Open Call for Spider Festival 2020 in Ljubljana

May 21, 2020

Spider Festival, a festival of radical bodies, began to knit its web back in 2010 in Ljubljana, Slovenia under the umbrella of Pekinpah, while the artistic guidance is always in the hands of local artists. It brings together and interlaces bodies, thus opening a possibility for intense critical thematizations of a complex cultural-political atmosphere, social frictions and paradoxes, contemporary taboos and most urgent topics, through artistic expression. Unconventional approaches and discourses, anti-hegemonic objections and proposals of something better, new, hybrid genres, dance art that is only rarely presented in the mainstream: all this is Spider Festival. This year, the festival will take place between June 17–20th in Ljubljana.

In 2020, Spider Festival is teaming up with the Festival of radical talks, the main thread of which will this year be “resurrection” and which is this year curated by the artist/philosopher Dr. Bara Kolenc, and the Dance>Money (un)conference, which will highlight the topic of “international dance markets”.

Spider Festival 2020

The current limitations have pushed the festival to turn space inside out: nature becomes a platform of openness. We invite artists, thinkers and arts professionals to contribute their project proposals and share a physical space in a natural environment – in compliance with the current set of health precautions – to invest knowledge and time in building a temporary shared space in three-days of open debates, 20+ performances, eight+ (un)conference sessions and three debates on social theory.

The guidelines for proposals include: outdoor events only; no limitation on duration of performances/events proposals; limited technical possibilities (more at the link below); most performances/workshops/events will happen in the daytime (mid-June sunset in Ljubljana will be at 20:55, night at 22:00 – permission for the event up to 23.00); body contact will (probably) not be allowed between dancers (if not wearing safety suits) and audiences (1.5m distance between each other); business travel is predicted to be allowed in majority of EU by June 1st; audience of max. 100 people.

The organizers provide: an artist fee of €200 / person; an official invitation letter if needed; accommodation (apartments/hotels/rooms); food (breakfast, lunch, dinner); local travel costs (from nearby airports: Ljubljana, Trieste, Venice, Zagreb); a fully dedicated professional team. International travel costs are not provided, however, an official invitation letter of invitation for external funding is possible.