Invited by Die Gorillas and their Summer Academy program, we are teaching a workshop on the topic of personal and performative at Schloß Trebnitz from 10th till 13th July 2025.
Intimate Side of Performing
In improvisation a performer is strongly personally involved. Once the performance starts there is no script to cling to and no outside direction to hide behind. We improvise from who we are, what we are interested in, what we have experienced in our lives, how we see the world, what we stand for, how we feel this very moment. This can enable strong insights for both performers and audience members, who discover their intimate connections to the content, processing their own experience and life.
Maja and Norbert come from different performative backgrounds – theatre and dance, and through cooperation find great richness in working with topics from various angles. By using approaches from different fields of performing arts – theatre improvisation, contemporary dance, physical theatre and clowning – the workshop digs into the transformation of personal material to meaningful stage creation. Reprocessing the personal by artistic means creates space for vulnerability that empowers the performers, the audience and the art piece itself.
About Maja Dekleva Lapajne and Norbert Sven Fö
Maja Dekleva Lapajne is a director and a performer from Ljubljana. Her current projects include: Underwater, a performative concert on motherhood and precarious life; 4play, a performance by Mary Shelley’s Mothers, focusing on the topic of sex through feminist standpoints; Silver Gold, a project where different dance generations meet, exchange memories and create new ones; Za crknt, an exploration of contemporary clown and cabaret formats; On the Ground, a concert performance on exhaustion and resistance within late capitalism; Life.Refabricated., a performative and writing practice with Norbert Sven Fö on topics of improvisation, revolution and love.
Norbert Sven Fö artistically explores what else dance, choreography, improvisation, practice, teaching, playfulness are; in the role of dancer, choreographer, clown, writer, pedagogue, producer, editor; in the formats of play, practice, performance, installation, publication, audio and video works. He is a member of DISCOllective, speaks seven languages (learning the eighth one) and enjoys eating, while being based all over Europe as a nomad.
