for us to perform at the central state ceremony marking the Day of Uprising Against Occupation.
At the same time we launched the Urban / Hip Hop field for the first time, led by Ana Vodišek, who has brought new energy to the academy and opened space for new dance creators. The audience will certainly feel that freshness and variety at this year’s Gala Dance Evening as well.
And how many students will dance out into the dance world?
This year we are seeing three third-year students off into the professional dance world. I am glad that during their studies they developed very different artistic interests — some are already turning to creating their own choreographies, others to a performing career, to teaching or to further education. I believe that with their knowledge and creativity they will play an important part in shaping the future of dance as an art.
You are of course already looking forward to new enrolments. When are the deadlines and the auditions?
We are indeed looking forward to new generations of students. The first audition is already behind us and it was very successful. Some of the candidates were simply fantastic and we can hardly wait for them to join us.
Three auditions still lie ahead: on 13 June, 5 September and 19 September, and enrolment runs until September. I would like to take this opportunity to invite all young people who see their future, their career or their calling in dance to join us at the auditions.
And before that, I invite them to the Gala Dance Evening on 9 June at Španski borci. That is where they can best feel the pulse of our academy, meet our students, teachers and programmes, and experience what it means to study dance. I believe they will not regret it. You are warmly welcome!
Thank you, dear Rosana. See you at your Gala evening.