The international dance collective EN-KNAP was founded by choreographer and dancer Iztok Kovač in 1993 in Leuven (Belgium) under the production-management house STUK, however, a year later, it instituted its domicile also in Slovenia (EN-KNAP Productions). Already with its debuted performance Spread Your Wings (You Clumsy Elephant), Razširi krila (slon nerodni) in the original, from 1993, based on the music of John Zorn, along with Kovač’s solo How I Caught a Falcon (Kako sem ujel sokola, 1991), which received the London Dance and Performance Award for the best annual international performance in Great Britain by the London magazine Time Out, the choreographer gained recognition in Slovenia and Europe and was the first person from the field of contemporary dance to be awarded with the most important national Prešeren Foundation Award. The changing collective organized around Kovač’s choreographic work toured extensively all over the world in the period of the growing interest in contemporary dance in the changing world of arts and culture after the fall of the Berlin Wall. His signature choreographic style combines contemporary dance composition with the procedures of an open work (improvisation), as well as virtuous dance kinetics with the industrial worker’s physicalities and the communal playfulness of minors from his hometown Trbovlje. In addition, his film production, six dance and eight documentary films, made mostly in collaboration with Sašo Podgoršek, are a unique tribute to Trbovlje and certainly left a mark. With an urge to secure more stable conditions, Kovač formalised the group in 2007 under the name EN-KNAP Group (EKG) which became, and still is, the only permanent professional ensemble for contemporary dance in Slovenia. It settled in 2009 in the venue Španski borci Culture Centre. The formalisation of the ensemble followed Kovač’s vision of structuralization of a complex dance initiative. In that regard, EKG represents a transition from project to programme-based activities (and the associated new form of funding) and, in substance terms, a transition from project to repertoire programming. This enabled the group to gain time to study individual performances and manage its postproduction with ease while allowing it to organize its work over a longer period. Kovač selects dancers through international auditions, which accounts for their varied dance knowledge and cultural background. Transforming himself into the artistic director, he choreographs performances only occasionally and invites prominent domestic and international choreographers and theatre directors. In addition, Kovač has left some space for the dancers to create their work with or without the company.
From Nika Arhar, Jasmina Založnik (ed.), Bodies of Dance, Aspects of Dance as Cultural, Political, and Art Work in Yugoslavia and After (Belgrade, 2024)
