The Muzeum Institute marks its twenty-fifth anniversary with the performance Time of Tenderness as a part of a wide range of projects. The resonances of the quarter of the century long creative opus thus present the performance cornerstones. These might not carry tangible and direct references or memories, however, right here, a space for an unencumbered view on the choreographic language opens up, having been indisputably shaped through the history of choreographer’s creative decisions and experience.

The February premiere of the Time of Tenderness was presented as a pre-recorded video, available for a limited time on the Vimeo online platform, while the choreography was originally performed on the stage of the Španski borci Cultural Center. The medium itself with its characteristic framing, where a wide plan encompasses the entire stage and flattens the square into a two-dimensional rectangle, equates the boundaries of the frame with the boundaries of our view. The emphasis on the spatial element, which follows translating between different media (performing arts and video format), is further underlined by the choreographic language of the performance. The choreography of dichotomies is at the forefront, intertwining movement, objectivity, and spatiality within a thoughtful yet minimalist composition. Instead of pure emptiness, a stage is a semantically marked with a few selected props from everyday life: a table, chairs, a staircase. With the arrangement into different areas (front/back, the left half) those elements divide the stage into smaller subspaces. The distinctive geometry of the straight and sharp lines of the objects, which are further refined in the choice of white or black colour, softens when in contact with the dancers Ana Kolenc in Mateja Rebolj. By sitting or leaning on a table, they highlight an array of possible meanings and associations, carrying on its long stage history, beginning with the canonized work of Kurt Joos The Green Table. The table is a space of communication, where Kolenc and Rebolj meet in the Time of Tenderness to be there together at first, side by side, opposite each other, which is one of the two compositional motifs of the performance. Like the scenography, the costume design is moving in a dichotomy of white and black - Ana Kolenc in a looser beige dress, while Mateja Rebolj is dressed in black. Another level that creates a space of differences.

The juxtaposition of the two qualities emphasizes the contrasting differences between them, as one is established through the relationship of distinction to the other. The choreography of the movement develops within this principle, taking advantage of the quality of movement of both dancers, and further reinforcing it with the selection of music. The soundtrack oscillates between Joseph Haydn's classical music, which creates a lighter and more serene atmosphere, and Gal Škrjanec Skaberne's contemporary instrumental composition, heavier, more serious, and toned darker. Such an exchange follows a dramaturgical arch, where the sequences alternate between the solo excerpts and the duets, where Ana, with a lighter and more relaxed quality of movement, presents the opposite of Mateja's sharper and more precise steps. The dance vocabulary is coloured distinctly in a (modern) ballet way as a significant common denominator of both dancers and their personal dance histories that affiliate them. Hence another of the dichotomies of the performance is manifested, layered with others, as we see them through the decisions regarding other elements of the performance.

Even if the whole event is shrouded in contradictions, the excessive singlelayeredness or exclusivity that we may fall into when divided into one or the other, black or white, is avoided by a thoughtful balance of the abstract and the concrete. Through the solo parts, the dancers establish themselves as individuals, so that they can thereafter form a mutual relationship in duets, in which their similarities and differences are revealed. The choreographer trusts the power of stage language, so their relationship is shown mainly on a dramaturgical, spatial, and movement level, but does not fall into psychologisation and emotionality, which would be reflected on faces or expressed through semantic gestures such as hugs or touches. Furthermore, the thoughtful constellation of spatial composition and light design remains not only as a decorative element but also corresponds perfectly with the movement aspect. The design of the light, either by illuminating or dimming certain parts of the stage, emphasizes all the negative space surrounding a few stage set elements and the whole space between the dancers through no touch. Thus they are together though remaining apart - which is also the slogan of one of the European governments in the fight against coronavirus.

