Balkan body music is breaking boundaries this spring: we finished recording our second album, The Courage to be Afraid!
Exactly on March 8, we recorded the song Krca, krca nova kola with four strong women and three gentle men. The recording was symbolic in more ways than one, because we were joined by our children Alisa (singing) and Vid (on tapan drum). This is the first family song we ever recorded. In addition to them, Jelena Soro and Olja Njaradi sang, and we were recorded by Petar Vujičin, a collaborator on several songs on the album.
While you are reading this, we are finishing the post production in cooperation with Goran Vujičin. The album is almost ready to be sent to the publisher. In May we hope to surprise you with a release date.
Our new Polish-Serbian project Slavyk has found an old publisher, CPL Music. The first album, 11 songs of love & suffering, will be released in the middle of the year. Soon we will also announce the date of the concert in Serbia, in cooperation with our dear partners, the Polish Institute in Belgrade.
From April 9 to 11, we are at the Budapest Ritmo conference and festival. Let’s meet!
On April 18, we will see you at the body music workshop for adults in Belgrade at the Waldorf School. Sign up using this form. Their next event, a concert, awaits us in May.
04/18 Workshop for adults, Waldorf school, Belgrade
05/07 Prulček, Ljubljana
05/09 Concert and workshop, CK Ribnjak, Zagreb
05/16 Community concert, Waldorf school, Belgrade
07/24 Concert, Mittelfest, Cividale del Friuli
07/25 Workshop, Mittelfest, Cividale del Friuli
08/03 – 08/07 Workshop for kids (coop with Micaela Czich) at the International library in Munich
08/14 Trenčin, concert with Ildiko Kali Trio, Trenčin EU City Capital, Slovakia
08 Tour with Slavyk, Poland
08/28-29 New Balkan Rhythm workshop, Poznan, Poland
10/17 Seminar for pedagogues, Zagreb
11/03 Concert with Jelena Soro, Celica, Sozvočja sveta, Ljubljana
11/07 Freies Musikzentrum, New Balkan Rhythm workshop, Munich
11/07 Schauburg München, Theater für junges Publikum, workshop, Munich
11/10 Concert with choir Ljelje, Sargfabrik, Wien
11/12 Concert, Banhof Koetzing, Bad Koetzing
11/13 Weiherhaus Theater, concert with Bavarian Immigrants, Ortenburg
11/14 Orchidee Festival, Traunstein
11/20 Freies Musikzentrum, concert with Bavarian Immigrants, Munich
11/21 Montessori Eberharting, concert with Bavarian Immigrants, Eberharting
11/22 Montessori Eberharting, workshop, Eberharting
11/25 Concert and workshop for youth, Gasteig, Zirkel für kulturelle Bildung e. V. and City of Munich
11/28 Concert, Bürgerhaus Glockenbachwerkstatt, Balkanet, Munich
Body music tour in Vojvodina, Slovenia and Bosnia
This year, we started the body music tour from home, with performances in Vojvodina, and then we were guests at the Kavč festival. This festival has been held in Slovenia at the end of winter for a decade. Artistic director Matija Solce brings art, music and theater to living rooms, bookstores, squares, but also to clubs and concert halls. The events are spontaneous, the first row being quite close, which is why they are so interesting. Some of the locations are unknown in advance. A large part of the organization is on the hosts, who have contact with their community and the local artistic and cultural scene, and that’s why you can meet the most interesting audience.
Our first performance was in Sela pri Ajdvcu at the Sunny Forest Club Hotel. With a fire burning in the fireplace behind us and the last remnants of winter blowing outside, we gathered local art lovers of all ages. The next day we held a concert in Kranj at the Fragmenti bookstore, where we were wonderfully hosted by Mateja Zore. On Friday we had a concert at the Society for the Culture of Inclusion (Društvo za kulturo inkluzije) in Ljubljana. You can see what a good time we had in Alisa’s photos.
Samo Lesjak in Gorenjski glas briefly described the performance in Kranj, where we had the pleasure of sharing the stage with Martin Ladika’s trio: A particularly concentrated festival event took place in Fragmenti in Kranj, where concerts and performances on the border between music, theater and performance took place. Among others, the Slovak visual artist Katarina Cakova – Katanari was a guest there, who opened a space of silence and imagination with a subtle, poetic puppet show. Croatian artist Martin Ladika outlined human-existential themes with his narrative, and the duo Alice in WonderBand literally included the audience in the rhythm – with music, singing and movement they erased the boundary between performers and visitors. The experience was, as befits such events, communal and unrepeatable.
On the last day of the Kavč festival, we participated in the Float to Gaza event with over 100 artists from all over the world on the stage of the big hall of Kino Šiška. The concert took place in parallel in Gaza and in Ljubljana. Palestinian artists played music, sang, danced and performed puppet shows, while we answered them from the stage in Ljubljana. The entire event was followed on both sides of the world via video link.
We will return to Ljubljana with a concert on the 7th of May in Prulček. Find all information and buy tickets at the link. In November, we are there again and we are performing with Jelena Soro in the cycle of Sazvučja sveta in Celica, organized by KUD Sestava.
In the continuation of the body music tour, we returned once again to Keza Fest in Banja Luka, which was on our road map in 2023. It was touching to meet again with friends from Dis Theater and the audience from Banja Luka. It was especially wonderful to meet two boys, who were at our first concert at the festival three years ago.
We felt the audience’s surprise when we started the first set of new songs with the piano, but we quickly “melted” it and shook it up. Soon we were all clapping and singing along to songs from the Balkans.
The next day we stopped by the English kindergarten Zabavniq. We performed the Centipede Rhymes (Stonogica brojalica) show while interacting with the little ones.
We left Banja Luka with its snowy peaks and rainy valley and returned to Serbia.