Julija Pečnikar, Alja Branc and Sara Janašković were selected with their project Softwareness for the residency programme at Workshop Foundation.

With the words of choreographer Julija Pečnikar: “In the autumn of 2022 as a young independent artist, I started to fantasize about creating a group dance performance inspired by the alienated feeling of living in a virtual world. At the beginning, it all felt as a distant dream to me, especially how to make it happen when I am still searching for my own artistic paths and I do not really belong anywhere. Little by little, I met my colleges that have the same sparkle shining out and are willing to dedicate themselves, despite the difficult environment and strange times in which we are biting through. My next logical step was to find a support partners to help us financially and could provide a working space for us. The Open call for the Artistic Exchange from NDA Slovenia and WSF could not come in a better time. Since the first moment of collaboration, I had the feeling inside me telling me, we are blessed and supported – the most important feeling for an artist before entering a creative process. The 14-day residency have been organized in the way that we had our sacred time and space, every day, dedicated for understanding what we do and how we are developing our practice. I could forget about everything else, the outside world, I had zero concerns or worries, thanks to the professional, however very warm and trustful relation with the WSF team.”

The group continues to work on the project which premiered on 23 November at Kino Šiška in Ljubljana.