With his dance performance "My private bio-politics", Asentić gained international recognition. The performance explores the relation between hegemonic structures of the Western European art market and the situation of Eastern European artists.
It should be considered as a textual version of the performance, suitable to the printed format of a theoretical volume. Thus, this is neither a text about the performance nor its description but a performance itself, a performance on paper.
PROLOGUE:
Our contribution to the book Dance, Politics, and Co-Immunity should be considered as a textual version of the performance, suitable to the printed format of a theoretical volume. Thus, this is neither a text about the performance nor its description but a performance itself, a performance on paper.
You open the page.
There are credits:
MY PRIVATE BIO-POLITICS, lecture-performance
Author and performer: Saša Asentić
Assistant: Olivera Kovacević-Crnjanski
Theoretical support and dramaturgy: Ana Vujanović
Duration: 50 min
The performance is part of the research-artistic project Indigo Dance.
Producer: Per.Art, Novi Sad
The performance was made in co-production with the Centre national de la danse – Paris, research in residency (Theorem Dance residencies), and it was prepared within the trainings of practical dramaturgy THe FaMa in Belgrade and Dubrovnik. It was supported by DanceWEB (with the support of the Cultural Programme 2000 of the European Union within the frame of danceWEB Europe).
Then you open the next double-page.
You enter the hall. Working lights. A male performer in trousers and T-shirt is already on the stage. The stage is about 11 x 8 m. On the left page you can see a square of mostly paper material on the floor. Among them you can recognize some books, a video camera, a lot of documents, one chair, an unrecognizable black boxlike object, and along the diagonal of the square several ceramic pots. On the right there is another square; it is a “ring”, marked by very thin white thread, some 10 cm from the ground. In the right back corner of the “ring”, there is a goblin on gantry; it depicts the figure of a female dancer. The performer is preoccupied with the needlework.
You are looking at him … more than browsing the pages set design. At one moment you finally calm.
Now I will perform My Private Bio-politics for the 34th time!
It is part of “Indigo Dance” project.
The premiere of this performance was on the 11th February, three years ago. It was in the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad on the stage called Hinterbühne.
In its first year, the work was presented at various festivals and art centres in Eastern and Western Europe.
While re-thinking this period, I have realized that the performance started to exhaust its initial concept through the regular circulation within the contemporary dance system.
On 11th February...