BADco. is a collaborative performance collective based in Zagreb, Croatia. The artistic core of the collective are Ivana Ivković, Ana Kreitmeyer, Tomislav Medak, Goran Sergej Pristaš, Nikolina Pristaš and Zrinka Užbinec.

As a combination of three choreographers / dancers, two dramaturgs and one philosopher, plus the company production manager, since its beginning (2000), BADco. systematically focuses on the research of protocols of performing, presenting and observing by structuring its projects around diverse formal and perceptual relations and contexts. Reconfiguring established relations between performance and audience, challenging perspectival givens and architectonics of performance, problematizing of communicational structures – all of that makes BADco. an internationally significant artistic phenomenon and one of the most differentiated performance experiences.

So far the group has produced the following works: Man.Chair (2000), 2tri4 (2001), Diderot’s Nephew or Blood is Thicker than Water (2001), Solo Me (2002), RibCage (2002), Walk This Way (2003), Mass (for Election Day Silence) (2003), Deleted Messages (2004), Fleshdance (2004), memories are made of this… performance notes (2006), Gravidation (2006), Changes (2007), 1 poor and one 0 (2008), The League of Time (2009), SEMI-INTERPRETATIONS or how to explain contemporary dance to an undead hare (2010), Point of Convergence (2010), Responsibility for Things Seen, Tales in Negative Space (2011), Black and Forth (2012), TVolution will not be televised (2013), A Pound of Hysteria, Acceleration… – melodrama (2013), Broken Performances (2013), A Lesser Evil (2014), The Drawer (2015), The Stranger (2015), Spores (2016), Correcting Rhythm (2017), Time Bombs (2017), The Foundation Pit (2018), Impossible Dances (2019), rePUBLIC IN THE ORCHESTRA PIT (2019) and The Labour of Panic (2020).

BADco’s works have been presented in: Zagreb, Dubrovnik (Art Workshop Lazareti), Rijeka (Male scene, Drugo More, Rijeka Summer Nights), Pula (MKFM), Osijek (Barutana, National theatre Osijek), Umag (Golden Lion Festival), Zadar (Zadar snova, Monoplay Festival), Karlovac (Free Dance Festival), Sisak (KKV), Rovinj (Blitz Festival), Split (Youth Center), Prague (Dance Zone, 4+4 Days in Motion), Warsaw (Rozdroze Festival), London (The Place/Aerowaves, Chelsea Theater), Greifswald (Tanztendänzen), Amsterdam (Julidans), Luxemburg (Coeur des Capucines), Sibiu (International Theatre Festival), Bergen (BIT, Oktoberdans), New York (PS122, La MaMa), San Diego (Sushi), Berlin (Podewill, Sophiensalle / Tanz im August, Volksbühne), Vienna (Tanzquartier Wien, GarageX), Ljubljana (Cankarjev dom/Exodos, Aksioma, Stara Elektrarna / Maska), Sarajevo (National theatre / Days of Croatian Culture), Novi Sad (Infant, Balkan Dance Platform, PerArt / Serbian National Theatre), Belgrade (Kondenz Festival, BITEF teatar / TkH), Piran (Tartini theatre), Athens (BYCEM, The Onassis Cultural Center), Tallin (Kanuti Gildi Saal), Klaipeda, Gdansk, Liepaja, Koper, Podgorica (FIAT), Skopje (Balkan Dance Platform), Stuttgart (Treffpunkt), Riga (Homo Novus), Constanta, Regensburg (Donumenta), Graz (Steirischer Herbst), Odessa, Istanbul, Madrid (In-presentable), Tromso (Radstua Theatre), Exeter, Bath, Lincoln (LPAC), Ankara, Roubaix (Les Reperages), Copenhagen (Metropolis Biennalen), Gothenburg (SKOGEN), Skegness, Ghent (CAMPO nieuwpoort), Akçakoca, Ünye, Çamlıhemşin, Hopa, Batumi, Stockholm (Orionteatern, Theater Guillotine, MDT), Venice (54th Venice Biennale), Kortrijk (BUDA), Caen (Centre Chorégraphique National de Caen), Bilbao (Alhóndiga)…

Artists

  • Ivana Ivković

    Ivana Ivković holds an M.A. from the Department of Dramaturgy at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb. A former editor-in-chief of Frakcija Journal for Performing Arts (2008-2012) and program coordinator at the Center for Drama Art in Zagreb, she has also published in several other publications (Maska, The Drama Review, TkH…). As a member of performance collective BADco. she has co-authored a series of artistic projects since 2004. She regularly holds workshops and presents at international festivals, symposia and conferences.

