Swing (2024)


performance installation
30’
collaborators: Kovina Andrić (performer), Tamara Stanković (costumes), Vasso Vu (soundscape)
curator: Svetlana Mladenov
Danube Dialogues 2024
location: Petrovaradin Fortress
Novi Sad, Serbia


Swing is performed in one of the underground tunnels of the Petrovaradin fortress, in a sheltered, dark, otherworldly climate, that contasts the openness of the world above. This space, heavy with the presence of bats, becomes a stage for an exploration of phisical and emotional spaces that we have outgrown but are hesitant to leave. Bats become symbols of the comfort zone's complex duality, as creatures that thrive in the darkness, hanging in suspended stillness—perfectly emboding the delicate balance between safety and entrapment.

Blending aerial and Butoh dance with a swing structure restrained by short chains that prevent it from swinging freely, the piece transforms a familiar childhood object into a different symbol. The performers, constantly wispering something into each others ears, move slowly, intertwined, supporting one another. Like a dream barely remembered, a distant memory suspended in time, the performance unfolds in an atmosphere where everything feels delicate, lingering between rising and falling. The piece is ultimately about longing for a gentler, more harmonious world – a meditation on utopia. It ends with the fall of the swing, and a descent into deeper tunnels.







Photographs by Vasso Vu