ONLY UNDER is a performance about forces: invisible, structural, emotional, and physical. Inspired by wave mechanics, the work explores how movements—both choreographic and social—emerge only under certain conditions. The performance treats the dancers as bodies within an active environment rather than as characters. They respond to shifting conditions: compression, flow, interference, and imbalance. Movement emerges in the same way waves do—from what lies beneath. Every visible gesture is shaped by a layer that remains unseen: an impulse, a constraint, a presence, or an absence. ONLY UNDER asks what conditions are necessary for change. What pressures generate movement? How does hidden force shape visible outcomes? And who bears the weight of the forces that make movement possible? It is a dance about what lies beneath the surface, and about how the invisible becomes inevitable.
Authors and performers: Bruno Isaković and Ana Mrak / Production: UO Malo sutra / Co-production: Domino Association / Sound design: Hrvoje Nikšić / Lighting design: Ema Kani / Video design: Studio Baranda / Dramaturgical support: Mia Zalukar / Graphic design: Designed Motion / In collaboration with: KNAP Theatre
Bruno Isaković is a dance artist and choreographer living and working in Zagreb. He graduated in contemporary dance from the Amsterdam School of the Arts in 2009. From 2011 to 2015 he was a member of the Zagreb Dance Company.
He collaborates with numerous choreographers and theatre makers, including Francesco Scavetta, Ivana Müller, Irma Omerzo, Ana Vnučec, Jan Martens, Kainkolektiv, Silvija Marchig, Pavle Heidler, Aleksandra Janeva Imfeld, Mila Pavičević, Ana-Maria Bogdanović, Katarina Pejović and Mia Zalukar. He regularly leads dance workshops and courses internationally.
He received the Jury Award for Best Solo Performance at the Solo Dance International Festival in Budapest and the professional award for Best Choreographer for The Unholy (2016). His solo Denuded (2013) has toured worldwide—from New York, Brazil, Tokyo and London to São Paulo and Hobart. Isaković is the artistic director of the Sounded Bodies performing arts festival in Zagreb.
Ana Mrak born in Varaždin, studied at the Salzburg Experimental Dance Academy and the Tisch School of the Arts (New York). During her studies, she collaborated with several international dance companies (Susan Quinn Dance Co., Davis Freeman and Random Scream, Hubert Lepka and Lawine Torrèn, Mateja Bučar and the DUM collective).
After returning to Croatia, she co-founded the artistic organization dance_lab collective with Nensi Lazić in 2003, where she participated in the creation of several dance projects, including her first authored work Redrum Sessions, for which she received the First Prize at the Platform for Young Choreographers in 2009.
Since 2004, she has been a member of the Studio for Contemporary Dance. She has participated in nearly all of the ensemble’s productions and collaborated with numerous prominent figures in contemporary dance and theatre (Oliver Frljić, Saša Božić, Ksenija Zec, Matija Ferlin, Begum Erciyas, Gregor Luštek, Dario Harjaček, Rajko Pavlić, Matjaž Farič). Alongside SCD, she has also worked as a performer with various organizations on the dance scene, including VRUM Performing Arts Collective, Četveroruka, and Liberdance.
She was nominated for the Croatian Theatre Award in 2010 for her performance in Matija Ferlin’s Performance, and in 2020 for Wildness by Sonja Pregrad and Ana Kreitmeyer. In recent years, she has presented several choreographic and co-authored projects at various institutions and contemporary dance festivals in Croatia.
She currently works as a performer and coordinator of the artistic program of the Studio for Contemporary Dance, actively teaches contemporary dance techniques in professional institutions in Croatia and abroad, and teaches Contemporary Dance Technique and the course Performance Workshop 1 as a teaching assistant (external associate) at the Department of Dance, Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb.
