After the successful premiere of the experimental dance piece Zenith in May — which we created in collaboration with Belgian directors Jamie Lee and Stano Dobák, and for which I composed the music — I was able to rest for a while. But as it is often the case with me, even rest is filled with creative work.
The Zenith performance will return to Slovak stages this autumn as part of the NU DANCE festival in Bratislava. There’s a possibility that I’ll join the wild finale with a live performance — we’re still considering this.
Meanwhile, the print preparation of Zuzana Šmatláková’s short story collection is underway, published by BRAK Publishing. I illustrated the book with large-scale ink paintings. The collection portrays a heart-wrenchingly touching farewell – a walk through Seoul, where the author had the opportunity to live for a while.
At the moment, I’m working on the dramaturgical and technical preparations for my musical-video happening Sans Lieu / No Place. Together with my artistic partners, we’ll be filming as part of the ten-day In Situ symposium — as we’ve been doing for many years now… I love working with them. Through our long-term creative collaboration, I’ve developed a distinctive perspective on the nature of happenings, which I’ve also applied in other workshops. Over time, a personal methodology has taken clearer shape in me — the one I’m now documenting.
A large body of visual documentation has also accumulated — from sketches and conceptual/drafting materials to spontaneous realizations — and this has slowly matured into a quiet desire to shape it all into a picture book, accompanied by my own essays.
As for the other, larger challenges — for now, I must remain silent. They are as unpredictable as the world itself. As Balthus once said of his paintings: young, growing plants must be nurtured in silence — and shown to the world only when they burst into full bloom...