  • Ana Kreitmeyer

    Ana Kreitmeyer (1977) is a dance artist, performer, and a member of the performative collective BADco.

    She has executed her interest for the body through different practices, from performative to choreographic, from pedagogical to social. As a coauthor, she has been active within the collective BADco and since 2003, she has developed her own choreographic works. She is an author of Towards the Beginning, Jams, Point of Convergence, ContAkt 1, Drunken Forest and Maybe Once.

    She is active in the area of public activities of Zagreb's dance scene and has been involved in the work of steering group of the Croatian Dancers Association for many years, currently as the association's president.

    She is a certified teacher of ContaKids Method.

    She graduated from the Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Zagreb.

  • Tomislav Medak

    Tomislav Medak is a philosopher with interests in contemporary political philosophy, media theory and aesthetics. He is co-ordinating theory program and publishing activities of the Multimedia Institute/MAMA (Zagreb, Croatia).

    He is a free software and free culture advocate, the project lead of Croatian Creative Commons team and digital librarian for Memory of the World. He’s a supporter of urban activist initiative Right to the City.

    He is author and performer with the Zagreb based theatre collective BADco.

    You can find out more about his work and read his texts on his personal website.

  • Goran Sergej Pristaš

    Professor of Dramaturgy at the Academy of Dramatic Arts, University of Zagreb. Dramaturge, co-founder and member of BADco. performing arts collective. Program coordinator in Centre for Drama Art (CDU) from 1995 till 2007. One of the initiators of the project Zagreb - Cultural Kapital of Europe 3000. With his projects and collaborations (BADco., Frakcija) participated at Venice Biennale 2011 and 2016, Documenta 12, ARCO and numerous festivals and conferences. 

    He is/was mentoring and teaching at DOCH (Stockholm), JLU (Giessen), Statens Scenekunstskole (Copenhagen), P.A.R.T.S. (Brussels) etc. Teaching courses in performance dramaturgy, writing for performance, analytical writing, dramaturgy and choreography, collaborative practices etc. First editor-in-chief (1996-2007) of Frakcija, a magazine for the performing arts.

    Together with Bojana Cvejić co-edited Parallel Slalom. A Lexicon Of Non-aligned Poetics TkH, Belgrade / CDU, Zagreb, 2013, and with Tomislav Medak co-edited Time and (In)Completion: Images And Performances Of Time In Late Capitalism, BADco., Zagreb, 2014.

  • Nikolina Pristaš

    Nikolina Pristaš is a dancer, choreographer, cofounder of performance collective BADco. and docent at the Dance Department of the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb.

    She studied at the University of Zagreb – Faculty of Humanities and obtained their diploma at the departments of English Language and Literature and Comparative Literature. She has completed the eight-year School for Contemporary Dance “Ana Maletić”.

    Since 2000 she realizes all her artistic interests through collaboration with members of BADco. and our many artistic collaborators. The reasons are many: from friendship to shared work ethos and ideological beliefs, through tendency to experiment, the desire to learn and shift the limits of her own understanding of performance, dance, choreography, theater, collaboration.

    The specificity of artistic insights and knowledge produced in BADco. through a series of theater and dance productions, video installations, thematic symposia, artistic workshops and several printed publications has led to NIkolina being invited to some of the prestigious arts academies and schools in Europe to teach and lead artistic projects in teaching practice (Justus Liebig University – Giessen, P.A.R.T.S. – Brussels, The Danish National School for Performing Arts – Copenhagen…).

  • Zrinka Užbinec

    Zrinka Užbinec is a dancer and performer with interest in choreography. She is a member of performance collective BADco. and has been, until 2013., one of the coordinators of Experimental Free Scene (ekscena), an independent organization established to promote contemporary dance and other forms of performing arts. She has finished School for Contemporary Dance “Ana Maletić” and has participated in many dance workshops in Croatia and abroad. Her work experience includes collaborations with authors and groups like:  Irma Omerzo, festival "Improspekcije" (Zrinka Šimičić Mihanović and Sonja Pregrad), Mila Pavićević and Mario Kikaš, Selma Banich, CDU (Centre for Drama Art), BLOK, Oliver Frljić, Matija Ferlin, Aleksandra Janeva Imfeld, Andreja Kulunčić, etc. She has coauthored several dance projects. Often giving classes in contemporary dance, she also holds workshops with other BADco. members in Croatia and abroad. She has finished an one year educational course at the Centar for Women Studies in Zagreb, and is, until recently, a student at MA Choreography and Performance at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies, in Gießen. She holds a degree from the Faculty of Economics, University of Zagreb.

