Queer New York International Arts Festival: Bruno Isaković and Nataša Rajković
Company:
NYU Skirball
NYU Skirball presents the Queer New York International Arts Festival, featuring works from a diverse group of international artists, running February 7-17, 2024, at NYU Skirball. The festival, returning to New York after a six-year hiatus, questions traditional definitions and the understanding of queerness in artistic practice in concept and/or form. The 2024 festival features artists from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, and Germany whose works explore a range of contemporary issues related to queer identity and marginalization, opening up topics such as sex work, migration, Indigenous rights, political prosecution, and the new conservatism. QNYIAF, curated and produced by Zvonimir Dobrović (founder and artistic director of Queer Zagreb and Perforations festivals in Croatia), will include performances, a video installation/exhibition, and a series of public talks with artists and curators.
Bruno Isaković and Nataša Rajković (Croatia)
Theatre
Co-directors Bruno Isaković and Nataša Rajković spent several months with four Argentinian sex workers, leading to their theater piece, Yira, yira (Cruising, cruising), which reveals aspects of sex work we rarely think about. Performed by Leandra, Sofia, Larry and Pichon, and through their stories, we enter the world of sex work defined both by personal choice and circumstances. We also become aware that at the same time we are talking about work conditions in general, demand and supply curves in an open market, margins and centers and social powers that come with those positions. Sex work therefore becomes a complex crossroad of economy, sex, gender, age, power dynamics, class, and choice. When we think about the exchange of money for sex, we usually consider only the clients who pay sex workers for their service, but what is the full price in reality and who pays it in the end? Clients with their money or sex workers with their social status, legal insecurities and other risks that come with the job? There will be a post-performance discussion on February 7.
Bruno Isaković is a performer and choreographer living in Zagreb, Croatia. He studied contemporary dance in Amsterdam and Rotterdam and has received various scholarships, as well as Jury Award and Best Solo Dance at the Solo Dance International Festival in Budapest, along with a Croatian National Award in 2016 as the best choreographer. His solo Denuded (2013) toured to over 35 countries around the world, from New York, Tokyo, London, Sao Paolo to Hobart. He is the artistic director of the Sounded Bodies Festival in Zagreb, Croatia.
Nataša Rajković is a theatre director, dramaturg, writer, producer and former artistic director of the Culture of Change within the Student Centre in Zagreb. She currently teaches at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb. Collaborating with the theatre director Bobo Jelčić, they developed their own theatre concept, won numerous awards, and toured venues and festivals with their performances all over Europe. Culture of Change co-productions have garnered more than 50 national and international awards and recognitions, establishing a new generation of artists from all fields of artistic creation. Most recently Nataša directed Astronaut Wittgenstein at the renowned Wiener Festwochen in Austria.
Tickets start at $25, and can be purchased online, by visiting the box office in person, Tuesday – Saturday from 12:00 pm - 6:00 pm, or by calling 212.998.4941.
