Homesick Festival

The project’s creator, Michikazu Matsune, left Japan as a teenager and now lives in Vienna. As a foreigner, he was often asked if he felt nostalgic, to which he answered “no” for years, until recently. 2017. In 2018, homesickness becomes the theme of his new art project – the Homesick Festival – a series of performances performed in the viewers’ homes – your apartments and houses!

Artists perform performances inspired by their own history, childhood, everyday life, desires or dreams. Your home becomes an intimate stage – from contemporary dance in your living room, interactive protest in your kitchen, to a theatrical essay in your bedroom! Homesick Festival offers you the opportunity to reconnect with your own experience of home, current location, life situation or state of being.

Book us and invite your friends, family and neighbors!

You choose the audience, so use this opportunity to reunite your loved ones, as a theatrical catchphrase for a party, a family celebration, or a unique experience you want to share with friends and family!
Homesick festival is coming home!

You can host the Homesick Festival Zagreb at the e-mail address: ganznoveperforacije@gmail.com or at 095-355-9219. Contact us and arrange the exact date, time and artists.

Possible performance dates are:
Friday, June 7th at 8pm
Saturday, June 8th at 5pm and 8pm
Sunday, June 9th at 5pm and 8pm
Friday, June 14th at 8pm
Saturday, June 15th at 5pm and 8pm
Sunday, June 16th at 5pm and 8pm
Friday, June 28th at 8pm
Saturday, June 29th at 5pm and 8pm
Sunday, June 30th at 5pm and 8pm

Let us know the desired date and time of the performance (suggest two dates that would suit you) and the name of one desired artist, and we will suggest the second one. Send us your name, surname, address and neighborhood (in Zagreb), the expected number of guests and your contact phone number. Upon booking, you will receive an e-mail confirmation with the date and time of the performance and the names of the artists, and on the day of the performance, a couple of artists will come to your home to perform the shows live.

Will I have any costs?

There is no charge for performances at the Homesick Festival Zagreb, but you can leave us a donation after each performance. Everything else needed for the production of the performances (e.g. props and costumes) is provided by the artists.

Who are the artists?

Michikazu Matsune grew up in the coastal city of Kobe, Japan. He spent most of his childhood with his brothers and friends at the nearby beach. After graduating from high school, Michikazu traveled to Europe and eventually moved to Vienna, Austria, where he has lived for over 20 years. As a foreigner, he was often asked if he felt homesick, and to that familiar question, he always answered “no” – until recently. Michikazu is a performance artist who works in a variety of formats, contexts, and spaces, including theater, museums, public and private spaces. His work, characterized by poetic absurdity, playfully and critically reflects on our globalized world. His favorite fruit is watermelon. www.michikazumatsune.info

Bruno Isaković is a performer and choreographer who grew up on the edges of the Balkan Peninsula, where people act first and think later, and where inconsistency is the only thing that is consistent. As a child, he took apart a battery-operated mini fan and placed his sister’s Barbie body parts on it to watch them spin and shoot through space. Wanting to learn more about it, he made his first life mistake by enrolling in the Secondary Electrical Engineering School, where he learned nothing about the spinning of body parts. The future didn’t seem bright, but luck found Bruno at his first electro party in the nineties, when he managed to split the atoms in his head and untie his body through jumps and turns on the dance floor. Bruno graduated from the Amsterdam School of the Arts and has been creating body art and dance performances ever since, where he often searches, finds and loses meaning by answering the questions of how we got where we are and became who we are. His performances have been presented at festivals in New York, Tokyo, London, Sao Paulo and Hobart. www.brunoisakovic.org