BADco. is a collaborative performance collective based in Zagreb, Croatia. The artistic core of the collective are Ivana Ivković, Ana Kreitmeyer, Tomislav Medak, Goran Sergej Pristaš, Nikolina Pristaš and Zrinka Užbinec.

As a combination of three choreographers / dancers, two dramaturgs and one philosopher, plus the company production manager, since its beginning (2000), BADco. systematically focuses on the research of protocols of performing, presenting and observing by structuring its projects around diverse formal and perceptual relations and contexts. Reconfiguring established relations between performance and audience, challenging perspectival givens and architectonics of performance, problematizing of communicational structures – all of that makes BADco. an internationally significant artistic phenomenon and one of the most differentiated performance experiences.

So far the group has produced the following works: Man.Chair (2000), 2tri4 (2001), Diderot’s Nephew or Blood is Thicker than Water (2001), Solo Me (2002), RibCage (2002), Walk This Way (2003), Mass (for Election Day Silence) (2003), Deleted Messages (2004), Fleshdance (2004), memories are made of this… performance notes (2006), Gravidation (2006), Changes (2007), 1 poor and one 0 (2008), The League of Time (2009), SEMI-INTERPRETATIONS or how to explain contemporary dance to an undead hare (2010), Point of Convergence (2010), Responsibility for Things Seen, Tales in Negative Space (2011), Black and Forth (2012), TVolution will not be televised (2013), A Pound of Hysteria, Acceleration… – melodrama (2013), Broken Performances (2013), A Lesser Evil (2014), The Drawer (2015), The Stranger (2015), Spores (2016), Correcting Rhythm (2017), Time Bombs (2017), The Foundation Pit (2018), Impossible Dances (2019), rePUBLIC IN THE ORCHESTRA PIT (2019) and The Labour of Panic (2020).

BADco’s works have been presented in: Zagreb, Dubrovnik (Art Workshop Lazareti), Rijeka (Male scene, Drugo More, Rijeka Summer Nights), Pula (MKFM), Osijek (Barutana, National theatre Osijek), Umag (Golden Lion Festival), Zadar (Zadar snova, Monoplay Festival), Karlovac (Free Dance Festival), Sisak (KKV), Rovinj (Blitz Festival), Split (Youth Center), Prague (Dance Zone, 4+4 Days in Motion), Warsaw (Rozdroze Festival), London (The Place/Aerowaves, Chelsea Theater), Greifswald (Tanztendänzen), Amsterdam (Julidans), Luxemburg (Coeur des Capucines), Sibiu (International Theatre Festival), Bergen (BIT, Oktoberdans), New York (PS122, La MaMa), San Diego (Sushi), Berlin (Podewill, Sophiensalle / Tanz im August, Volksbühne), Vienna (Tanzquartier Wien, GarageX), Ljubljana (Cankarjev dom/Exodos, Aksioma, Stara Elektrarna / Maska), Sarajevo (National theatre / Days of Croatian Culture), Novi Sad (Infant, Balkan Dance Platform, PerArt / Serbian National Theatre), Belgrade (Kondenz Festival, BITEF teatar / TkH), Piran (Tartini theatre), Athens (BYCEM, The Onassis Cultural Center), Tallin (Kanuti Gildi Saal), Klaipeda, Gdansk, Liepaja, Koper, Podgorica (FIAT), Skopje (Balkan Dance Platform), Stuttgart (Treffpunkt), Riga (Homo Novus), Constanta, Regensburg (Donumenta), Graz (Steirischer Herbst), Odessa, Istanbul, Madrid (In-presentable), Tromso (Radstua Theatre), Exeter, Bath, Lincoln (LPAC), Ankara, Roubaix (Les Reperages), Copenhagen (Metropolis Biennalen), Gothenburg (SKOGEN), Skegness, Ghent (CAMPO nieuwpoort), Akçakoca, Ünye, Çamlıhemşin, Hopa, Batumi, Stockholm (Orionteatern, Theater Guillotine, MDT), Venice (54th Venice Biennale), Kortrijk (BUDA), Caen (Centre Chorégraphique National de Caen), Bilbao (Alhóndiga)…

  • Ivana Ivković

    Ivana Ivković holds an M.A. from the Department of Dramaturgy at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb. A former editor-in-chief of Frakcija Journal for Performing Arts (2008-2012) and program coordinator at the Center for Drama Art in Zagreb, she has also published in several other publications (Maska, The Drama Review, TkH…). As a member of performance collective BADco. she has co-authored a series of artistic projects since 2004. She regularly holds workshops and presents at international festivals, symposia and conferences.

