Brina – A Kinaesthetic Monument

Brina – A Kinaesthetic Monument re-examines the traditional view of monuments as static and unchangeable. How to make a monument that is ever changing? The generative, reactive and improvised kinaesthetic monument brings to presence Slovenian contemporary dancer Marta Paulin alias Brina – as she was known among her fellow partisans in the National Liberation Front during the WWII. She performed improvisational dance acts for the fighters and the locals on various meetings and gatherings. In the war, her feet were frozen, so she was not able to dance anymore. The kinaesthetic monument empowers Brina, as an antifascist and a dancer-choreographer, to rise not as a numb statue but as a spinning movement and echo in space. The emancipatory power of contemporary dance as it was performed by Brina: can it be a remedy against colonising our memories? In 2021, the performance was included in the main programme of the ImPulsTanz international dance festival in Vienna. “When, as a dancer, I stood alone in the massive crowd of liberation fighters, aware that I shall be able to use my dance gift and weak body to express what had been uniting us, that I shall also be able to master the vast natural space, I felt strength in my feet, tramping the hard soil of the forest ground” (Marta Paulin – Brina).

Leja Jurišić is a dancer and choreographer who practices performative and political art. Her performances draw from the body, which the author understands as a political machine, while remaining at the same time committed to exploring both the personal and intimate as well as the (bio)political. She presented her original performances across Europe, the USA and Mexico and received several awards for them: among others, Jurišić and Marko Mandić received the Borštnik Award, the Gibanica Award and the Ksenija Hribar Award for their performance Together.

Bara Kolenc is a philosopher and artist from Ljubljana. She is a researcher at the Department of Philosophy of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, the author of the book Repetition and Enactment: Kierkegaard, Psychoanalysis, Theatre (DTP, Analecta, 2014) and recipient of the University of Ljubljana’s top research achievement award in 2021. She received several awards for her work in the field of performing arts, most recently the Theatertreffen Stückemarkt Commission of Work Award 2016 and The Recognition of important works of art of the University of Ljubljana in 2018.

Peter Kutin (Austria) works with sound in various genres. His live performances or installations have a physical and psychological impact that throws the listener or the spectator off balance, but at the same time embraces it. He is interested in the speed and temporality of sounds and musical structures, exploring multimedia-polyrhythmic situations that often provoke hypnotic and psychedelic states, which earned him the “Golden Nica” award at the Ars Electronica festival (for the project TORSO # 1, 2019).
Patrik Lechner (Austria) is an artist who creates experimental audio and video content. By exploring technology, he creates original abstract sound works in real-time 3D graphics, without losing focus on artistic expression. He has presented his performances in Austria, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, Mexico and elsewhere.

Mathias Lenz (Austria) works in changing constellations and contexts at the interface between object theatre, performance art and mechanical engineering, sometimes also as an actor or a stage designer. For a number of years, he has collaborated with the Berlin based artist collective Club Real and the Vienna theatre collective God's Entertainment, with the directors Astrid Griesbach, Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens, with the choreographer Oleg Soulimenko, and with the singer-songwriter Christoph Theussl.