'Heroes have danced, within the land of Serbia.'

Heroes are examples of courage.
Wedding is a social event, which brings together two individuals.
The courage of an individual is best seen in a relationship with another person.
How to find a hero inside oneself – despite all social circumstances?

How to think the phenomenon of a 'wedding' and its social meaning, which goes back centuries? In everyday reality the object given most attention is the choice of a restaurant, as it is impossible to control everything. The higher the price, the more confidence can be had in the good outcome of the event. This isn't entertaining for you anyway; you have a chance to be delighted! Maybe just by looking at all this, from somewhere there at the back. Like voyeurs. Speak then, when you really have a chance to see such phenomena, and feel them too, about how romanticism feeds on cash?

Most men pretend not to be interested in all of this at all. And the women say: 'Just look at them, they really love each other!' Do you know that story about how women force-fed their husbands for a competition for the fattest? The winner would be eaten by the women, but before the ceremony, he had the right to choose a recipe according to which he will be prepared for the feast. The one in the story chose to be eaten raw. And then somewhere from the background we hear her voice: 'I can afford, to be a princess one day in my life?' And then his: 'Of course, you can!'

The wedding day is really her day.
She organises, she chooses, she defines the ceremony.
The wedding day is her masterpiece.
On the wedding day she passes from being owned by her father to being owned by another man.

And the musicians play on...
Open your eyes, that way you can hear the music better and better feel the earth under your feet...

The play 'Heroes Have Danced' represents thoughts about the place of the individual in group and society, the human relations of inferiority and superiority, identity crisis, desires and dreams, love and pain, the fear of individuals, loss of words, dominance of the visual in contemporary society, supremacy of institutions, which divide us into the ones who are watching, and the ones who are being watched. About a determined man, who resists to, either because of circumstances or other people lose his essence...

Raw physicality and contemporary events always create a new and original story. Everyone has their virtues on which they ride, and faults, which they hide. Where is the boundary between the personality of an individual and their role in society? In order to measure the scope of the constitution of social reality, in which we find ourselves, we should look at it: when, where, how and why we dance. We are all actors, players in some 'show', which is more or less 'reality', and which moves from one generation to the next.

Heroes have danced.
There and then. They still dance today. Tomorrow may not exist.

Text by: Andreja Kopač
 

Branko Potočan was born on 5th February 1963 in Trbovlje (Slovenia). During his years in primary school, he learned ballroom dances and spent eight years dancing traditional dances. In the eighties, he founded his own breakdance group Gumiflex. Since his youth he has been actively engaged in sports. Among other things he also perfected his knowledge at the Faculty of Sports in Ljubljana. Before he begun his professional dance career, he worked in a coal mine in Hrastnik.
In 1986 he joined Plesni Teater Ljubljana.
In 1990, he became a member of the Belgium group Ultima Vez, led by Wim Vandekeybus. During the next two and a half years he danced with him.
In 1994 he founded another group of his own, called Fourklor. With his dancers he has already staged fifteen performances and had numerous guest appearances at home and abroad.
The group received an award for metaphysical physical theatre experience and for achieving original group energy at the alternative and new theatre festival INFANT 97 and a special jury award at the international theatre festival MESS 98 in Sarajevo. In 1996 the author, Branko Potočan, received a national award in the field of artistic creation, "Zlata ptica", for the performance "Sanjam spomin, a se spominjam sanj" (I Dream a Memory, But I Remember Dreaming). In 2005 he received and award »Golden Wand« for directing children's movement performance »Kekec«. In 2007 he received an award – chosen for the best performance by the audience; on the Slovene dance festival “Moving cake” for the performance “Rusty trumpets”.
Branko is an active choreographer and movement adviser in different institutional theatre productions. For several years he has been co-operating with the theatre Slovensko mladinsko gledališče SMG, where he has choreographed many successful theatre performances.
Branko is director of the theatre production organization Vitkar zavod, which is operating in the field of contemporary dance and circus, creating different projects, organizing various workshops, opening space for creativity and collaboration.
Branko is organizing annual international festival of contemporary theatre and dance “Red Beats” since 2003.

Branko is also a member of the Betontanc group.