performance artist and philosopher

Bara Kolenc PhD (1978, Postojna) is a freelance performance artist and philosopher working in the area of performing, interdisciplinary and visual arts. She graduated from philosophy and comparative literature at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana and later completed her PhD the same faculty with the thesis entitled The Philosophical Problem of Repetition and the Real in 20^th Century Theatre under the supervision of the renowned Slovenian philosopher Mladen Dolar. Relying on psychoanalytic theory and structuralism, she has been developing a theory of performance, and art in the wider sense, that revolves around the problem of repetition. Her work has been published in philosophy and performing arts periodicals such as Problemi, Maska, Kultura etc. and featured in (international) conferences and symposia. In 2014 the Society for Theoretical Psychoanalysis Ljubljana published her book Repetition and Enactment: Kierkegaard, Psychoanalysis, Theatre in its Analecta book series.

Trained in both classical and contemporary dance techniques, receiving also the 2003 DanceWeb scholarship at the ImpulsTanz Festival in Vienna, granted to emerging dance artists in an international selection, Bara has created many evening-length dance-theatre performances, solo pieces, installations, lectures and lecture-performances. She has been working regularly with KUD Pozitiv as a mentor and pedagogue and has created many successful performances with her students. She co-authored (with Živa Deu PhD) the award-winning children’s book Kje pa ti živiš? (Where Do You Live?), the first original Slovenian picture book on architecture, aimed at children aged 4-10. She has presented her projects across Europe and wider and is the recipient of many awards, among them the Commission of Work 2016 award at the Theatertreffen Festival in Berlin.

Bara has collaborated with some of the most visible Slovenian artists, such as Barbara Novakovič-Kolenc, Diego de Brea, Iztok Kovač, Maja Delak, Andreja Rauch, Tomaž Štrucl etc. She works closely and regularly with Bojana Kunst, Atej Tutta, Matevž Kolenc, Irena Tomažin, Teja Reba, Loup Abramovici, Mitja Cerkvenik, Rado Jaušovec, Niel Barbisan and others.

She is the co-founder of KUD Samosvoj (1999) as well as the founding member and initiator of two collectives active at the cross-section between performing and visual arts: the Threshold collective (2009) and the international art/activism collective O-jej/Eat-art Collective.

Website Bara Kolenc

 

PERFORMANCES (concept, direction)

PERFORMANCES CREATED AS MENTOR

COLLABORATIONS AS CHOREOGRAPHER, DANCER, PERFORMER, DRAMATURGE

FILM, VIDEO

PEDAGOGICAL WORK

OTHER

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES

SELECTED PUBLISHED WORK

AWARDS

SELECTED PERFORMANCES IN MORE DETAIL