The three editions of Ljubljana Dance Days (Ljubljanski dnevi plesa) represent the first con- temporary dance festival in Yugoslavia, initiated by Kinetikon Cultural Association (KUD Kinetikon) and organized with the help of a public institution, namely Radio and Television Ljubljana (RTV Ljubljana, later RTV Slovenia) where dancer, dance critic, and historian Marija Vogelnik worked as an editor of the ballet programme at the Music Department of RTV Ljubljana. The programmes of the festival combined live presentations of different ‘contemporary chamber dance and ballet groups’ from Yugoslavia with an important remark that the term ‘ballet’ was, in Vogelnik’s case, a strategic classification in order to convince the directors to produce the programme. Most of the live presentations in RTV’s Studio A and in the Ljubljana City Theatre were contemporary dance groups, and the film programme accompanying the live presentations may have also included some ballet TV films. Some of the live programme was broadcasted either live or was recorded for TV, yet the economic crises that followed in the 1980s pushed TV to re-use most of the reels. After the 1979 edition of the Ljubljana Dance Days, the festival ceased to exist, as it was just an overwhelming production effort for Marija Vogelnik.
From Nika Arhar, Jasmina Založnik (ed.), Bodies ofm Dance, Aspects of Dance as Cultural, Political, and Art Work in Yugoslavia and After (Belgrade, 2024)
