M:  Ladies and Gentlemen,

D:  Dear friends.

M & D: Good evening and welcome to the opening of a new edition of CoFestival.

D: …To the opening of the festival that we made with a hundred euros.

M: …You must have misread this. Are you trying to say: the festival that we made with a million euros?

D:   Mitja, you know very well that the CoFestival budget is just over a hundred, and that it would be best to leave this issue to Bojana and Ivana to show us in their event How to Make a Festival with a Hundred and a Million euros.

M: I agree. (laughter)

D: This year’s contemporary dance festival, featuring a hundred and one artists, brings a wide range of art events taking place in different venues around Ljubljana up until 6 December.

M: Our cooperations are opening up the space to various art practices reflected in contemporary dance one way or the other. We are bringing international productions, choreography workshops, presentations, debates and film afternoons.

D: The Festival is establishing a shared space and promoting mutual assistance.
It is the result of combined art and production efforts by Kino Šiška and Nomad Dance Academy as well as cooperation with local and foreign partners.

M: The Art of Co-living remains the slogan, or, better to say, the recipe for the festival. Due to its programme it is positioned at the crossover of the society and arts, which we see as an actual step towards co-living.

D: Never before have humanity and art been so alienated from their essence. We are sometimes being persuaded that the world lacks sufficient resources, lacks sufficient space for all of us. I believe, however, it is all a matter of organisation and distribution of resources. And it is because of this that general human and artistic Co-living have grown and intensified in importance.

M: Alongside the technological knowhow and media progress, the control mechanisms also labelled the culture of fear are also on the rise. Lately they have reached an immense and gruesome growth in line with various stimulated events, such as the financial crisis and austerity measures, insecure future, predicted epidemics, terrorism as well as the refugee issue.

D: Rather than change, we fear the control of people and the uncontrollable spread of the culture of fear. I can no longer separate my work from myself, and my own ideas from ideas of my colleagues, therefore I need the space of co-living to learn and change myself. Why would anyone want to be more and more like themselves!?

To us, Co-living is a platform to train respectfulness and equivalence.

M: We need Co-living based on social tolerance, acceptance of difference, and multiculturalism.
We should not strip ourselves of the right to the will to change, and we should not agree to manipulate art in the interest of the culture of fear. Humanity and art require fighters for change and artists for difference.

D: Let us make Co-living a challenge and an opportunity for us and for art.

M: As you know, it’s not only about children, it is about all of us.

D: We all are a diverse and equal family.