Vedrana Klepica was born in a small working-class town in continental Croatia, where sunsets often mirror the phenomenon of the aurora borealis in quality and appearance, due to the refraction of the sun’s rays in collision with atmospheric pollution, mainly smoke and sulfur gases emitted by the local petrochemical industry. She soon discovered that poetry has the ability to reproduce even in such dark and gloomy contexts, and began writing on her own initiative, mainly in radical performance drama forms in which she was both the performer of the text and the only audience. A few years later, she enrolled in dramaturgy and has since then continuously depressed viewers at home and abroad with her works. Wikipedia_Vedrana_Klepica

Nina Kurtela was born in Yugoslavia, and now lives in the same place, Croatia. Over the past 15 years, she has spent considerable time in Vienna, Paris, Helsinki, Tbilisi, Taipei, Portland and Brno, and has lived in Berlin for almost a decade. Constantly on the move, she has often felt elated, inspired, curious, exhausted, lonely, nostalgic, happy and sad. Her experience of a displaced and precarious life as an artist has led her to question the concepts of home, identity and belonging. Living and working on the relationships between Berlin and Zagreb, dance and visual arts, material and immaterial, she slowly realizes that home is not just a physical place, and increasingly begins to feel at home precisely in these in-between spaces, creating her own imaginary space of existence. www.ninakurtela.com

What kind of performances can I expect?

It all depends on the artists who come to you. Michikazu Matsune is a performance artist, Bruno Isaković is a performer and choreographer, Vedrana Klepica is a playwright and theater director, and Nina Kurtela is a dance and visual artist.

You can get more information about the artists as well as previous editions of the Homesick Festival in Vienna (2017) and Düsseldorf (2019) at www.homesickfestival.eu .

For all questions, information and appointment reservations, feel free to contact us at ganznoveperforacije@gmail.com or at 095-355-9219.

Homesick Festival Zagreb is realized as part of the Ganz new Perforation Festival with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, the City Office for Culture, Education and Sports of the City of Zagreb, DANCE ON TOUR AUSTRIA, a collaboration project between Tanzquartier Wien and the Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Austria and the Japan Foundation.

The program is implemented through the active audience platform of the collaborative project BeSpectactive! with the support of Creative Europe

The project’s author Michikazu Matsune left Japan as a teenager and now lives in Vienna. Being a foreigner he has been repeatedly asked if he has ever been homesick, a question to which he always answered with a “no” – until recently when he decided to make a project out of it – Homesick Festival – a series of performances that are performed in private homes of its viewers – your flats and houses!

Artists present performances inspired by their own history, childhood, everyday life, wishes or dreams. From dancing in the living room, protesting in the kitchen to philosophizing in the bedroom – your home becomes an intimate stage for shared experiences! Homesick Festival offers opportunities to (re)connect with your own experience of home, your current location, life situation and the state of being.

Book us and invite your friends, family and neighbors!

You choose your audience, so why not use this as an opportunity to reunite with your closest ones, as a theatrical intro into your own party, family celebration or as a unique experience you want to share with your friends and family! Homesick Festival comes to your home!

I want to invite you to my home, what do I do?

Homesick Festival Zagreb can be reached at e-mail: ganznoveperforacije@gmail.com or at +385-95-355-9219. Contact us and arrange the exact date, time and artists.

You can book one of the following dates:
Friday, June 7th at 8pm
Saturday, June 8th at 5pm and 8pm
Sunday, June 9th at 5pm and 8pm
Friday, June 14th at 8pm
Saturday, June 15th at 5pm and 8pm
Sunday, June 16th at 5pm and 8pm
Friday, June 28th at 8pm
Saturday, June 29th at 5pm and 8pm

Let us know your preferred date and time of the performance (suggest us two possible dates). Mention your preferred artist and we will suggest the accompanying second artist. Also send us your name, surname, address and district (in Zagreb), expected number of guests and your contact phone. Upon booking, you will receive an e-mail confirmation with date and time of the performances and names of the artists. On the day of the performance, a pair of artists visit your home to perform in person.

Will I have any costs?

Homesick Festival’s performances are free of charge, but if you wish you can leave us a donation. Everything else needed for the realization of the performances (props, costumes, etc…) will be brought by the artists.

