Imre Vass: MMXXV

Over recent decades, the digital imaginary of the internet has expanded the realm of sexual arousal and fantasy on a scale unprecedented in human history. Sexual, romantic and other interpersonal relationships have become saturated with a proliferation of images and scenarios. In the Year of the Snake, Imre Vass approaches these phenomena through contemporary choreography—with a sense of humour.

The artists who created and perform in MMXXV are familiar to Ljubljana audiences. In 2025, choreographer Imre Vass was an artist in residence at Nomad Dance Academy Slovenia through Creative Crossroads, a programme within the European project Life Long Burning. Choreographic works by Adrienn Hód and Csaba Molnár have been presented at Španski borci in Moste on several occasions. Molnár also created Masterpiece for Six Dancers with the En-Knap Group ensemble. Within European contemporary dance, few can rival the incisive, intelligent and disarming humour of Hungarian choreographers.

In MMXXV, Imre Vass invites us to surrender to the sensory experience of listening to MCMXC a.D. (1990), the album by the German-Romanian phenomenon Enigma that dominated European new-age pop charts thirty-five years ago. The performance creates an immersive laboratory where, as we watch the dancers’ choreographic actions, our senses can explore the impulses that stimulate sexual arousal. The performers “do not impose their theatrical or compositional ideas on Enigma, but allow themselves to be guided by it. They sink into it, release the impulses hidden in their pelvises and, to the emblematic synthesised sounds of the shakuhachi flute, allow their desires to awaken. Free of shame and inhibition, they connect with themselves and with other human and non-human materials and beings that capture their attention.” Category: dangerously free. Liberated sensuality as a political programme, so to speak.

Part of CoFestival 2026

CoFestival returns to Ljubljana for its 15th edition, bringing eight days of contemporary dance, performances, workshops, talks and an exhibition to venues across the city. The programme brings together Slovenian and international artists from across Europe, Tanzania and Canada. Through diverse choreographic approaches, their works explore gender and eroticism, visibility and invisibility, and the relationship between social norms and individuality.