"Let's start from a child-like creativity and curiosity, Spider says. Let's see what sounds and gestures we share. Let's look for the language beyond the border of the dominant epistemology. Let's go back to dance, back to movements emerging out of the fissure between an ending and a new beginning. Let's claim back our body, the body that we possess, the perpetually-moving dancing body of ours. Let's dance and share the not knowing! Let's "spider" ourselves in search of the new!"

Matej Kejžar, project initiator and artistic director of the Spider Slang festival

Sigrid Stigsdatter Matthiassen: OVERANDOVERANDOVERANDOVER © Matija Lukić

In Search of a New Language

That the domination of markets dictates the outcomes of production is a fact. That the word "contemporary" is becoming hackneyed, completely devoid of its content and context, is a fact. That our language is being bent to fit the dominant epistemology and elicit recognition and identification is a fact.

We desperately need to revisit our language and take a new look at our language signs. Why serve answers on a silver platter when the question itself speaks volumes and leads to myriad interpretations? Curiosity provides more possibilities than a rigid answer, doesn't it? Aren't the days of a certain type of meaning-construction coming to an end? Aren't we witnessing the rise of a new language, a language that connects us without the rigid meanings of terms such as "unification"? Aren't we already at the beginning of the new meaning-construction games? Aren't we already grasping the edges of various languages where spider-like beings live that allow themselves to be happy, to be dancing, to be interacting - despite the rigidness of conventional divides?

As a festive phenomenon, Spider joins together the young and the old, the past and the future, the now and the everlasting. It is a provocation swaying on a thin line between certainty and curiosity, between "I understand" and "I don't understand". Shows presented at Spider are not designed in order to merely please spectators. They confront their gaze with demands and beliefs that, at times, may even be the spectators' own, although hidden deep in their somatic world. And even though the creators of these shows come from different backgrounds, the specific question "What is the language that comes next?" is something they all have in common.

If a large group of people is emancipated from oppression, what language will come out of this? What will it look like, sound like, feel like? In other words, what gestures do we as a social group share? Which of those connect us? In what ways do they shape our coexistence? The fact is, we don't, as yet, know! It is important, nevertheless, to ask these questions. It's important to understand that what comes after emancipation may be even more important than the emancipation itself. It's important to understand that we must struggle and strive for a language that can connect us beyond simple uniformity based on whichever common social or cultural denominator one chooses.

In this sense, Spider is not looking for uniformity but rather for creativity in establishing the no-man’s land between various languages. Spider asks about the language itself, what it’s all about, and what it should be about? This is not a typical "thematic" festival, where the curator exercises power over presented works and their interpretation. It is rather a proposal on the ways artists can take power back into their own hands. It's a suggestion about the forms of existence and coexistence that reach beyond the conventional thresholds.

Let's start from a child-like creativity and curiosity, Spider says. Let's see what sounds and gestures we share. Let's look for the language beyond the border of the dominant epistemology. Let's go back to dance, back to movements emerging out of the fissure between an ending and a new beginning. Let's claim back our body, the body that we possess, the perpetually-moving dancing body of ours.

Let's dance and share the not knowing!

Let's "spider" ourselves in search of the new!

Matej Kejžar
project initiator and artistic director of the Spider Slang festival

SELECTED PERFORMANCES:

Leja Jurišić & Teja Reba (SI)
IDEAL / premiere

Fernando Belfiore (BR/NL)
AL13FB<3

Sigrid Stigsdatter Mathiassen (DK)
OVERANDOVERANDOVER-
ANDOVERANDOVER

Pavlos Kountouriotis (GR)
MOVEMENT MONOCHROMES

Matej Kejžar (SI/BE)
TRUE ROMANCE

Ana Romih (SI)
MARRY GO ROUND

Qulenium (SI)
BABY SPIDER: XS MINIATURE

DICK & GRETA GP PARTY (SI/BE)

ARTAN LILI (RS)