medzinárodné performatívne sympózium
TELOCVIČŇA - Rezidenčné centrum pre tanec, Nová Cvernovka
12. – 14.6.2025
KONTAMINÁCIE /Contaminations/ is a symposium initiated by the local dance community PLAST - Slovak Contemporary Dance Platform. Its main idea is to connect science with art and to map new performative practices in relation to climate change and nature-related themes. It will take place on 12-14 June 2025 in the premises of the TELOCVIČŇA - Dance Residency Centre and the wider area of the KC Nová Cvernovka in Bratislava.
Over the course of three days, it will allow us to collectively draw attention to environmental issues and challenges, to share artistic and non-artistic practices that are related to them and to contaminate each other. Contaminations seeks to sit alongside available registers of knowledge from the Western sciences, backed by data and research, and creative, imaginative and artistic projects that are linked together by a desire to make visible and accessible this crisis we are living together.
The programme will feature movement workshops, lectures, audio walks, interventions by artists and women artists and facilitated discussions with local and international artists, experts and practitioners as well as a performance set in the environment of the Bratislava Forest Park.
How do we respond to inaction in conservation and, at worse, destruction of resources and biodiversity by power structures? We can be dismayed by the inability to change, or even improve, our tomorrows through artistic and artistic-scientific practices. We can try to ignore the crisis. We may feel anxiety. Or we can contaminate frustration with creativity through various ways of grieving and healing, creating the conditions for active reflection on the ever-present resources and diversity of the natural environment.
The curatorial team of the symposium consists of dramaturge Maja Hriešik, dancer Eva Priečková and dramaturge Milo Juráni.
"We are aware of the limits, but also the potential of performance practices and dance in general towards legislative changes in environmental issues. In the light of the crisis, we try to approach our own field of knowledge responsibly, sensitively and critically, to enable its reflection and at the same time to bring examples of good practice that goes beyond conventional notions of what art can and should do. We are interested in unexpected alliances, new systems of support and openness to share, to imagine future practices together. Contaminations wants to stir up mutual contamination in an effort to initiate a world that has not yet been, has not yet come into being, that we can imagine and collaborate to create," they write in the joint curatorial text for the symposium.
The Contamination Symposium is part of the international art and research project Nature of Us, realized in partnership with organizations from Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland.
*The event will be held in English language.
PROGRAMME
INSTALLATION & INTERVENTION (PRESENT FOR WHOLE DAYS):
Ján Skaličan (SK) - DEEP REST / Telocvičňa - Dance Residency Centre
Monika Mikyšková Pascoe (SK) / Telocvičňa - Dance Residency Centre
Aleks Borys (PL) - CHOREOGRAPHY OF IMAGINING THE FUTURE
#audio-somatic walk / all around the place
Zuzana Žabková (aka Bjornsonova collective) (SK) / Telocvičňa - Dance Residency Centre
Lukáš Radošovský (SK) / foyer NC
THURSDAY
10:00-11:15 / Telocvičňa - Dance Residency Centre
Mayfield Brooks (US): WHALE FALL MEDITATION: DECOMPOSITION AS LIBERATION
#movement practice
Katarzyna Pastuszak (PL): MYCELIAL COMMUNICATION
#movement practice
DECOMPOSITION AND RHIZOMATIC NETWORKS AS MODELS OF INTERSPECIES KNOWLEDGE
#discussion
11:30-11:50 / Kabinet pomalosti
Monika Mikyšková Pascoe (SK): BETWEEN PAINTING, BOTANICS AND DIFFERENT SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE
#short sharing #installation
11:50-13:50 / Kabinet pomalosti / Garden NC
Siegmar Zacharias, Shelley Etkin (DE): PLANTS AS GUIDES AND ALLIES IN SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION - PART 1
#workshop
15:00-17:30 / Telocvičňa - Dance Residency Centre
UTOPIAN IMAGINARIUM: On Art Practices
#discussion
Reflection and sharing around limits and strengths of art practices facing climate urgency and climate change denial. Diverse registers of knowledge and resources.
Facilitated by Eva Priečková
Artists: Veronika Cyprichová (SK), Alicja Czyzel & Julia Krupa (PL), Baxi Osztrowski & Dima Omelchenko (PL,UKR), Jakob Jautz, Aleks Borys (PL), Zdenka Sviteková (SK, CZ)
17:30-18:30 / Telocvičňa - Dance Residency Centre
Baxi Ostrowski, Paula Grocholska, Dima Omelchenko (PL, UKR): HALABUDA - GANGING UP THE RESEARCH
#installation #collectiveaction
19:00-19:30 / Kabinet pomalosti
Tereza Pavlíková (SK): ODONATA
#performance #concert
FRIDAY
10:00-11:15 / Telocvičňa - Dance Residency Centre
Ali East (NZ): MOVING CONVERSATIONS OF SKIN AND LAND
#movementpractice
10:00-11:15 / Area of NC
Boris Meluš, Juraj Hariš (SK): THROUGH THE NOOKS OF NOVÁ CVERNOVKA
#guidewalk
11:45-13:45 / Kabinet pomalosti
Club real (DE): DEMOCRACY OF ORGANISMS
#practicesharing #discussion
15:00-17:00 / Telocvičňa - Dance Residency Centre
UTOPIAN IMAGINARIUM: Between activism and artivism
#discussion
Facilitated by Milo Juráni
Participants: Limity jsme my (CZ), Beznádej a zúfalstvo (SK), Znepokojené matky(SK), Ján Skaličan (SK)
17:15-18:15 / Start in front of Nová Cvernovka
WALK INTO WOOD
18:15-19:15 / Bratislava forest
Jakob Jautz (DE): TRACES
#performance
SATURDAY
10:00-11:00 / Telocvičňa - Dance Residency Centre / Garden NC
Zdenka Brungot Svitekova (SK): RESTING AS MOVEMENT PRACTICE
#movementpractice
11:15-12:25 / Kabinet pomalosti
Tadeáš Žďársky (CZ): PHILOSPHY OF DEGROWTH
#lecture
12:30-14:00 / Kabinet pomalosti / Garden NC
Siegmar Zacharias, Shelley Etkin (DE): PLANTS AS GUIDES AND ALLIES IN SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION - PART 2 (SOCIAL BODY APOTHECARY)
#practicesharing
15:00-17:30 / Telocvičňa - Dance Residency Centre
UTOPIAN IMAGINARIUM: Larger Ecosystems for ecologically sustainable practice
#discussion
Facilitated: T. Žďárský (NaZemi), M. Hriešik
Participants: Ula Zerek (Academy for Sustainable Production), Biljana Tanurovska (Lokomotiva), Heike Albrecht (dancescape), Markéta Malková (Rezi.dance), Lýdia Pribišová (freelance curator), Boris Meluš (Nadácia Cvernovka)
SUNDAY / Accompany programme
10:00-14:00 / Telocvičňa - Dance Residency Centre
Jakob Jautz (DE) - LANDSCAPE BASED CHOREOGRAPHY
#workshop
REGISTRATION ON WORKSHOP WITH JAKOB
By taking part in the Symposium Contaminations, the participant acknowledges and agrees that photographs and video footage may be used for press coverage and published in a variety of (social) media, publications and on the Nature of Us project and EU funding bodies' websites as well as on websites and social media of project partners. EACEA Portal Privacy Statement can be found here: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/support/legalnotice
Nature of Us is supported by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
Supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council.


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