As one of the important, today insufficiently visible figures of the Yugoslav dance experiment, Katarina Stojkov Slijepčević started the Experimental Ballet Troupe in 1974, a platform that consciously went beyond the framework of classical ballet and institutional aesthetics, opening up space for the exploration of contemporary movement, improvisation and new relationships between the body, music and space. Stojkov realized her engagements with this troupe primarily through productions and collaborations with Yugoslav Television, as well as through performances in local theaters throughout Serbia and the former Yugoslavia. Among the artists she collaborated with was Lindsay Kemp, who was a guest at the BITEF festival in 1979 and 1981. Among the members of her first troupe was Jelena Jović, recognized on the local dance scene as one of the first dance artists with the status of an independent artist, which additionally confirms the pioneering character of this initiative in the context of the development of contemporary dance practice in Yugoslavia.