Danube Dance Alliance premiere at Madlenianum
The sixth SOLA contemporary solo dance festival premiered a project linking five cities through a VR film and contemporary dance staged in abandoned spaces.
- The Danube Dance Alliance premiere took place on May 30, 2026 at the Madlenianum Opera and Theatre, opening the sixth SOLA contemporary solo dance festival (May 29 to 31).
- The project pairs Enja Belak's VR film Dancescapes with Bostjan Antoncic's dance piece Register from the company Rosas.
- From May to September the performances are staged in abandoned public spaces in Belgrade, Sarajevo, Velenje, Svetvincenat and Trbovlje.
- It brings together 12 organisations from eight European countries and more than 50 artists, funded through the Creative Europe programme.
A body dancing in an empty hall reads differently from a body on a curtained stage with rows of seats: where there is no institutional frame, every movement has to justify why it is happening at all. That premise is the ground from which Danube Dance Alliance grows, the project whose premiere on Friday, May 30, 2026 opened the sixth SOLA contemporary solo dance festival at Belgrade’s Madlenianum Opera and Theatre. The festival runs until May 31, and this premiere gave it a centre of gravity that few local dance events ever manage.
At the heart of the project sit two works that are meant to be watched through one another. The first is Dancescapes, a VR film by the artist Enja Belak, which offers the viewer movement mediated by virtual reality. The second is Register, a dance piece by the choreographer Bostjan Antoncic, a performer who comes from Rosas, one of the most influential names in European contemporary dance. The meeting of recorded and live body is no decorative trick here, but a dramaturgical arc asking what presence in dance even means.
Who stands behind the project
Danube Dance Alliance is not the work of a single author but a network. The lead organisation is Delavski dom Trbovlje, and the project is funded through the Creative Europe programme, which places it in the wider context of European cultural cooperation rather than a purely local festival circuit. Five choreographers are involved: Aleksandar Ilic, Masa Kolar, Branko Mitrovic, Nik Rajsek and Ognjen Vucinic. Behind them stand 12 organisations from eight European countries and more than 50 artists, making this one of the larger undertakings in the region when it comes to contemporary dance.
What does the project actually propose?
The most interesting move is neither the VR film nor the choice of performers, but the choice of place. From May to September the performances are staged in abandoned public spaces in Belgrade, Sarajevo, Velenje, Svetvincenat and Trbovlje. Dance is thus displaced from the black box of the theatre into spaces that carry their own history and their own ruins, so the performer’s body enters a dialogue with walls that once served an entirely different purpose. In the post-Yugoslav context, where derelict industrial and public buildings are part of the everyday landscape, that scenographic choice carries a quiet political charge.
Madlenianum was a fitting host for the premiere: a house built as a private gesture of devotion to art lends its frame to a network that then leaves that frame behind and moves into the abandoned spaces of five cities. What SOLA shows with this premiere is that contemporary dance here no longer has to apologise for its existence before a larger audience; it simply needs to find the right wall.
Are you ready to watch dance where no one expects it, in an empty hall rather than a curtained auditorium?
