14th Movement: “The spirit of democracy cannot be superimposed from the outside. It must come from within.” Mahatma Gandhi
We live in a paradox: on one hand, democratic principles force individuals to submit to the will of the majority, on the other hand, they enable us to influence reality – we can vote. Vote against. Vote for less evil. Vote to eliminate. We all do the dance of compromises. We have learned the moves and we repeat them over and over again. But steps do not lead us any forward. The prevailing concept of “the best possible system of all” has acquired the status of solid matter: option became an inviolable dogma, opinion became the eternal law of nature. And only we, with our fragile bodies, can wipe the illusion of ultimate power out from the horizon of human ambition.
Text and performance by Kristina Aleksova, Sara Horžen, Olja Grubić, Anita Wach
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Voting Body is a part of a project 30 Movements, which consists of 30 autonomous performative events executed in various venues in front of an audience.Within 30 Movements Anita pushes the boundaries of imagination and engages mind and body in dialogue with the harsh reality of everyday life and current politics. The range of performative strategies is wide: from intimate, solo appearances, to happenings engaging more people, from purely physical actions to verbal monologues, from abstract forms to interactive initiatives. The collection of raw images, insights, impulses, and actions are also a part of a continuous creative madness of VN Laboratory for performance art, where the author tries and develops ideas. Following the need for democratization of the creative process, Anita takes the role of author, performer but also a curator who occasionally gives the stage to invited artists. She decided to invade the public sphere in order to find a place for weakness, despair, ordinary joy and basic human confusion, to let it move through the horizon of public visibility. Material and motives from 30 Movements will become a foundation for future performance planned for spring 2023.
Author of individual Movements, performer and curator: Anita Wach
Author of concept and artistic direction: Bojan Jablanovec
Executive producer and public relations: Sara Horžen
Producer: Špela Trošt
Production: Via Negativa
Financial support: Ministry of Culture of Republic of Slovenia and City of Ljubljana
