Tartuffe is the second project within the Staging a Play series of works in which Matija Ferlin tackles canonic works of dramatic art. Staging a Play questions the very foundations upon which the concept of staging is interpreted within the dramatic discourse. In this case, Ferlin has chosen Tartuffe, one of Moliere's „classical“ comedies, and translated it from textual into choreographic realm. He replaced verbal exchanges with a physical vocabulary, and used the dramatic text as a complex choreographic score. The characters have thus ceased to be their „words and language“, and become their „bodies and movements“. Their interrelationships are no longer conveyed primarily through speech, but shaped in the domain of the performative, while the tenacity of their gazes almost insists on establishing this new regime of perceiving. Keeping all nine characters on the stage throughout the whole performance, in all five acts and thirty seven scenes, Ferlin has created a complex performative apparatus in which bodies in space become the only vessels for the narrative, constantly shifting between the attempts at deconstruction and the attempts at reconstruction.

Matija Ferlin is awarded choreographer, dancer and director from San Vincenti. He graduated from the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam. Having worked in Berlin for a while, he returned home and dedicated himself to the research and rearticulation of different concepts in performative arts and other media, such as short film, video and exhibitions. As author and performer, Matija participated at renowned festivals around Europe and North America, such as Kunstenfestivaldesartes, Impulstanz, Spider Festival Lyon, Rhubarb Festival in Toronto, FTA in Montreal, Actoral in Marseilles, Mladi Levi and Gibanica in Ljubljana, Bitef in Belgrade, Mess in Sarajevo and Infant in Novi Sad. He has worked with many theatre artists, including M.Koležnik, I.Buljan, M.Delak, A.Henderson, S.Waltz, K.Levi, M.Butler, D.Zambrano, K.Liske, Ch.Chemin, H. P.Knes.

Zagreb Dance Company (ZPA) was founded in 1970 by dance artist Lela Gluhak Buneta, and since 2014 it has been run by producer Petra Glad Mažar. Throughout many years of its existence and under the leadership of various artistic directors, ZPA has always insisted on original works and high artistic and technical level of its productions. Regular collaborations with foreign choreographers and various artists from the fields of theatre, visual arts and music have contributed to the Company’s readiness to face the challenges of different artistic approaches and poetics. As such, ZPA has marked the careers of many dancers and dance experts who are working in Croatia and abroad. For its contribution to the development of Croatian theatre, ZPA has received the Croatian Association of Dramatic Artists’ awards for best choreography (2004, 2012), best female dancer (2004, 2016), best male dancer (2004, 2006, 2012), best set design (2006), and best dance production (2008, 2012). Zagreb Dance Company continually presents its productions at theatres and festivals in Croatia and abroad, with performances in almost all European countries, Russia, South Korea, Israel, Egypt, the Dominican Republic and Mexico.