Maintaining Rhythm, Video Performance, 2019. 

Text from Danica I. J. Knežević, PhD thesis, Holding Space: Holding Space: The negotiation of Self and Other in Performative Art Practice as a site of Caregiving.

The Kolo is a circle dance and is performed at cultural festivities, traditionally by a group of people that form a circle by holding hands. The steps, movements, and costumes (known as Noše) differ according to the Balkan region from where the participants originate. The accompanying music is fast, and each person dances the Kolo differently, with the steps dependent on the dancer’s ability and personality. With the combination of music and different techniques, each person has a different virtuosity, which at times constructs forceful sounds. This ritual is symbolic of the relationship between cultural, identity, obligation, and gender politics that remains part of the Australian-Croatian culture. The Kolo is also traditionally danced to connect the village or community. People gather around, performing the steps and chanting to entice the possible suitor, to tell a story, or to express national pride or deep sorrow. Folklore, in the form of dance in the Croatian tradition, was passed on to younger generations by word-of-mouth. The conversations of the dance were there to be remembered but also to improvise, including reciting poems or stories or singing. Finally, the Kolo is a symbol of resistance and defiance. It displays skill, identity, and spiritual and cultural attachment. It is an interpretation of feeling, belonging and pride.

In Maintaining Rhythm, the performance expresses the ritualistic experience of caring for others. Multiple factors contribute to the preservation, deconstruction, nurture and dismantling of the self. The work symbolises the individual understanding of self, including the requirement to come together to care for family members. The significance of the dance is that in contemporary Croatian culture, it is performed at joyous celebrations. The sounds of the stomping of feet carrying out the dance, along with my voice speaking the words I would say to my grandfather each evening to get him to bed each evening. These were the familiar and repetitive words used daily to care for my grandfather, who was blind and had dementia. It was rhythmic and repetitive to maintain his rhythm, his dance to get to bed. This is akin to the traditional calling to song in Croatian culture. It also mimics the nature of Kolo music. Some of the words are, “Aijde” (let’s go), “Idemo” (we are going), “Dođi” (come), “Ne mogu” (I
cannot).

The performance work Maintaining Rhythm is set around a black circle that is drawn on the ground. The mark symbolises the routine that is set by my family, and the structure
of the home that keeps them safe from their past: nourishing their identity, their rituals and their longing for their homeland (nostalgia). This work displays a ritual approach to maintaining an identity, a house, a culture, and family life. In the performance, the performers’ hands do not touch; instead, the movement is danced as an individual. The participants nevertheless work with each other to maintain the rhythm of the steps and the momentum of the circle. Both performers sometimes dance at the same time and at other times alone. I start off the performance by walking towards the circle. As my feet reach the circle, I start to perform the Kolo. As I make an entire loop of the circle, my aunty approaches the circle; as she starts the Kolo, I then leave the circle. She then dances
and does an entire loop. As she completes the circle, I approach and start the circle again.

There is no end nor beginning to this work. Caring in a relationship does not end or begin. It is only final in the final separation: death.