An Exhibition on Dance with Multiple Titles:
Living Network of Relations – Collaboration as Practice –
Dance in Search of a Stage
October 1 – December 6, 2026
Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb
Event Program, October 19–31, 2026
Tuesday, October 20, at 6:00 PM / A participatory format for a general audience; 3rd floor, within the *Situacije* (Situations) exhibition space.
Sanja Tropp Frühwald / VRUM: No Work & Just Play
What happens when people of different generations play together in the same space? Who leads whom, who learns from whom, and what can we create together?
In this 60-minute interactive presentation, Sanja Tropp Frühwald opens the door to the artistic practice of the collective VRUM—a practice she has been developing for the past twenty years, both in Croatia and abroad. Through movement games, dance improvisation, and simple tasks performed in pairs or groups, participants will explore trust, solidarity, and the courage to try something new. The younger participants will learn from the older ones, the older from the younger, and everyone will bring their own unique experience and imagination into this shared space.
Through play and dance, VRUM explores how to build trust, overcome fear, and collectively envision new possibilities for the future. Come get moving, meet someone from a different generation, and see what emerges when we give one another space. No prior dance experience is required.
Sanja Tropp Frühwald is a contemporary dance choreographer with a focus on dance for young audiences. Born in Croatia, she lives with her family in Vienna, from where she manages two affiliated organizations: the VRUM Art & Culture Association in Vienna and the art organization VRUM in Zagreb.
In addition to her executive and artistic work, she serves on the boards of ASSITEJ Austria and the international organization Young Dance Network. She is the initiator and co-founder of KLIKER—the first Croatian network for the development of contemporary dance for young audiences—and coordinates GENERATOR, an international platform for the collaboration and development of contemporary dance for young audiences.
Sanja has received multiple awards for her artistic work, as well as for her outstanding contribution to the development of contemporary dance in Croatia.
October 24 and 25, from 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM (Saturday and Sunday) – Temporary Archive Station, 3rd floor, within the *Situacije* exhibition space.
A temporary archive station has been set up as part of the exhibition, dedicated to collecting and digitizing archival materials related to the contemporary dance scene. This activity is organized by Nomad Dance Academy Croatia as part of the *DanceMap* research project—conducted under the *Horizon Europe* program—with the participation of researchers Tea Kantoci, Luka Švajda, Ana Letunić, and Zrinka Užbinec.
Tuesday, October 27, at 6:00 PM / A participatory format for a broad audience; 3rd floor, within the *Situacije* (Situations) exhibition space.
Silvia Marchig / Kik Melone: Low Potentials, High Risks
I invite you to experience being caught in a loop—of the past and the present, or rather, the future—within the body, alongside bodies, emerging from bodies, and reaching toward bodies; a crimson expanse stretching up to the ceiling of the Museum, and beyond. Movement is the only constant—simultaneously a risk and a source of comfort.
In any case, there are no regrets.
Silvia Marchig (Rijeka, 1975) is a dance artist, performer, choreographer, and educator, as well as the artistic director of Kik Melone. Throughout her artistic practice, which spans over 25 years, she has explored performance, dance, relationships, and collective co-authorship.
She is one of the organizers of ANTISEZONA – Dance in Gorgona, a program dedicated to contemporary dance and related performance practices. She has authored numerous dance productions and experimental performances, and she collaborates with artists and organizations within the independent scene. She is a recipient of two Croatian Theatre Awards (Nagrada hrvatskog glumišta) and several other professional awards for contemporary dance, including the award for Best Choreography in 2026 for the production *Euridika izlazi* (Eurydice Emerges).
29.10. at 18:00 Thursday / Resident program, 3rd floor in the exhibition area Situations
Maja Drobac:POEM UNWRITTEN, research presentation
“I was 19 years old when we were at MaMi (Multimedia Institute, Zagreb) and started talking about founding the EkS-scene. Then I had to leave the collective because I went to study in Amsterdam. I spent the last year of my studies in my own research venture, trying to understand what dance and movement, and therefore art, mean to me and how I can access my own dance vocabulary.
I traveled around Europe shooting scenes for my first dance film, which was greatly supported by EkS-scena, providing me with collaborators, space, resources, and later the possibility of showing it in MaMi. At that time, I was teaching the verbotonal method at SUVAG and passing on the knowledge of improvisation gained by dancing at the Magpie Music and Dance Company in the People’s Open University (CEKAO) where the EkS-scene had a small hall to use.
Within a year, I researched the choreographic, teaching and performing segments of dance, and in the end I decided to leave everything familiar and go to India to study Bharatanatyam.
EkS-scena supported me in that decision by applying to the City Office to cover my travel expenses.” (Maja Drobac)
“POEM UNWRITTEN is an abandoned concept from 2020, developed by two artists: Maja Drobac—performer and dancer—and Maja Sviben—dramaturg. The idea emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when the need for works that resist rigid identities and clear creative boundaries became a desperate plea for artistic survival.
The space itself was displaced, existing in an ‘in-between’—somewhere else—while movement, constrained by the impossibility of free motion, was fundamentally altered and often rendered unattainable. The realm of meaning transformed into a space for a necessary, silent scream—manifesting as an unwritten poetry of the unspoken. Fragments of this exploration remain in short, mobile-phone-recorded videos. The body, profoundly transformed, passed through a phase of both social and self-rejection, eventually settling on the margins of an experiment—an incomplete, individual artistic gesture that seeks to pause, to slow down… to, in a sense, merge with an object, to attempt to extend its own shelf life—simply by remaining still.” (Maja Drobac)
October 31, from 15:00 to 18:00 (Saturday and Sunday) – Temporary Archive Station, 3rd floor, within the *Situacije* exhibition space.
A temporary archive station has been set up as part of the exhibition, dedicated to collecting and digitizing archival materials related to the contemporary dance scene. This activity is organized by Nomad Dance Academy Croatia as part of the *DanceMap* research project—conducted under the *Horizon Europe* program—with the participation of researchers Tea Kantoci, Luka Švajda, Ana Letunić, and Zrinka Užbinec.