Who are the artists?

Michikazu Matsune grew up in a seaside town of Kobe, Japan. Much of his time as a child was spent with his brothers and friends at a nearby beach. When he graduated from high school, Michikazu traveled to Europe and eventually moved to Vienna, Austria, where he has lived for over 20 years. Being a foreigner he has been repeatedly asked if he has ever been homesick, a question to which he always answered with a “no” – until recently. Michikazu is a performance artist who works in various formats, contexts and spaces such as stage, museums, public and private spaces. His work, often containing poetic absurdity, reflects our globalized society playfully and critically. Ever since he was little, his favorite fruit has been watermelon. www.michikazumatsune.info

Bruno Isaković is a performer and choreographer who grew up on the edges of the Balkan Peninsula where people first act and then think and where inconsistency is the only thing that is consistent. As a young boy he disassembled an AA battery driven mini-fan on which he placed the body parts of his sister’s Barbie dolls to watch them spin and shoot across space. Eager to understand how this all works, he made his first crucial life-error, which was to study at an Electrical Engineering High School where he learned nothing about spinning body parts. The future did not appear bright, but luck found its way to Bruno at his first electro party in the 90s, where he succeeded in splitting the atoms in his head and discharging his body through jumps and turns on the dance floor. Since then, Bruno graduated Contemporary dance from Amsterdam School of the Arts and has been creating body/dance performance works where he is often searching, finding and losing sense in his quest to answer questions of how we manage to get where and become who we are. His performances have been presented at festivals in New York, Tokyo, London, Sao Paulo and Hobart. www.brunoisakovic.org

Vedrana Klepica was born in a small working-class town in continental Croatia, where the sunsets often had an aurora-borealis type of quality, mainly due to the phenomena of sunlight fractioning in crashes with cloud-like formations of smoke and sulfur coming from the local petrochemical industry. She quickly began to understand how there is always poetry to be found even in the gloomiest and toxic of contexts, and she decided to note it down on paper, mostly in radical forms of performative texts that she would energetically perform later for herself, simultaneously being both the performer of the text and its only audience. A couple of years later, she decided to study dramaturgy, and since then she has been continually depressing audiences at home and abroad with her plays and performances. Wikipedia_Vedrana_Klepica

Nina Kurtela was born in Yugoslavia and now lives in the same place, in Croatia. In the last 15 years she spent longer periods of time in Vienna, Paris, Helsinki, Tbilisi, Taipei, Portland, Brno and lived for almost a decade in Berlin. At times she felt excited, inspired, curious, overwhelmed, dislocated, lonely, nostalgic, happy and sad. Her experience of displacement and precarious life as an artist led her to question notions of identity and belonging within her work. Through years of practice, living between Berlin and Zagreb and working between dance and visual arts, material and immaterial, she realized that home is not only a physical place. She started to feel more and more at ease in those in-between spaces, creating her own personal imaginary space of existence. www.ninakurtela.com

What kind of performances can I expect?

It all depends on the artists that visit your home. Michikazu Matsune is a performance artist, Bruno Isaković is a performer and choreographer, Vedrana Klepica is a playwright and theater director and Nina Kurtela is a dance and visual artist. More info on the artists and the preceding Homesick Festival editions in Vienna (2017) and Düsseldorf (2019) you can find at www.homesickfestival.eu .

For all information, questions and reservation of performances, contact us via e-mail: ganznoveperforacije@gmail.com or at +385-95-355-9219.

Homesick Festival Zagreb is realized within Ganz New Perforations Festival with the support of Croatian Ministry of Culture, Zagreb City Office for Culture, Education and Sport, DANCE ON TOUR AUSTRIA – a project by Tanzquartier Wien in cooperation with the Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs and Japan Foundation.

The program is implemented through the platform of active spectatorship of the collaboration project BeSpectactive! with the support of Creative Europe