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About
We are constantly taking leave; our entire existence is an (un)conscious process of saying goodbye. We leave behind the roles we have played, the challenges that were important to us. As individuals, we pause for a brief moment in the wave of change and are then propelled forward again. As humanity, we are now saying goodbye to another layer of humanity, to the world and the way of life as we knew it, and we are revealing ourselves in a terrifying void where we are very much alone.
“This is the thing” is the first sentence of the dramatic text Declarations by the flamboyant Jordan Tannahill, which he wrote almost in the blink of an eye during a flight in 2018. Maja Delak’s new performance now offers Slovenian audiences the opportunity to discover for the first time the enfant terrible of Canadian theatre, whose performative and literary work has had a profound influence on the Canadian cultural landscape. This first staging of one of Tannahill's texts in Slovenia is one of his most emotionally charged plays, strongly codified in its form and yet with a seemingly completely open format that requires both the performers and the audience to create a new field of associations each time.
An ode to life, an archive of fleeting moments, develops as a lyrical inventory of the banal and everyday – every detail is imbued with a quiet meaning, interwoven with nostalgia, memory and the ineffable beauty of everyday life. At the centre is the anchored but absent presence of a loved one, which becomes a living metaphor for home, belonging and finding roots in the world. Home is no longer just a physical space or the embrace of family, but becomes a universal symbol of security and love. “Where is my home” echoes through the text like an incantation, a plea, a lament. In a raw emotional excavation, Tannahill dissects his hero into five equal parts and scatters him among the rubble of his own memories, contradictions and grief.
Maja Delak's performance is conceived as a composition of movement, as an embodiment of the space of grief that is uncompromisingly inherent in the five performers, sometimes in movement, sometimes in words. Their bodies become vessels of memory, of grief. Every gesture, every spoken word acts as a kind of invasion into the relentlessness of loss, both personal and universal. The performance does not search for solutions or firmly coded choreographic elements, but remains in the space of absence and thus also of openness, reaching for what has already disappeared. The word interrupts the movement and the movement interrupts the word – like an echo in an empty space, like an echo of the unsaid.
This is what's possible in the time we have left.
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Tickets: 12 € / 8 € (pupils, students, pensioners) / 4 € (SVŠGUGL, AGRFT, members of DSPS, DGKTS): https://tix.emanat.si/
Discounted tickets can only be reserved at info@emanat.si or info@bunker.si.
Collaborators
Written by: Jordan Tannahill
Translated by: Pino Pograjc
Choreographed and directed by: Maja Delak
Performed by: Nataša Živković, Mark Jacob Cavazza, Staša Popovič, Leon Marič, Loup Abramovici
Programing, sound design and music: Luka Prinčič
Stage design: Urša Vidic
Dramaturgy: Benjamin Zajc
Text editing: Tjaša Pirnar
Lighting design: Janko Oven
Costume design: Andrej Vrhovnik
Graphic design: Mauricio Ferlin
Programming Raspberry Pi: Jurij Podgoršek
Photo documentation: Nada Žgank
Video documentation: Vid Hajnšek
Executive production and organisation: Maja Delak, Tamara Pepelnik
Support
Production: Emanat
Co-production: The Old Power Station – Elektro Ljubljana
Partner: Secondary Preschool Education, Grammar School and Performing Arts Grammar School Ljubljana
Financial support: City of Ljubljana, Ministry of Culture RS
Acknowledgements: Puppet Theatre Ljubljana, Maruša Freya Voglar, Anja Bornšek, Jana Jevtović, Žarko Prinčič, Samo Kovač, www.1240.si
Declarations was first produced in 2018 by Canadian Stage (Toronto, ON) directed by Jordan Tannahill. Declarations is produced by permission of the Playwright and Marquis Literary (Colin Rivers) www.MQlit.ca.
Awards
The GOLDEN LIGHTNING award for outstanding event goes to the CREATIVE TEAM of the performance DECLARATIONS
The Old Power Station, season 2024/2025
Declarations are characterized by precision, thoughtfulness and professionalism of execution at all levels of the creative process. There is an unmistakable intertwining of choreography and direction by Maja Delak, which maintains clarity between one area and the other, but at the same time also harmony and mutual reminder of one and the other performance language, without the creators, and especially the choreographer and director, falling into naivety – behind every movement, movement in space or spoken word, one can sense an elusive and complex sentiment of the intertwining of regret, love and beauty, which fills mourning or passing away, perhaps ultimately the sentiment of what remains. The intertwining of choreography and direction thus appears as a unique and fresh approach to performing texts – not only in The Old Power Station, but also on the wider Slovenian stage. The meticulously thought-out and stylistically refined (there is nothing superfluous on stage, neither in speech nor in movement) performance concept requires complete concentration from everyone involved. Maja Delak's decision to have a cast consisting of dancers and actresses who perform the same tasks on stage, thus blurring the boundaries between one performance apparatus and another, is welcome in our space, where the performance registers within mixed ensembles are often still divided according to the profession of the individuals, without offering the individuals the challenge of inhabiting other genres. In the staging of Declarations, the entire cast together steps into areas of creation that are not native to the individuals, but nevertheless bravely and skillfully inhabit them – whether in words or movement. Nataša Živković stands out in particular, taking the stage of The Old Power Station with a sovereign and calm presence and following both words and movements in a precise and clear execution. It is also worth noting the scenography by Urša Vidic, which, despite its realism in The Old Power Station, works organically and supports the feelings conveyed through the text, as well as the dramaturgy of the performance.
- 28. 8. 2025, Bunker, The Old Power Station - Elektro Ljubljana, expert committee: Mateja Bučar, Klara Drnovšek Solina, Špela Kopitar, Katarina Stegnar and Benjamin Zajc
Previous events
- , Stara mestna elektrarna - Elektro Ljubljana, SI
- , Stara mestna elektrarna - Elektro Ljubljana, SI
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