In Slovenia, the International Festival of Contemporary Arts – City of Women (Mesto žensk) was (and is) particularly valuable for the spread of feminism. It was first organized in 1995, in Ljubljana, as an initiative of the Governmental Women’s Policy Office (later renamed to Equal Opportunities Office) with an aim to draw attention to the relative lack of participation and presentation of women in the arts. Since 1996, it has been organized as an annual festival by the Association for the Promotion of Women in Culture – City of Women. The NGO and its festival are of central importance for the rise of feminist issues and, since its establishment, they have produced or co-produced a number of performing arts works, establishing a strong blueprint for women’s awareness of feminism. Another feminist platform, since 2000, is the International Feminist and Queer Festival Red Dawns (Rdeče zore) situated in the Autonomous Cultural Centre Metelkova mesto (AKC Metelkova) in Ljubljana. According to their historical overview, presented on their web page: “A small group of women – members of associations KUD Mreža, ŠKUC-LL, Monokel and the no longer existing Women’s Centre and Kasandra – questioned the position of women in the tangled mesh of art, culture, politics, activism and everyday life. In Metelkova mesto, like elsewhere, the larger part of creative and organizational yet invisible work was done by women. Women were keeping Metelkova mesto alive and lively. We decided to organize a women festival on March 8th, the International Women’s Day, to celebrate our lives and redefine public space in order to make it accessible for creativity and socializing of women on our own terms: in a non-hierarchical, non-exploitational, and anti-capitalistic manner.” After the 2000s, there are numerous dance artists of different generations that identify as feminists, occasionally raising feminist issues in their work more or less directly.
From Nika Arhar, Jasmina Založnik (ed.), Bodies of Dance, Aspects of Dance as Cultural, Political, and Art Work in Yugoslavia and After (Belgrade, 2024)
