Kill B.

  • Created and Performed by

    Bruno Isaković, Mia Zalukar

  • Dramaturgy

    Vedrana Klepica

  • Premired

    21.12.2019. Zagreb dance centre, Croatia

  • Light design

    Saša Fistrić

  • Production

    Malo Sutra, Domino

  • Partners

    Zagreb dance center

  • Financial support

    Croatian Ministry of Culture

  • Duration

    55 min

  • Audio design

    Hrvoje Nikšić

  • Graphic design

    Bruno Isaković

Starting from a very concrete performative and visual reference to the cult Quentin Tarantino movie Kill Bill from 2003., Mia Zalukar and Bruno Isaković create a performative analysis of their own long-term professional relationship, questioning the hierarchical structures inside the theatre-making process and the power dynamic between the two, at least in theory, equal partners. In Kill B. Isaković prepares solo for Zalukar, in co-authorship with her, and deliberately builds a dramaturgical framework on the relation between the personal and the symbolic. Personal as a space of many years of collaboration with his performing partner, and symbolic as a space for exhausting somewhat ironically read references to one of the most famous film protagonists of contemporary cinema, behind which a successful box office, unfortunately, hides a number of irregularities in the functioning of a specific director-actress relationship.

At first glance, Kill Bill is a movie about a strong female protagonist, ‘Bride’, who is actually deprived of any attributes, except the visual ones, which would characterise her as a woman. A ‘bride’ can be described best as a blood-thirsty, revenge-seeking superhuman, with a somewhat simplified psychological profile, but firm moral standards and attractive appearance. She is a fantasy. Moreover, it has more in common with the genres of westerns or martial art movies, and is defined through the vision of a male directing eye. The specificity of this further obscures the real problematic relationship of Uma Thurman with Tarantino when working on the movie which subsequently raised questions about the boundaries and flexibility of the actress’s relationship with the director. Movie does create a strong protagonist but behind the scenes it becomes the site of a toxic power play.

Zalukar and Isaković are not necessarily criticising that principle, but definitely analysing it, filling the clear and recognizable motives with their own questions and problems of that relationship, specifically focusing on the fragile bond between the female dancer and the male choreographer. This relationship, though never brought to such extreme situations as those on which they are inspired with, for them intimately it always represents the potential to become a polygon for eternal negotiations, unconscious patronising and the struggle for a communication inside the complex intimate and professional artistic process.

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