Glej,
TRIGGER

Wednesday, 18th March 2026, Maribor

12:00 – 16:00 (location: Vetrinjski dvor - Studio)
Accreditation

13:00 – 14:30 (location: Vetrinjski dvor - Studio)
Let’s get to know each other
Interactive networking of international and local participants // 90 min //
National context, challenges and opportunities of Slovenian independent performing arts in dialogue with TRIGGER platform.

14:30 – 15:30 (location: Vetrinjski dvor - Studio)
Pitching Session
Presentation of selected Slovenian artists and their existing and upland coming projects.

16:00 – 17:00 (location: Intimni oder, GT22)
Barbara Kukovec and Minca Lorenci: Pissed // devised performance // 60 min // production: Moment Maribor (Slovenia)
Language: English
PISSED explores the tension between restraint and release, revealing the many reasons why we are driven by urgency—and end up pissed.

17:45 – 18:35 (location: Vetrinjski dvor - Večnamenska dvorana)
Olja Grubić: To our delight // performance // 50 min
production: Maska Ljubljana / co-production: Glej Theatre, Via Negativa
Language: English
With To our Delight, Olja Grubić explores food, identity, and society through a sugar-coated cycle of building, breaking, and rebuilding. Moving from the intimate to the social and political, the performance asks whether we can imagine a world that is a pleasure for all—not just for some.

20:00 – 21:00 (location: Narodnega dom - Mali oder)
Luka Piletič: Under Control // performance // 50 min
coproduction: Via Negativa, Moment Maribor
Language: English
Under control by Luka Piletič is a darkly comic solo about discipline, exhaustion, and the quiet panic of holding everything together.

21:00 Late Night meeting point Klub Narodnega doma

Thursday, 19th March 2026, Ljubljana

11:00 – 12:30 (location: Cukrarna)
Who's There?

12:30 – 13:30 (location: Cukrarna)
Lunch with the artists

13:30 – 15:30 (location: Cukrarna)
Asociacija and EAIPA working session:
Beyond Performance: Sustainable Artistic Careers and the Need to Reinvent Oneself.
Session exploring how performing artists navigate precarious working conditions by adapting their careers over time, drawing on European support structures and artists’ perspectives on sustainability, health, and long-term professional development.

16:00 – 17:00 (location: Španski borci)
Primož Čučnik, Tomaž Grom, Nataša Živković, Polona Janežič, Eduardo Raon, Jošt Drašler, Vid Drašler: Now I can get the fuck out of here, now I can go
Production: Zavod Sploh
Language: Slovene with English surtitles
Now I can get the fuck out of here, now I can go is an award-winning music-performance that gently dissolves the concert format into an intimate, hybrid experience where poetry, voice, sound, and presence resonate as one.

18:00 – 19:15 (location Post office)
Barbara Kukovec, Katarina Stegnar, Urška Brodar: The Art of Living: The Act of Killing // performance // 75 min
Co-production: Mladinsko Theatre, Rizoma Institute and City of Women
Language: Slovene with English surtitles
The Art of Living: The Act of Killing by Barbara Kukovec, Katarina Stegnar, and Urška Brodar is a radical return to the countryside, where art becomes a collective feminist act confronting femicide, structural violence, and the decolonisation of rural life.

19:30 – 21:00 (location: Puppet theatre Ljubljana)
Leja Jurišić: Dance in Stone // performance // 90 min
Co-production: Pekinpah & Ljubljana Puppet theatre
Language: Slovene with English surtitles
Dance in Stone by Leja Jurišić is an object-theatre performance that brings bodies and stone into a shared poetic space, asking whether stone can think, feel, and move, and revealing imagination and agency within seemingly inert matter.

21:30 – 22:30 (location: Old Power Station)
Aljoša Lovrič Krapež: Is Joy II // performance // 60 min
Production: Bunker
Language: Non-verbal
IS JOY II by Aljoša Lovrić Krapež is a rare gesture of grounded optimism, inviting performers, objects, and audiences into a shared ripple of joy that builds a collective, participatory counter-passivity in uncertain times.

Friday, 20th March 2026, Ljubljana

10:00 – 12:30 (location: Dom sindikatov Slovenije)
EAIPA general assembly (closed for public)

11:00 – 12:30 (location: Cukrarna)
Trigger in Context: Aesthetic, Production, and Social Perspectives
Karolina Bugajak and Metod Zupan
As part of the collaboration with the Neodvisni platform, two in-depth analytical essays will be produced by Karolina Bugajak and Metod Zupan. The texts will connect the productions included in the Trigger programme and reflect on their aesthetic approaches, production models, and broader social and artistic contexts. Based on these two texts, the authors will also prepare two professional lectures for an international audience.

12:30 – 14:00 Lunch

14:00 – 15:30 (location: Cukrarna)
Motovila panel: Culture as a Tool? Instrumentalisation and the Autonomy of Art
This roundtable explores the growing instrumentalisation of culture in European policies and what it means in practice for artistic production and working conditions. Drawing on current debates on impact, funding criteria and cross-sector agendas, it asks how the intrinsic value of culture and artistic autonomy can be safeguarded and what room remains for independent arts to shape, resist or reframe these pressures.

