Alice

ALICE is a contemporary dance performance inspired by Alice’s journey down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. Rather than imagining Wonderland as the opposite of reality, the performance proposes it as a space shaped by the performers themselves and by the shared conditions of their profession: a continuous negotiation between artistic freedom, physical demands, the search for meaning, and the persistence required to keep going. 

Four dancers enter this landscape through a children's slide placed on stage - their metaphorical rabbit hole. Dressed in numbered sports jerseys, they carry with them the labels and rules of the world they come from. In another reality, these labels might lose their meaning or even become unnecessary.

As the performers navigate shifting physical and inner landscapes, they find themselves in an ongoing loop, unable to escape. Like our own habits, memories, and patterns, the space between escape and return proves difficult to leave behind. In the search for authenticity and new possibilities, they remain connected to what they already know and constantly fall back into what feels familiar.

The slide becomes a symbol of this continuous journey: standing at the top, sliding into the unknown, and finding oneself back at the bottom, ready to begin again. The cycle is no longer driven by the expectation of a final transformation, but by anticipation itself - the fleeting excitement of suspense and the inevitable return to familiar ground.

ALICE lives between hope and habit, between the desire to escape and the pull of belonging. 

Andrea K. Schlehwein + NETZWERK AKS is an award-winning international artists' collective with a focus on dance under the artistic direction of Andrea K. Schlehwein. Nomadically conceived, it has its temporary base at ART SPACE stift millstatt since 2008. The collective creates an average of 2-3 full-length dance productions per year alongside several smaller formats that are mostly premiered at ART SPACE stift millstatt in Austria and later presented at international festivals and in renowned art venues around the world.

Petra Peček is a Slovenian freelance dancer, choreographer and teacher. After completing her education at Contemporary Dance High School in Ljubljana, she continued her studies at the Budapest Contemporary Dance Academy. She has collaborated with various Slovenian and international artists as well creating her own pieces. Since 2023, she has been collaborating with Andrea K. Schlehwein + NETZWERK AKS dancing in core productions and creating her own work.