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Ana Vujanović (2009-13)
It is commonplace or even commonsense that the bulk of knowledge that reaches the periphery is second-hand knowledge. And the periphery—that is us, Serbia, Southeast Europe, Yugoslavia, the Balkans. There is no irony here, for these regions are peripheral, provincial, and marginal with respect to the centres of the First World, Europe, the European Union, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, or the Ottoman Empire. For instance, let us briefly consider some prominent examples from Serbian twentieth-century art.[1] Dadaism reached us through Dragan Aleksić, his studies in Prague and connections with the Dadaists circles there. Eurhythmics and Laban’s method arrived here by way of the gymnastic dance workout and dance practice of Maga Magazinović, who studied with Max Reinhardt and Rudolf Steiner. Early conceptual art arrived mostly with Hungarian magazines, thanks to the Hungarian minority in Vojvodina, Serbia’s northern province. Still later, Tanztheater reached us through the modern ballet of Sonja Vukićević and theatre anthropology of the 1990s through a few local figures who studied with Eugenio Barba at Odin Teatret. And today, we also have our own versions of new British drama and contemporary—especially so-called conceptual—dance as the predominant practices on the contemporary performing arts scene…[2]