15:30 – 16:40 (location: Glej Theatre)
16:40 – 17:50 (location: Glej Theatre)
17:50 – 18:50 (location: Glej Theatre)
Natalija Vujošević, Tara Langford, and Neja Tomšič: Jadran Resort // novel in landscape // 50 min // 10 people per show, book your time slot.
Production: Glej Theatre
Language: English
Jadran Resort by Natalija Vujošević, Tara Langford, and Neja Tomšič is a novel-in-landscape and communal experience that moves through a touristified Adriatic setting, blending fiction and reality to examine history, desire, and our complicity in global systems.

19:00 – 20:30 (location: Dance Theatre Ljubljana)
Varja Hrvatin: Sukeban // performance // 60 min
Co-production: City of Women, Cankarjev dom
Language: Slovene with English surtitles
Sukeban by Varja Hrvatin is an interactive performance that turns the stage into a game, confronting sexism and digital culture while imagining a world of rebellious heroines and collective play.

21:00 – 22:00 (location: Old Power Station)
The Igralke Collective and Rajna Racz: Mothers // performance // 60 min
Co-produced by: Igralke Collective (CRO); House Nahero (CRO); Ulysses Theatre (CRO); Maska Ljubljana (SLO)
Language: Croatian with English surtitles
Mothers by the Igralke Collective and Rajna Racz is not a performance about motherhood, but about deciding on motherhood—unfolding as a living museum of voices, experiences, and choices that reflect the layered realities of motherhood today.

parallel programme

15–19 March 2026
Mladinsko Showcase
5 days, 8 performances, English surtitles
Full programe

**** Wednesday, 18th March 2026, Ljubljana

18:00 – 19:30 (location: Puppet theatre Ljubljana)
Leja Jurišić: Dance in Stone // performance // 90 min
Co-production: Pekinpah & Ljubljana Puppet theatre
Language: English
Dance in Stone by Leja Jurišić is an object-theatre performance that brings bodies and stone into a shared poetic space, asking whether stone can think, feel, and move, and revealing imagination and agency within seemingly inert matter.

19:00 – 20:00 (location: Old Power Station)
Aljoša Lovrič Krapež: Is Joy II // performance // 60 min
Production: Bunker
Language: Non-verbal
IS JOY II by Aljoša Lovrić Krapež is a rare gesture of grounded optimism, inviting performers, objects, and audiences into a shared ripple of joy that builds a collective, participatory counter-passivity in uncertain times.

***** Saturday, March 21st 2026, Ljubljana

20:00 – 21:00 (location: Glej Theatre)
Natalija Vujošević, Tara Langford, and Neja Tomšič: Jadran Resort // novel in landscape // 50 min // 10 people per show, book your time slot.
Production: Glej Theatre
Language: English
Jadran Resort by Natalija Vujošević, Tara Langford, and Neja Tomšič is a novel-in-landscape and communal experience that moves through a touristified Adriatic setting, blending fiction and reality to examine history, desire, and our complicity in global systems.

REGISTER NOW: TRIGGER 2026

We are delighted to announce the 7th edition of the TRIGGER Showcase Festival 2026, which will take place from 18th to 21st March 2026 at various venues in Ljubljana and Maribor. The festival presents a selection of the most relevant productions by independent Slovenian producers and artists.

Over the course of four days, you will have the opportunity to experience a curated selection of performances by independent producers and meet the artists promoted by Slovenian producers on the international stage.

The festival is part of the TRIGGER platform, which aims to promote Slovenian independent performing arts and to strengthen the position of independent producers and artists both locally and internationally. The platform is a partnership between Glej Theatre, Bunker, Maska, Moment, Motovila, City of Women, Pekinpah, Mladinsko Theatre, and Via Negativa.

Check out the full programe and register by February 10th!

ABOUT THE TRIGGER PLATFORM

TRIGGER is a platform for contemporary performing arts practices, developed by its partners since 2019.
Its goal is to strengthen the competencies of independent producers and artists, with a focus on internationalisation and cross-border collaboration.

The platform combines a showcase festival of productions with international potential and a series of talks, lectures, and workshops, featuring guest curators of foreign festivals, agents, and experts in distribution and international cooperation.
It regularly connects with various European networks — in the past, TRIGGER has collaborated with ONDA and IETM, and the upcoming edition will partner with EAIPA (the European Association of Independent Performing Arts Networks), whose Slovenian member is Asociacija.

TRIGGER serves as a space for knowledge exchange, strategy development, and experience sharing, enabling a more sustainable and visible presence of Slovenian artists on the international scene.

Platform Objectives

Enhance the competitiveness of Slovenian artists in the international market
Strengthen the position of independent producers and creators
Develop effective models for the distribution of contemporary performing arts nationally and abroad
Facilitate knowledge transfer in fields with limited educational opportunities in Slovenia (production, management, technical professions)
Build and maintain connections with European festivals and producers
Promote Slovenian art internationally
Contribute to the diversity of domestic production through the exchange of good practices
Foster the stability of Slovenian producers and creative communities

Partner Organisations

Glej Theatre
Bunker
Maska
Moment
Motovila
City of Women
Pekinpah
Mladinsko Theatre
Via Negativa

TRIGGER 2023

As of the year 2023, TRIGGER is becoming a biennial festival. The next edition will take place in 2024, with the years in between dedicated to the educational activities of the platform.

This year, TRIGGER invites you to additional workshops on group work (Bush Hartshorn) and the political in theatre (Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas).

All information about the workshops:

Giving & Receiving Feedback (April19th-21st, mentor: Bush Hartshorn).

Extended workshop:
Politics in the Room (May 14th-15th, mentors: Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas).