XONTAKT explores the area where dance connects with moving images, and this edition, as well as last year's, gives a landscape of workshops of contemporary dance, as well as projections of dance film and video.

Still, many, mistakenly, use the term of "contemporary dance" to define the dances such as hip hop, breakdance or, better still, *mba dances. Most of these "social dances" are the mirror of society in their movements and choreographies, illustrating the relationship between humans and the environment, rapid urban development, a way of expressing emotion, joy, oppression and/or dissatisfaction. However, today the term "contemporary dance" is an extension of the era of modern dance based on individual freedom and openness to questions - whether the systematic work through movement and dance can change our perception of everyday conventions and draw attention behind the veil of illusion, to the substantial transformation and evolution?

Unlike these dances, contemporary dance is an art that has a long stage and the audience, their questions and models that can change the perception / attention of the audience and authors that carry out the dialog of the visible and recognizable in the collective memory, and that of the invisible, a hint of the future, in a signed work. To introduce this kind of art, this year we suggest a workshop with the floorwork and release technique, the workshop of "safe motion" - axis syllabus, as well as creative workshops and dance research.

In the last year's edition of the project XONTAKT, a dance video program was prepared with the aim to inform the public what contemporary dance is, but this year we are satisfied to show you two award-winning feature length dance movies - Nora directed by David Hinton and What are you going to do when you get out of here?, directed and choreographed by the Slovenian theater collective En Knap, with which we will open the screening nights at Kinoteka.

We chose dance films which don't show dancers through just exotic dance, dancers' exposure in front of the camera just for displaying their technical skills, but those movies that are focused on issues from everyday life. So we have an artistic film about the life of South African dancers from Zimbabwe directed by Davis Hinton, a film about Jewish life in Poland during the brutal World War II directed by dance collective Kaeja d'Dance, or workers in coal mines in the town of Trbovlje by Slovenian dance group En Knap. All of these films - dance films -, are films with no subtitles, but with deep dialogue and expressive drama and issues of everyday living with dancers as the main actors.

Welcome!

XONTAKT project is organised and realized by Center For Movement.

Center For Movement is organization for promotion of contemporary dance founded in Split in 2009. Center has a focus on exploration of existing form throught movement and dance and discovering new metods and approachs to work on the body through workshops and research projects. During the year gathers and connects dancers, choreographers, directors, audio-visual and other multimedial artists and promote their works in public; organize lectures and workshop on issue contemporary dance and theater scene. Founders of Center for Movement are Nela Sisarić i Kristina Ozretić.

XONTAKT is supported by: City of Split, Split Dalmatia County, Italian Institute for Culture Zagreb, Pučko Otvoreno Učilište Split