Koreodrama Theatre was founded by choreographer and director Damir Zlatar Frey in Ljubljana in 1986 after the Dance Theatre Ljubljana team decided to separate artistically from him. With a reference to Laban, Frey developed Koreodrama artistically into a choreographed theatre, based on text or narrative movements. In collaborations and co-productions with different public institutions and, occasionally, their ensembles, along with a team of collaborators around him, Frey’s stage pieces had an imprint of human vulnerability and madness, mirroring the confused time of the federal disintegration and political and existential instability better than most of the theatre and dance productions at the time. In the big and surprising set constructions, actors and dancers would create expressive and physically spasmatic roles that would overcome the usual expectations of the public and make his theatre immensely popular. His introduction of queer aspects and travesty into theatre was one of the first examples of the kind in the post-Yugoslav cultural context. In 1999 Frey settled in Umag, Croatia, where he founded the International Festival of Chamber Theatre Golden Lion (Zlatni lav) but occasionally still worked in theatre institutions.
From Nika Arhar, Jasmina Založnik (ed.), Bodies of Dance, Aspects of Dance as Cultural, Political, and Art Work in Yugoslavia and After (Belgrade, 2024)