The whole performance constantly balances between the abstraction found in geometry, in space, and between the elements that bring a bunch of meanings to the stage with their presence. The table as a meeting place, the stairs as a path of progress, as well as departures, ballet steps, and classical music as a symbol of tradition. The dancers of different generations as representatives of the flow of time, the time of tenderness from the title. But despite insisting on all these contradictions, the play carefully does not impose interpretation and does not favour one of the perspectives. Tenderness dwells not only in youth, in the light, but somewhere in between in the empty space, where all these opposites meet at a distance. It pervades the liaison of the two dancers, who entered the Slovenian contemporary dance space at completely different moments. The minimalist note successfully and perfectly balances between the content and the choreographic aspect, while the dramaturgical path in the composition of alternating solos and duets remains too predictable despite the brevity of the performance. For me, as a spectator without cultural memory related to the work of Barbara Novakovič and the Muzeum Institute, attending the Time of Tenderness is a time-historical dichotomy. For me, the performance is without a concrete contextual memory. However, I have simultaneously recognized and placed the gestures of her choreographic language in my own education about dance history. Her stage language also has taken me back to the 90s when the Muzeum Institute was founded, imagining the aesthetics of Slovenian contemporary dance through its mythologisation in historiography and narration. Thus in the Time of Tenderness time resonates.

In the first week of February 2021, an online dance premiere produced by Muzeum Institute of Art Production, Distribution and Publishing took place, co-produced by En-Knap Productions in collaboration with Španski borci Cultural Centre. The online premiere of the Time of Tenderness was aired on the 4th of February 2021, marking the 25th anniversary of Muzeum Theatre (1995-2020). The second dance performance by the Muzeum Theater, The Slumberland, was staged on the same day in the framework of the online premiere. The author of both works is Barbara Novakovič (concept, directing, visual set). The Time of Tenderness features the dancers Mateja Rebolj and Ana Kolenc, while in The Slumberland a modern dance trio Igor Sviderski, Kaja Janić and Dušan Teropšič performs, with light design by Hotimir Knific, and the scenic elements designed by Meta Kojc.

According to the theatre programme, the Time of Tenderness includes a set of fragments and redefinitions of Muzeum’s projects from the 25-year long period, accompanied by Joseph Hayden’s Symphony No. 22 in E-flat major, and The Philosopher, a composition by Gal Škrjanec Skaberne.

As a starting point, the author quotes the painting Doma / At Home by Jožef Petkovšek (1870−1900) (the same picture that opened the picturesque drama ballet Crazy Painter (2001) by a choreographer Vlasto Dedović). 

The second part of the premiere, The Slumberland, is based on the motifs of the popular art comics by Winsor McCay, Little Nemo in Slumberland (1905-1911). The performance has been also announced as the second part of the Sleep trilogy. The 3-year project Sleep (2019−2021), deals with the topic of daydreaming and the sleep that begins between vigilance and sleeping (Forms, Landscapes, Creatures, 2019). The second part, The Slumberland (2020), follows the motifs of the comic strip series Little Nemo, while the final part of the trilogy is planned for 2021 with the production of the dance performance Architecture of Dreams III.

The video in the opening image overshadows the round table, where a woman in black is sitting on one side and a young woman in a white costume splendour on the other, when their views and bodily impulses vibrate a supposed, inaudible conversation or stir up the energies of connections, collaborations, and even sparkle and loosen insights of time differences, faded memories that stand out in versions of costume forms, while dance begins with the ballet steps of a little ballerina in a white tutu. This fairy tale illusion stylistically treads and spins along musical romance on shining light paths. The scene is invaded by an invisible world, surrounded by a veil of memories that narrow in time, at the same time drawing closer to the present of a wide path of light. The minimalist scene is artistically pure, while dream flexibility is impressed by the dancers Mateja and Ana who entwine in modern rhythms, even with a tambourine in their hands, but at a distance, at an unattainable distance of a divided duo, without a physical contact.

The Time of Tenderness is woven with the sophisticated threads of purified dance substance, deepened in the memories of two natural entities, two dancers; at the same time, the dream tutu acquires its memory reflection when it surrounds and lights up the dancer’s black costume for a moment. This short memorable dance diagram finds its epilogue on the staircase of dreams, which in the new installation incites the space for the acrobatics of the comic strip hero Nemo in his Slumberland, in a dance performance for children and adults. When three acrobatic dance figures carefully step into the dream world of darkness (Igor, Kaja, and Dušan), they immediately animate the stage atmosphere along with playful tones of Gal Škrjanec Skaberne's music and let their restless acrobatic attractions out, by means of objects such as a hanging ribbon, rings, balls and goodwill (scenic elements are a remake of Sol Le Witt’s sculpture); Gregor Gobec made the video documentation, recording, and editing.

The Time of Tenderness, a project of memories, is quite well framed in a video painting of a sophisticated, time-marked dance landscape surrounded by a stage illusion, while The Slumberland is grasped as a flexible, energy-based animation.