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DEAR LADIES, THANK YOU 2011

Performance presented in Kapelica Gallery 2011
Idea and performance: Ana Čigon
Technical support: Vasja Progar

In the performance I speak out and write down the names and surnames of 126 female artists which I have learned by heart by a predefined order. The number of the names is the same as the number of male artists I came up with by "searching" in my memory for artists names I new by heart, prior to learning new female names. Only 20% of the artists I came up with were female. I decided to "balance" the knowledge of names, by learning as much names of women artists to balance it with male ones.

In the performance I present this act of learning an balancing, by speaking and writing down the learned names of women artists. I write them in the spaces between names of male artists that are, at the begining of the performance, already written on the floor (this are the names of 126 male artists that I came up with by "searching" my memory). At the end I bow with my body turned towards the written names and in this way say thank you to all the artists (female and male). Below is the text of the invitation to this performance:

"Dear Ladies, Thank You" is a multimedia performance - my thanks to female artists from the recent and more distant past who have (in spite of different obstacles) succeeded in becoming visible in the public and artistic world. It is an intervention in my own memory: I turned the questions about how well known are female artists onto myself and decided to attempt to balance that knowledge against the presence of male authors in my memory. I set out to affirm the presence of these authors in my mind while at the same time reflecting on their presence in the public arena.
In the performance I directly invokes the names of numerous female artists which I have learned by heart, and write their names on to the floor. My face is filmed in real time and the projection slowly unveils it as the names are written down. The speed of writing dynam ically dictates the lighting of the entire stage.

First variation of DEAR LADIES, THANK YOU 2009
dance, video, camera, 2009
Idea and construction of the camera for the face real-time footage: Nika Autor and Miha Ciglar
First presentation of Dear ladies, thank you in 2009 was presented at the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television, Ljubljana. The work is in progress. New modefied version was presented in 2011.
The topic of the multimedia performance was dedicated to female artists from the past and their lifestyle which was usually really hard and consisted of a lot of self-discipline and sacrifices. On top of their tough life and extra work they continued doing what they were striving for, they also many times encountered periods of loneliness and desperation. The performance was an homage (or rather femage) to three chosen Slovene artists for their strength of will and their extraordinary life stories, and to remember how different were the circumstances for women (artists) in the past. Dance was developed during classes of Art of Movement at the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television (professor Tanja Zgonc) and was accompanied with two videos, one on the left and one on the right side of the stage which was covered with names of Slovene female artists. One video output was showing inserts from the artists' life and the other video was connected to a camera. The camera was positioned in front of my face, so the spectators were always getting a real-time footage of my face. In this way I was tryed to show a connection between my work and lifestyle with their lives I and was at the same time thanking them for their strength and their works of art. The dance on the written signatures of the female artists was a metaphoric expression of women solidarity and understanding of the great impact our social positions have on our work and life.