  • Ana Kreitmeyer

    Ana Kreitmeyer (1977) is a dance artist, performer, and a member of the performative collective BADco.

    She has executed her interest for the body through different practices, from performative to choreographic, from pedagogical to social. As a coauthor, she has been active within the collective BADco and since 2003, she has developed her own choreographic works. She is an author of Towards the Beginning, Jams, Point of Convergence, ContAkt 1, Drunken Forest and Maybe Once.

    She is active in the area of public activities of Zagreb's dance scene and has been involved in the work of steering group of the Croatian Dancers Association for many years, currently as the association's president.

    She is a certified teacher of ContaKids Method.

    She graduated from the Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Zagreb.

  • Tomislav Medak

    Tomislav Medak is a philosopher with interests in contemporary political philosophy, media theory and aesthetics. He is co-ordinating theory program and publishing activities of the Multimedia Institute/MAMA (Zagreb, Croatia).

    He is a free software and free culture advocate, the project lead of Croatian Creative Commons team and digital librarian for Memory of the World. He’s a supporter of urban activist initiative Right to the City.

    He is author and performer with the Zagreb based theatre collective BADco.

    You can find out more about his work and read his texts on his personal website.

  • Goran Sergej Pristaš

    Professor of Dramaturgy at the Academy of Dramatic Arts, University of Zagreb. Dramaturge, co-founder and member of BADco. performing arts collective. Program coordinator in Centre for Drama Art (CDU) from 1995 till 2007. One of the initiators of the project Zagreb - Cultural Kapital of Europe 3000. With his projects and collaborations (BADco., Frakcija) participated at Venice Biennale 2011 and 2016, Documenta 12, ARCO and numerous festivals and conferences. 

    He is/was mentoring and teaching at DOCH (Stockholm), JLU (Giessen), Statens Scenekunstskole (Copenhagen), P.A.R.T.S. (Brussels) etc. Teaching courses in performance dramaturgy, writing for performance, analytical writing, dramaturgy and choreography, collaborative practices etc. First editor-in-chief (1996-2007) of Frakcija, a magazine for the performing arts.

    Together with Bojana Cvejić co-edited Parallel Slalom. A Lexicon Of Non-aligned Poetics TkH, Belgrade / CDU, Zagreb, 2013, and with Tomislav Medak co-edited Time and (In)Completion: Images And Performances Of Time In Late Capitalism, BADco., Zagreb, 2014.

  • Nikolina Pristaš

    Nikolina Pristaš is a dancer, choreographer, cofounder of performance collective BADco. and docent at the Dance Department of the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb.

    She studied at the University of Zagreb – Faculty of Humanities and obtained their diploma at the departments of English Language and Literature and Comparative Literature. She has completed the eight-year School for Contemporary Dance “Ana Maletić”.

    Since 2000 she realizes all her artistic interests through collaboration with members of BADco. and our many artistic collaborators. The reasons are many: from friendship to shared work ethos and ideological beliefs, through tendency to experiment, the desire to learn and shift the limits of her own understanding of performance, dance, choreography, theater, collaboration.

    The specificity of artistic insights and knowledge produced in BADco. through a series of theater and dance productions, video installations, thematic symposia, artistic workshops and several printed publications has led to NIkolina being invited to some of the prestigious arts academies and schools in Europe to teach and lead artistic projects in teaching practice (Justus Liebig University – Giessen, P.A.R.T.S. – Brussels, The Danish National School for Performing Arts – Copenhagen…).

  • Zrinka Užbinec

    Zrinka Užbinec is a dancer and performer with interest in choreography. She is a member of performance collective BADco. and has been, until 2013., one of the coordinators of Experimental Free Scene (ekscena), an independent organization established to promote contemporary dance and other forms of performing arts. She has finished School for Contemporary Dance “Ana Maletić” and has participated in many dance workshops in Croatia and abroad. Her work experience includes collaborations with authors and groups like:  Irma Omerzo, festival "Improspekcije" (Zrinka Šimičić Mihanović and Sonja Pregrad), Mila Pavićević and Mario Kikaš, Selma Banich, CDU (Centre for Drama Art), BLOK, Oliver Frljić, Matija Ferlin, Aleksandra Janeva Imfeld, Andreja Kulunčić, etc. She has coauthored several dance projects. Often giving classes in contemporary dance, she also holds workshops with other BADco. members in Croatia and abroad. She has finished an one year educational course at the Centar for Women Studies in Zagreb, and is, until recently, a student at MA Choreography and Performance at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies, in Gießen. She holds a degree from the Faculty of Economics, University of Zagreb.