“CONTEMPORARY DANCE TO ME IS A WAY OF CONNECTING WITH OTHERS”

“CONTEMPORARY DANCE TO ME IS A WAY OF CONNECTING WITH OTHERS”

Margareta Sinković who is 23-years old is a professional dancer. Sinković who studied Academy of Dramatic Art at University of Zagreb gived contemporary courses and organized movie days about performance art. She explained her dance journey…

  •  First, how did you decide to study dance and start contemporary dance?

I had started with the ballet lessons when I was four and I liked that a lot so I had enrolled in School for classical ballet years after. It was there where I was introduced to the modern ballet in which I had the opportunity to create by my own and find my own expression without the need to fulfill the perfect form. I have found the most of creative possibilities in contemporary dance and I wanted to learn about it even more so I enrolled in the dance course without thinking about professional career. By taking the lessons and watching the performances, my interest was growing so I decided to start preparing myself for the audition for the Academy.  

  • What does contemporary dance mean to you?

Contemporary dance to me is a way of connecting with others. Ability to express ideas and opinions, my personal way of communication with society. 

  • What kind of prejudices about contemporary dance have you faced so far? 

People mostly don’t know well what it is so they assume that I’m doing ballroom dances, step or any kind of street dances. In a performative context, contemporary dance sometimes can include those things, it can absorb a lot of different approaches to the body and the movement itself, including the martial arts also, but it has its own specific characteristics and technique. The ones that heard somewhere about it or they have some kind of an image of what it could be, they often find it incomprehensible, confusing, sometimes even elitised, reserved only for the artistic world. 

CREATIVITY, BODY, DANCE…

  • You are giving contemporary dance lessons in Zabok. How did you decide to give lessons?

I wanted to share the things that I’ve learned with others. I was lucky and I had a privilege to take dance classes because I had a big support from my parents who wouldn’t mind driving me everyday to Zagreb. I felt the need to give the opportunity to the ones who have the interest for dance, but it is not so accessible to them. 

  • It’s good that young people in Zabok have access to a course like this. Finding a dance course in Zagreb is easy, but in Zabok it can be difficult. What do you think?

I agree. There are no contemporary dance classes in Zagorje, and the dance scene is centralized. Before, there was an enthusiasm for doing the classes and creating a dance scene here, but after some time it faded away. In other parts of Croatia there are some tendencies also, but we are all still focused on Zagreb because there we have better conditions, although not ideal. But nevertheless it is a place where the art scene is and there is an audience who is following it. 

  • Can someone who has never danced before learn contemporary dance? Have you encountered people who are hesitant to attend the course?

Yes, of course. It is interesting that contemporary dance goes into studying the movement itself, not necessarily some dance element, but also the everyday movement. How to move in the most efficient, functional way with the creating the awareness of anatomical connections, one’s own body possibilities and the influence of the gravity. With this body understanding, a lot of different movement possibilities are opening up, one can go even in more complex situations. This is what technique is about. When you add the creative aspect of the dance on top of this, transfering the thoughts and emotions into the movement, it is beautiful what can be made, no matter if the person who is dancing is doing this for the whole life or whether it is somebody that attends the second dance class in life. We have to allow ourselves the freedom to express ourselves, get away from the thought that what we are producing with the movement has to look in a specific way, or to be perfect for somebody that is looking at it from the outside. I definitely try to share this with the others and encourage the ones who are hesitating, I hope that I am successful with it to some extent. Some like it, some don’t and that is completely fine. 

“KINO PLEŠE” IN ZABOK

  • You organized “Kino Pleše” movie days. How did you decide to organize this event? Do movies about performing art reach enough audiences?

Idea for that started during my studies when my colleagues and I were making experimental dance movies. I thought that the things we’ve made were great and that more people should see what we are doing. And in general there is a boom of transfering the performing arts into film and video media, partly because of the huge influence of the movies on the wider audience and partly because of the epidemic. With my tendency to decentralisation of the dance scene, and knowing about the culture events at the Green Room in Zabok, I thought this was the ideal place for the realisation of this idea. 

The number of the audience of the experimental movies and about performing arts is definitely quite smaller than the number of the spectators of the more commercial movies, but it is existing. I even think that the interest for this is growing and that in popular culture since the middle of the 1960’s until today there is a tendency towards the experiment in terms of making the art. But it is only my point of view. 

  • What kind of feedback/reactions did you receive from the audience after projecting a movie?

So far I always got really nice comments, I didn’t get any negative feedbacks yet. But sometimes people don’t want to admit that they don’t like something. I personally think that there is nothing bad about “not liking” something, thinking about what you saw, about what you consume as an audience is far more important. To me, that is the point of art. To make you think, enable you to feel, whether this is the positive or negative emotion and make just a  slight difference in our everyday life. 

  • What would you suggest to young people who want to study at the dance academy?

You just have to keep going and try not to overthink. Mind is blocking us much more often than the body does.

Interview: Evin Arslan

Photos by Luka Smuk

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