Belgrade



Miloš Sofrenović Belgrade born dancer and choreographer is connecting literature and the movement, which is his permanent artistic obsession. This remarkable artist graduated at London's Laban Dance Center and had training in grants from organizations such as Omi Dance Residency Program (USA), DanceWeb program (Austria),DanzInc Residency Program (Singapore). He danced for Tanz Theatre Wien (Austria), Odyssey Dance Theatre (Singapore), Coartris (Germany), Pina Bausch Tanztheater Wuppertal (Germany) and the Netherlands Dance Theatre II, as well as doing choreographing for a great John Galliano and Dior. His choreographies have been staged in London's Cochrane Theatre, the Bonnie Bird Theatre, the soloists and the Festival Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He recently performed at Festival of Monodrama in Belgrade, at DREAM UP Festival in New York and at Dance Week in Zagreb, Croatia. He gave donation to Japanese people in Belgrade and has got the invitation for Biennale of Art in Panchevo, Serbia. His New York performance was a live movement - performed and perceived in the present and it is actually a temporal experience analyzed and processed as a revisitation of experience. Through his dialogue with Marcel Proust's capital work "Remembrance of Things Past", he has discovered a strong relationship between three discourses -- Memory, Movement and Monologue. This solo piece, "M. -- SOLO FOR THREE MINDS" (Dialogues with Marcel Proust) investigates this relationship as it is being established and questions it. These questions became the dramaturgical building blocks that based and build his solo performance in 12 scenes.


C.E: You studied at Laban Centre in London, and your choreographies were performed at the London Solstice Festival in London, at the Theatre Bonnie Bird Theatre and the Singapore Art Museum.
Tell us something about that experience?
M.S: The answer to this question is to the right a little time travel. Solstice Festival was my first festival where I introduced myself as an author in London back in the 2002. I have wonderful memories of this show, because it is graduate solo work "A Piece of Monologue" (created from the same name Becket one-act plays), going after the appearance of the same conduct on Edinburgh Fringe Festival. This work also travels a few years later (2006) in Singapore and a few nights in a row are done within Museum of Contemporary Art in Singapore. Also valuable experience playing in Asia Beckett and experience of an interesting question that came from Singapore Attaché for Culture "DOES YOUR RED MILOS TIE IN THE PERFORMANCE symbolizes MAY COMMENT ON COMMUNISM who has long reigned in your country?" This I will never forget, at the Museum of Singapore, and question about the possible connection of Becket and communism.


C.E: You had workshop in Zagreb with Croatian dancers called Poetical body as part of the project: "A Kind of Blue – The Art of Solo Expression”, tell us something about this?
M.S: This experience was great - Zagreb Dance Centre in cooperation, where I have made my three-day master class. In February this year, it was wonderful to have in the studio and dancers and actors, seven talented girls from seven different sensibilities: we had so little time ... ... and it seems to me that we have achieved so much. Solo form is possibly the most difficult to create because you are both the instruments and a critical mind and consciousness, once again be a challenge on several fronts at the same time. I really love and enjoy pedagogical work ..... somehow in my career there is sacred trinity of art Attribution - PERFORMING - pedagogy.


C.E. In your last show at the Bitef Theatre, you have through dialogue with the major work of Marcel Proust: “In Search of Lost Time” you have discovered a strong link between the three discourses - memory, movement and monologues. What is this performance like?
M.S: The play "M. - SOLO FOR THREE MINDS "(Dialogues with Marcel Proust) is the second part of my choreographic triptych" Three Seasons ". It is my artistic dialogue with perhaps one of the most important literary works ever written. In the long process of work (14 months), I tried to step into non-verbal challenge to the staging of a very complex and not too theatrical literary piece. The challenge was to me to work with my mother, Sheila Sofrenovic, which is one of the "M. minds, "as the title suggests, while M. for Milos M. for Marcel, the remaining two in the artistic mind-trilogy. This play is an attempt for me to preserve some old values (ethical, aesthetic, philosophical, psychological, values, integrity, etc.). It seems to me that in the 21 Century, now that Proust wrote this work: it is titled "In search of lost values." This play examines the problem of pain, love, death, self-awareness, awareness of others, it seems all those categories, of which we are running away more and more at this time present or in the same overdo it, maybe we need to seek a measure of. Also, this play was also inspired by and dedicated to a music of Ksenija Zecevic, one of our great composers that we must not forget, because it is much more valuable given for the sake of our cultural heritage.

