choreographer, artistic director, dancer, pedagogue

In the 1990s the choreographer and dancer Iztok Kovač (1962, Trbovlje) placed the until then virtually non-existent discipline of Slovenian contemporary dance firmly on the European and world cultural stage. Under the aegis of the Klapstuk Festival, he founded the international dance company En-Knap in 1993 in Leuven, Belgium, and a year later registered the production institute En-Knap in Ljubljana. In 2007, after 14 years of project-based work, Kovač established the international dance company EnKnapGroup, the first permanent repertory contemporary dance ensemble in Slovenia. Two years later EnKnapProductions started managing Španski Borci Cultural Centre in Ljubljana, with Iztok Kovač becoming its artistic director and programmer of the domestic and international programmes. With an opus of over 30 evening-length dance performances and six dance films, created in collaboration with director Sašo Podgoršek, Iztok Kovač has, in nearly three decades of working as choreographer and dancer, established a recognisably distinct dance aesthetics and created a trademark style that has been attracting acclaimed international co-producers. He is the recipient of prominent domestic and international awards, among others also the Prešeren Fund Award and the Župančič Award.

 

Iztok Kovač (artistic work) – EnKnap website

EnKnap PRODUCTION (Artistic director)