Motions (Croatian: Gibanja) between intentions, possibilities and unpredictabilities

The sixth edition of Gibanja has taken its final shape and is ready to resonate with you. The curation and creation process is exciting and often unpredictable. One starts with a concept, intentions, and plans, but along the way situations arise that shift the course of motions (Croatian: gibanja). You listen, you discuss with yourself, as well as with other contemporary sound lovers. You embrace a degree of spontaneity and adaptability, yet you do not abandon your core principles and main goals, in order to create a space for gathering and shared time devoted to listening. An artistically strong and relevant program, professional production, and a relaxed atmosphere are certainly the principles that guide us. We strive to present exciting sonic practices and to create a space for exchange, collective listening, gathering, and conversations about music and art.

Composer and musician Howard Skempton once said that, for him, phrasing is the core of composing. Phrasing, rounding up, dramaturgy. The same applies to curating: a festival is not merely a sum of individual concerts placed within a short period of time and at the same location. A festival is a story that seeks to be told - a story that is curated for you. This year’s story brings together highly diverse artistic voices, perspectives, and poetics; several exciting collaborations in new duos; opportunities for introspective listening experiences, complex free improvisation, and also moments for dancing and hanging around.

This year’s Gibanja begins with a so-called “day zero”, a free Sunday program that announces the festival week. The program opens with a poetic tribute to our neighborhood - Cvjetno naselje - through a sound walk created by the artist and researcher Hrvoslava Brkušić, which will remain permanently available to visitors of KONTEJNER’s program. On this occasion, the author will guide listeners on a walk from KONTEJNER to Pogon Jedinstvo, where the pre-opening program follows: the premiere of the experimental composition "SKYFALL" by Peter Kutin for the NAMES ensemble, realized in collaboration with the Subversive Festival.

The first day of Gibanja opens with electronic artist Jessica Ekomane, whose immersive performance offers not only a powerful physical experience but also tunes the ears and auditory perception for the complex sonic world of extraordinary musicians Noël Akchoté, Tony Buck, and Vesna Pisarović. The evening closes with techno noise by guitarist Julien Desprez and electronic artist Claire Gapenne.

The second day - immersive and focused on spatial sound - begins with a tribute to the pioneer of musique concrète, pioneer of drone music, master of the ARP 2500 synthesizer, and musical visionary Éliane Radigue, who passed away in February this year. The program features the first part of her masterpiece Trilogie de la Mort - "Kyema" - a 60-minutes subtle and complex work, diffused by her close collaborator and friend François Bonnet. Éliane Radigue’s influence on generations of musicians and composers is immeasurable, as well as on the further development of the history of music in the 20th and 21st century. Her work has also had a profound impact on Davor Gazde, who will perform an improvisation on a Buchla modular system, followed by recent multichannel compositions by Miodrag Gladović and BJ Nilsen, premiered at this year’s Sonic Acts Biennial.

Percussionist Kaja Farszky and saxophonist Grgur Savić have collaborated within the CRI Orchestra, but this is their first duo collaboration, and we believe it is not the last one. On the contrary, Vida Guzmić, Nicole Hewitt and Ivan Slipčević have been working as the trio Soundspiels for over a decade. At the 6th Gibanja, they premiere a new audiovisual work "She Cries Human Tears", followed by the presentation of the first joint album by the energetic duo of vocalist Cara Tolmie and electronic musician Rian Treanor. In it, they both remain musically recognizable, yet organically merged in a new musical expression that will surely get us dancing.

The final day of Gibanja starts with a gathering hosted by KONTEJNER and Smak Press publishing house: bring a piece of clothing and you’ll get a free memory of the festival. It was designed by the studio kuna zlatica, responsible for the festival’s visual identity, and will be printed on-site by Smak Press. The concert program opens with a duo whose collaboration began in 2024 right here at KONTEJNER: versatile innovators and improvisers - guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Fred Frith and drummer and percussionist Jaka Berger. This is followed by a new solo performance by musician Farida Amadou, exploring improvised textures built from West African rhythmic patterns, melodic fragments, and voice, and concludes with an energetic and powerful live set by Dis Fig.

We hope that this new edition of Gibanja will enrich and inspire you!

For more information about the programme and the full schedule visit the link.

Tickets for the Gibanja 2026 are available via Entrio.