Archived: Unusual love

Unusual love

"Unusual Love" is an all-night show for children and young audiences, which deals with the theme of love through dance, dance and song. It was created in the production of the DIVERT dance collective, special in that it brings together performers with and without disabilities in its performing ensemble. The author, director and choreographer is Jacques Valenta, and "Unusual Love" is performed by Marina Bura, Filip Sever, Iva Nerina Sibila and Helvecia Tomić. The music was composed by Dušan Maksimovski, and the master of light and photographer Jason Mulhausen.

The show lasts 50 minutes, and tickets at a price of 25 kn are on sale at the MSU box office from Tuesday, September 15, during the museum's working hours, from 11 am to 7 pm. The theater is adapted to epidemiological measures, 50 people per show, masks, distance and disinfection required.

About the show:

Love is, among its other oddities, the only noun that has the function of a verb. By itself, the notion of love is vague, empty, general. Only when we are in it, when we live lovingly, does love gain its meaning.

We chose this topic in order to open the almost subversive notion of love to children and young people in the magical world of theater. Questions like "What is it that we call love?", "Why do we love something or someone?", "How do we feel about love?" And many other questions that bother children, but also us adults, are the starting point of this author's project. For us, this play is a counterpoint to the excessive amount of violence to which we are all, regardless of age, exposed through public media and the Internet, as well as the commercialization and clichédness of relationships that interpret love in a completely inappropriate way. childhood what marks and shapes us for a lifetime.

In our project, therefore, we deal with that poetic and magical part of us, the one who loves and who is loved.

Thus, "Unusual Love" is a play in which we tell stories about – love through a series of situations. Performing games, dancing and singing, various references from fairy tales, pop culture and childhood memories open up recognizable relationships, some witty and fun, and some from the "other side of love", those that remind that love heals, but sometimes hurts. So we meet awkward love from the world of puppets, a situation from the school hallways and a mysterious pre-teen infatuation, playful relationships between siblings, and always dynamic between parents and children, and there is pure children's love for the world…

… But what Darth Vader, Princess Elsa, Wonder Woman and the batmobile do in this play, how the love story between the mysterious Kiki and Dragana went, whether there is ordinary love at all or each, just every non-ordinary one, we will try to answer with the play Unusual Love .

The inclusiveness of this play lies in the performative, physical and generational diversity of the performing ensemble.

Author: Jacques Valenta

Performers: Marina Bura, Filip Sever, Iva Nerina Sibila, Helvecia Tomić

Composer: Dušan Maksimovski

Lighting, photo and graphic design: Jason Mulhausen

Performance duration: 50 minutes

Artistic direction DIVERT / IMRC: Iva Nerina Sibila

Production: DIVERT inclusive dance collective 2020.

Premiere: September 18 and 19, 2020, MSU, Gorgona Hall.

The play "Unusual Love" is financially supported by the Ministry of Culture, and realized in cooperation with the Department of Educational Activities of MSU.

We thank the Tala Dance Center and the Zagreb Dance Center for their space and support.