Jan Rozman: MEMEMEME

Who is ‘me’ in ‘meme’ in ‘MEMEMEME’?

MEMEMEME is the space of a community’s flow of association, a clash of an infinite number of memes* and their reverberations. Through the performers’ bodies, their mobile phones and digital video and sound references and associations, the performance layers gestures, movements, images and expressions. Its performative score plays with and around the mechanics and aesthetics of internet memes. As a living mimetic organism, the stage actions are multiplied and repeated, diversified and mutated to open up the potential semantic splits and gaps that reflect the fragmented and alienated nature of modern communication and the internet society.

*A meme is any idea that is, despite its potential randomness or nonsense, repeated and multiplied through variation and selection. The term meme (from Ancient Greek mimeme, ‘imitated thing’) was coined by biologist Richard Dawkins as a cultural equivalent of a gene to designate language, stories, knowledges, habits, styles and behaviour that is transmitted through imitation. As a consequence of the near universal use of the internet in the digital age, the most widespread, flexible, resilient, and circulated are precisely (viral) internet memes.

Collaborators
Concept, Direction & Choreography: Jan Rozman
Performers: Peter Frankl, Kaja Janjić, Julija Pečnikar, Daniel Petković
Dramaturgy: Varja Hrvatin
Sounds and Video: Vid Merlak
Costume Design: Tanja Pađan (Kiss The Future)
Light Design: Urška Vohar
Set design adviser: Dan Pikalo
Graphic design: Matija Medved
Video documentation: Hana Vodeb
Photo documentation: Nada Žgank
Executive Producer: Sabina Potočki

Support
Producer: Emanat
Partner: Bunker / Old Power Station, Ljubljana, Mediterranean Dance Center, Svetvinčenat
Financial support: City Municipality of Ljubljana and ministry of Culture RS
In collaboration with: CoFestival 2019, Ljubljana