Escape Room is a dance performance for children and youth by the Zagreb Dance Company, who use dance to explore a topic that young people can relate to, namely the virtual social environment. The performance is aimed at children in upper-grade primary school, although it can also be interesting for secondary school pupils and adults.

This performance will introduce the Dance Funcus Children’s Festival of Performing Arts, the only event for children, by children, which is organised in cooperation with expert associates, who will bring a host of contemporary dance shows, new circus performances, and interdisciplinary theatrical performances, as well as workshops at which children will learn and try new skills and disciplines from the aforementioned fields of performing art, to various locations in Rijeka.

Escape room is a popular game, whose goal is to exit a locked room in a limited amount of time, by cooperatively solving a series of logically connected puzzles. Made popular worldwide in 2010, the games are set in various fictional rooms, such as prison cells or space stations. Our Escape Room is an ordinary teen room, whose exit is an entrance to a virtual world. In order to enter it, one must sign up. The system does not allow diversity, which makes the procedure the same for everyone and unification is not only welcome, but mandatory. Three dancers portray a single character. They are all one and the same. We don’t know which one is the original. Erasing and taking over an identity allows exiting, that is, entering the virtual space. By looking for an exit out of the virtual room, they move away from reality where the real exit is hidden.

Intended for young people, this performance deals with computer games which have been identified as problematic to their generation. It is a generation that has experienced all its greatest fascinations and discoveries while sitting – in front of a screen. In our attempt to introduce young people to contemporary dance with a topic that they can relate to, we touch upon the consequences of swapping playing and socialising spaces. What happens when instead of going outside (into the real world), we step into the (virtual world)? When does the game become dangerous? What is social environment and what is the illusion of social environment? And how do we recognise the real exit out of the room?

Admission to the performance is free, and requires prior reservation at plesnizbirkus@gmail.com.

Dance Funcus is the result of the Festival Imaginarium series of workshops that were held as part of the Gyroscope project – Civil-Public Partnership in the Management of Cultural Premises in Rijeka. The project is co-financed by the European Union’s European Social Fund, and the organisation of activities is co-financed by the European Social Fund’s Operational Programme Efficient Human Resources. The project, whose total value is HRK 2,416,102.66, is financed by the European Union, with HRK 2,053,687.26 from the European Social Fund’s Operational Programme Efficient Human Resources, and co-financed by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia with HRK 362,415.40. The Prostor Plus Association is solely responsible for the content of this communication.

Dance Funcus is organised by children in cooperation with Prostor Plus and the Benčić Youth Council, and is financially supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia and the City of Rijeka – Department of Culture. The premises of Filodrammatica, Marganovo, and Palach are managed by the Molekula Union of Associations.