This GPS Chats features GPS Residency artists Jelena Alempijević from Serbia and Margareta Firinger from Croatia. Jelena and Margareta will be in residence at Movement Research for three weeks during the 2026 Winter MELT workshop intensive from January 10-February 1, 2026 through the GPS/Global Practice Sharing program. Both artists will reflect on their creative practices and approaches to dancemaking, strategies around horizontal leadership within collective work, and provide an overview of the arts and culture scene in their respective countries.
Margareta will provide a brief introduction to her background in contemporary dance—as a dancer, choreographer, teacher, and passionate improviser. Then focus on the Škvadra collective—an artistic organization founded in 2018 in Zagreb, made of nine young, professional dance artists. This collective emerged from the desire to create their own opportunities, collaborations, and projects. The collective pushes the boundaries of institutional dance practice by exploring alternative performance contexts, including site-specific works. She will also address the challenges of horizontal hierarchy and collective work—a model that Škvadra fosters to encourage mutual learning, professional relationships as well as friendship, and equitable communication within the group.
Jelena will introduce the work of the artist collective Pokretnica from Novi Sad, Serbia, and the association Practicable – Platform for Contemporary Art and Culture. She will discuss models of organization, collaboration, and communication, and how these structures inform the artistic outcomes that emerge in dialogue with the local context.
Founded in 2015, Practicable is a civil society organization dedicated to developing and promoting the local contemporary art scene, with a focus on performing arts, dance, and theatre. The association supports self-organization, horizontal knowledge exchange, and interdisciplinary collaboration, and has produced numerous performances, educational programs, and the annual Pokretnica Festival.
The Pokretnica collective consists of eight artists working across contemporary dance, music, performance, and design. Their work explores improvisation, choreography, and sustainable artistic practices rooted in the local environment and collective work processes.
*This event is part of a yearlong celebration of the 10th Anniversary of the GPS program at Movement Research! Please join us for more events TBA in the upcoming year!
The GPS Residencies in NYC for Jelena Alempijević and Margareta Firinger are organized in partnership with Objekt plesa / Object of Dance (Croatia) and STATION – Service for contemporary dance (Serbia), with support from the Trust for Mutual Understanding.
For event-related questions, please email programs@movementresearch.org.
Accessibility Notes
- This event includes auditive guidance.
- This event includes text/images/video shared on a large screen tv.
To request ASL interpretation or Audio Description, please email accessibility@movementresearch.org, subject line “ASL/Audio Description Request, “GPS Chats” at least three (3) weeks prior to the event date.
For access-related questions and requests, please contact accessibility@movementresearch.org, subject line “GPS Chats.”
