Dialogi
Eurozine
Dialogi
2008-08-19
Summary for Dialogi 7-8/2008
Whoever is not with us is against us
Boris Vezjak deals with the growing tendency towards depolitization in Slovenian society in the introductory editorial. Politics is treated by the public as something rotten, something which has penetrated all pores of public life and which must be driven out. Bizarrely, this is something which political forces themselves all agree with. Vezjak evaluates this kind of thinking as mistaken, since it drives away citizens from decision-making mechanisms, making representative democracy redundant.
An interview with Dr. Oliver Vodeb
Social sciences editor Ciril Oberstar writes that marketing and advertising have usurped the media space and the advertising sector is increasingly less reflective and more instrumentalized for the purposes of promoting competing goods and increasing profits. But critical thought is awakening also in this area. Attempts are made to draw attention to the generally known complexity of communicative approaches that the pioneers of communication swore to. This is the area of activity of Oliver Vodeb, who could be most easily described as an advocate for socially responsible communication. In the interview, he presents some critical interventions in the public sphere which were prepared by Vodeb's study Poper. Vodeb is also the founder and long-standing head of the Memefest festival, which is aimed primarily at young people, sociologists, and communicologists.
This issue's theme was prepared by theatre editor Primoz Jesenko, and is devoted to the functioning of the educational system in the field of culture and the arts, in which he notes especially informal educational tendencies in contemporary dance, creative writing of drama, schools of theatre improvisation, and the design of theatre programmes for drama writing, puppeteering, and film acting at the Academy of Arts in Maribor, which is currently in the process of being set up. In the present irrational social context, these activities are being saved only by enthusiasm. The following contributors share their experiences: Sinja Ozbolt, dancer, choreographer, and member of the Artistic council of the Dance Theatre of Ljubljana, Minka Veselich Kolosa, founder and first artistic director of the dance group Plesna izba Maribor, and today an expert advisor to the Maribor regional branch of the Public Fund of the Republic of Slovenia for Cultural Activities, Maja Delak, dancer, choreographer and artistic director of the Emanat Institute, Petra Pikalo, dancer, choreographer and instructor in culture, Natasa Tovirac, programme and artistic director of the Intakt Dance Studio, Goga Stefanovich - Erjavec, choreographer and artistic director of the Celje Dance Forum, Daliborka Podboj, dance critic and instructor, Mojca Dimec Bogdanovski, actress, teacher, and expert guide for SILA (School Improvisation League), Andreja Kopach, opinion journalist and former coordinator of the educational programme of the Maska Institute, Simona Hamer, dramaturgy student and member of the PreGlej initiative, and Vili Ravnjak, artistic director of the Maribor Drama of the Slovenian National Theatre and head of curriculum design for theatre programmes at the Maribor Academy of Arts.
In Cultural diagnosis the following books are reviewed: Alexandre Koyré: "The Scientific Revolution", Umberto Eco: "The Island of the Day Before", David Albahari: "Words Are Something Else", Cvetka Bevc: "Stories from the Twilight", and Jasna Vombek: "Narrative Promenades". Tomaz Toporisich continues his series "Maps of contemporary staged arts" with evaluations of the latest Slovenian and international productions.
This issue's Diary was contributed by visual artist Marija Mojca Pungerchar. She presents her latest projects and at the same time describes some typical features of the survival of contemporary artists.
In 1970, after the Ljubljana premiere of Handke's "Kaspar", the Glej Experimental Theatre was founded on the independent scene, due, as described by its founders, to "the need for experimentation in contemporary theatre". Glej still exists, and in the intervening time has gone through the hands of several generations. In "Detector", Primoz Jesenko poses some questions about their current experimental programme and the actvities of one of the trio of current directors of Glej, Jure Novak.
The Pedagogical Faculty of Maribor has a long history, its share of fame, and its failures. Two years ago it became too big, and as a result the idea of dividing it into two smaller units arose at university level. The Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics were created, and the Academy of Arts is in the planning stages. From the original Pedagogical Faculty there remains only a smaller one of the same name. In Dialogi we have already paid attention to some of them; this time editor Boris Vezjak looks at the current Pedagogical Faculty. He talks with its Dean Dr. Samo Fosnarich and with the assistant Dean Dr. Matjaz Duh.