C.E: It seems that the conceptual representation, and is it possible for conceptualization of physical movement to make thought physical reality, and the physical movement speculative?
M.S: My great inspiration from my earlier days is Marina Abramovic, and Spanish conceptual artist La Ribot. Both have typical ways to conceptualize body on stage: I gave the body “voice” that has the power to talk about very complex issues (political, sociological, religious, etc...). I think the key to all artistic activity, exit from the scope of their profession and with “Wagnerism” to allow different branches of art to permeate intertwining and do mutual enrichment ... really ... and then, art poetry that is born and it was so exciting ... .. because you see at once that much of this possible ... .. even to the body to "speak the word complexity."

C.E: About this show you said that your passion, next to a theater movement, literature because the very process of transformation in the movement of words is difficult to explain, because it occurs at the subconscious level. Have all your choreography are associated with the literature and in wh: at way, it is a research?
M.S: Choreography triptych "Three Seasons" has a strong focus on dialogue between literature and movement. Writers such as Marcel Proust, Woolf and Milos Crnjnaski are my literary template. When this cycle of works get to be completed in 2012, I will begin to deal with new issues - the relationship of movement and visual arts (in the "drawer" there are some waiting for me: Joseph Beuys, Louise Bourgeois, KLEIN IV). I think that with all these explorations movement gets a new impulse = where non-verbal artistic articulation seems to be further developed and that is not repeated.

C.E: Currently you are living in Vienna, and you perform all over the world. Are you are returning to Serbia or you are planning a project in the world?
M.S: It is my great honor always to play in front of the Belgrade audience. My next project is in Zagreb, where I set the scene non-verbal version of "Glembajev Messrs." in my version of "GLEM BYE" for three players (of which I'll be one of them + 2 fantastic Croatian dance artists). As for Belgrade, there is no plan to do collaboration with the operatic stage, will see.

C.E: Many people think that the Belgrade invested predictable dance scene, what you think about Belgrade's dance scene? Do you think that our region is too conservative for, contemporary dance? You live in Austria, what is Austrian dance scene, as we do not know much about Austrian dancers and modern dance? Many dancers think that the American modern dance and their conceptual understanding of contemporary dance are very different from European. Other cultures - other ideas? What do you say about it?
M.S: The Belgrade dance scene takes on a new activity through systematic BITEF Dance Company and visionary force of Jelena Kajgo (who is behind it all). That I really like - because domestic players get the opportunity to work with domestic and foreign choreographers the chance to travel around festivals, which is very important. I do not see a problem in conservatism, I think the key in systematization and perseverance ... ... I like everything in life, right? Austrian dance scene is not very exciting to me I prefer their verbal theater. In addition, see the play "The Karamazov Brothers" and Maria Callas "MASTERCLASS" is pure pleasure. I do lot of different cultures and so far, I have experienced the highest level of professionalism in Denmark, where I spent a lot of time with troupe in Copenhagen. The relationship of Europe and America, I see that America has a strong emphasis on Broadway, rather than OFF BROADWAY-which is excellent. It seems that the dictum of capital is much more determined. Again, this summer, Marcel Proust my solo traveled to New York. Trademarks are generalized, but I am still finding their greatest delight in the Old World.

CE: Tell us about the most advanced choreographers / dancers / dance groups in the 21 century?
M.S: There are few, I was always and will always attract the authenticity and integrity of artistic expression in the first place, there are signs of Virpi PAHKINEN, Hooman Sharif, timeless Pina Bausch and Suzanne Link, and wonderful as the choreographer Joseph Nagy. Dancers like Dominque Mercy and Sylvie Guillem approves dance when I get over 40 – they are my great inspiration. And my first inspiration of young age is fantastic Sonja Vukićević, so talented. Their performances in the 90's left people around the world breathless and that our country would be a bit more to "preserve" in the 21st century because there are few out there.