Petra Fornayová
January – February 2025
The director and performer Petra Fornayová has been invited to HELLERAU for a residency as part of the festival ‘Nebenan – Unabhängige Kunst aus der Slowakei’. During this time, Petra Fornayová will be working on her new project ‘7sec_We are all lichens’ together with the author Peter Šulej.
For the project, Petra Fornayová is inspired by mysterious multi-organisms such as lichens, plants and fungi and their system of horizontal, non-hierarchical decision-making. Where is the boundary between satisfying one’s own needs and the needs of the group? In their performative research, Petra Fornayová and Peter Šulej are also interested in the boundaries of fiction and documentation and experiment with movement, text, video art and music.
08.02.2025 there will be a joint Open Studio with Petra Fornayová and choreographer Eva Urbanová who will share their research process.
Petra Fornayová is director, performer and organizer, working in the field of contemporary dance and theater. She graduated at the Law Faculty of Comenius University in Bratislava, studied dance at the Academy for Performing Arts in Bratislava and at EDDC Dusseldorf. She has created more then 20 performances – being presented regularly at home and abroad. Petra Fornayová has founded and leads the international festival “Nu Dance Fest”. She is the curator of the dance program of the European City of Culture 2026 in Trenčín, the academy board member of Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica and a member of the editorial board of the magazine for contemporary art VLNA.
Peter Šulej is a poet and fiction writer, author of ten poetry books, two collections of short stories and three novels. He wrote many independent studies and articles focused on contemporary art and literature, lyrics for alternative music projects, radio plays and concepts of contemporary dance performances. He founded the Drewo a Srd publishing house and VLNA (Wave), a quarterly magazine for contemporary art and culture. He was the co-founder and content director of the international poetry festival Ars Poetica and has co-founded athe international festival for contemporary literature Novotvar.
