In-residence Workshops at the Mediterranean Dance Centre Svetvinčenat

Workshop: How To Fall (Instinct Before Identity), 9–19 June 2013
Workshop: I Saw Eros: Sore Was I, 20–28 June 2013

Workshop: How To Fall (Instinct Before Identity), 9–19 June 2013

Presentation: 16 June 2013, 8 p.m.

Presenter: Cohdi Harrell (New Mexico)

How To Fall (Instinct Before Identity) is an acrobatic research laboratory Cohdi Harrell and his European colleague Oriol Domnench initiated in January 2013. Using a trapeze, dance, floor, and one another, the two acrobats probe into the basic physical and mental concepts of stability and letting go in response to a sudden change. These artists had already worked on the project in their in-residence workshops in Barcelona and New Mexico, and the Mediterranean dance centre is now the third host on the show's roadmap.

Cohdi Harrell is a self-taught US trapeze artist and untrained dancer, whose idiosyncratic approach to acrobatics secured him a number of projects in the glamorous Hollywood and Paris spotlights as well as dusty villages of India. Preferring subtlety over spectacle, Cohdi has received acclaim as "vital for the evolution of contemporary circus in America". In addition to solo performances, for the last seven years Cohdi has been the artistic director of the Ricochet duet, whose intimate theatre productions won standing ovations across the USA. Local audience remembers him as one of the original authors of the praised Zagreb Cabaret project Red Room.

Workshop: I Saw Eros: Sore Was I, 20–28 June 2013

Presentation: 27 June 2013, 8 p.m.

Presenter: Daniel Gulko (USA/France) and performers

This multidisciplinary project probes into the phenomena of intimacy, identity, and exposure. It combines physical exercise based on the techniques of physical theatre, contact improvisation, elements of research into energy, dream diaries, automatic writing, fortune telling, observation, and improvisation to achieve an entirely personal experience. The residence at Svetvinčenat is the second stop after the Zagreb takeoff of this creative project that will then move on to Marseilles and return to Zagreb.

Daniel Gulko is the director of a French radical circus company Cahin-Caha. American born, this polyglot poly-disciplinary wanderer has spanned four continents in 30 years of creative mayhem. Gulko spent the 1980s in Québec navigating between experimental and street performance, political art and modern rituals. Gulko is the associated artist at the Centre National des Arts du Cirque, where he founded the Nomadic Creation Lab project for international research in circus. Clown and dancer, he has collaborated with Mimes Omnibus, Cirque du Soleil, Ctibor Turba, Keith Hennessy and Jiyu Geki Jyo. Based in France, he is the founding member and stage director of the circus collective Pocheros.