LUX (2022)
LUX is a piece about light.
Light as a symbol of knowledge, courage and hope
gleaming in the darkness of fear, ignorance and
despair. Light as a thing that shows us the way but also as something that can easily trap us and lure us astray. Light as a thing that casts shadows. Light that always gives way to darkness only to be reborn again.
In a piece inspired by the Baroque period and the Era of Enlightenment, six musicians and one dancer explore all qualities of light, both literal and metaphorical. Through an interplay of music, dance and light, they face their fears, flaws and despair. They dive into the shadows and are drawn to the flame. Finally they come out with the light of hope and the fire of creativity to fight the darkness of loneliness and insecurity.
Nika Bauman (flute, direction), Anna Barbara Bonatto (dance, choreography), Dalina Ugarte (violin), Jenia Pavlova (violin), Dora Šimunić (viola), Andrija Šimić (cello), Marko Ferlan (double bass)
Works by: Antonio Vivaldi, Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, Yan Maresz, Peter Sculthorpe, Georg Philipp Telemann as well as freely improvised music
Performances:
Brick-15, Vienna, 2022
DECAMERON 2.0 (2021)
Decameron 2.0 is a piece for three musicians, two dancers and technology, a meditation on quarantine, the connection and the relationship between analog and digital. Ten characters, five living and five digital, share their experiences from quarantine and transform isolation into connection. Their stories range from mythical to contemporary: tales of entrapment and the need for company; of warriors and magic; of battling one’s demons; stories of restlessness and quests for things lost; a search for meaning and loosing oneself to an illusion; of coping with despair and the challenges of love; finally, of renouncing perfection in favour of being human. While the characters’ main idea is to pass the time, a deeper need also arises: to listen and be heard, to give and receive; to share pain and feel understood. Inspired by the Boccacio‘s timeless tales quarantine, DECAMERON 2.0 shows the power of stories and our need for connection as well as the phenomenon of online life. Why do we feel the urge to share our inner life with one another? In a time when connection is only possible online, do our digital personalities detach from us with an identity, a life of their own? Where can we find comfort in a time of isolation? The piece plays with these questions and finally shows how we all, like Scheherezade, can save our lives with stories.
Nika Bauman (flute, music, direction), Ana Marković (piano), Marko Ferlan (guitar, music), Anna Bárbara Bonatto (dance), Rino Indiono (dance, narration), Stuart MacLean (video), Nikola Stojković (video)
Works by: Leo Brouwer, Claude Debussy, George Crumb, Anton Prettler, Miroslav Tadić, Robert Schumann, Astor Piazzolla, Marko Ferlan, Nika Bauman
Performances:
Die Turnhalle, Vienna, 2021
Itinerant (2020)
Itinerant is a story of wandering and settling down, of fitting in and standing out. It speaks of migrants and travelers, the ones who left and the ones who came, those who exchanged the confidence of belonging for freedom of movement. It explores our sense of identity and the way we experience who we are in regards to where we come from and where we arrived. Music, dance and video playfully meet and separate in their ways of describing the stories of the artists: the feeling of strangeness, the guilt of leaving, romanticizing a new home, consequent disillusion, the aggression which comes from feeling unaccepted and misunderstood, the sorrow that relentlessly follows: finally, an acceptance of the complexity of identity and a celebration of diversity. The piece is inspired by the artists’ personal experiences as well as the events transpiring in the world today. The hope of the performers is to offer a way forward through mutual understanding and embracing the mixing of cultures as an enrichment of society.
Nika Bauman (flute, direction), Ana Marković (piano), Iva Casián-Lakoš (cello), Tomaž Zevnik (clarinet), Marko Ferlan (guitar, percussion), Anna Bárbara Bonatto (dance), Rino Indiono (dance), Toni Mijač (video)
Works by: Toru Takemitsu, Franz Schubert, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Vasilij Mokranjac, Mak Murtić, Maurice Ravel, Oscar Antoli, traditional Croatian and Mexican songs
Performances:
Hidalgo Festival, Munich, 2020
MM Centar, Zagreb, 2021
Die Turnhalle in brick-5, Vienna, 2020/2022
BRUX Theater, Innsbruck, 2021
Landscapes and Dances (2019)
Through a series of collaborations, musicians, dancers and a VJ creates relationships, connections and expressions of classical music through contemporary art using the format of a concert. The program consists of five pieces of baroque and contemporary classical music for flute, guitar, piano and cello; each of the pieces features a collaborating artist that transforms the musical material into his/her artistic medium – dance or visuals. The project explores the concepts of diversity, understanding, tolerance, communication, of mutual giving and receiving. The goal is to create a world where variety is celebrated, where artists and audience meet without prejudice and boundaries of time, style and medium and enjoy the sharing and reinterpretation of their creative stories through another’s eyes.
Nika Bauman (flute, direction), Virna Kljaković (piano), Marko Ferlan (guitar, e-bass), Andrija Šimić (cello), Antonia Dorbić (dance), Rino Indiono (dance), Peter Ferlan (VJ)
Works by: Peteris Vasks, Georg Phillip Telemann, Dušan Bogdanović, Marko Ferlan, George Crumb, Andre Jolivet
Performances:
Mansion House, Dublin, 2019
Teatar &TD, Zagreb, 2019
Die Turnhalle in brick-5, Vienna, 2019
Synesthetic Project 