In the previous two On Record albums, covering the Portuguese Platform for Performing Arts (2023) and the Baltic Dance Platform (2024), Springback Magazine editor Sanjoy Roy penned an “Epidogue”, spotlighting the unexpected canine companions that attended each festival. “Does every dance platform have a dog?” he mused. With that, it became my solemn directive: if I did nothing else in my coverage of the inaugural Moving Balkans platform, I had to find a dog.
I ended up chasing my own tail. Much to my disappointment – and mounting stress – at Moving Balkans there were no four-legged friends trotting loyally from show to show. The festival’s nomadic format, with buses shuttling between countries and cities, likely made it too tricky for any pup to hop on board and join us for the ride. There was the promise of meeting Edvin Liverić’s, the director of the Croatian Cultural Centre, two dogs in Rijeka, but due to a packed programme, a tail-wagging rendezvous remained just out of reach.
It wasn’t until a chat with my On Record colleague, Dany Mitzman, that I realised Moving Balkans had a different kind of mascot – two, in fact – that functioned as “unobtrusive but [sometimes?] benevolent presences,” as Sanjoy wrote about the black labrador Morocco last year.
I’m talking about Austrian dancers and choreographers Alex Deutinger and Alexander Gottfarb, who performed their artistic intervention “While No One is Watching” for the full three days of the platform. Dressed in full police riot gear, with truncheons in their back pockets, they followed us from place to place. The aim of their durational performance? To question the effect an increasingly militarised presence in public space has on the subjective feeling of security amongst citizens.
It’s a timely preoccupation: with rising political tensions across the Balkans – for example, ongoing anti-corruption protests in Serbia and unrest in Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania – as well as worldwide, many of us are becoming increasingly accustomed to military and surveillance personnel on the streets. Consequently, when Deutinger and Gottfarb first appeared outside the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre, my initial thought was that they were actual officers. I felt a flicker of unease upon seeing the two uniformed figures standing silently on a plinth, binoculars in hand, observing us as we exited the venue.
With time, their performative intention became clearer, as they peppered their otherwise realistic portrayals of surveillance with humorous, surreal actions. They collapsed into a heap on the pavement, shielding themselves from the sun with umbrellas, and sat side by side on a bench, one knitting while the other read Law for Dummies. At one point, one even crawled on all fours like a dog – the inspiration for this article! – while the other led him on a makeshift leash fashioned from red-and-white police tape.
This quirky behaviour soon endeared them to many of the platform’s participants. “They’re my personal bodyguards!” laughed one German guest as he took a seat next to them at the back of the bus. Others felt a reciprocal urge to protect them, expressing concern when the pair stood hand-in-hand in the middle of a street in Rijeka. Given Croatia’s history of anti-LGBTQIA+ sentiment (this Vice article describes how, in 2021, Pride in Zagreb was disrupted for the first time in a decade, prompting the mayor to remark that “violence against LGBTQIA+ people on the streets of Zagreb… is once again becoming a serious problem for our society”), some feared for how such an action might compromise the performers’ safety.
For me, the fact that Gottfarb and Deutinger were “surveilling” a dance platform carried a particular dual significance. Were their protective behaviours – jogging alongside us with metal barriers – a commentary on the importance of safeguarding artistic activity in times of political turmoil, funding cuts, and increasing censorship? Or were their watchful eyes a way to ensure we weren’t up to anything too subversive that might threaten those in power? I suspect that this kind of ambivalence is exactly what Deutinger and Gottfarb hoped to inspire.
It brought me back to the figure of the dog. Having grown up with a Welsh terrier and now frequently visiting my mum and dad’s Irish terrier, I’m a dog person through and through. They’ve been loyal companions and protectors on long walks, and their watchful surveillance of pigeons in the garden has always made me feel safe, loved, and cared for. But from a young age, my parents were careful to impress upon me that, despite all the domestication they’ve been through, dogs are still animals. They’re unpredictable, instinct-driven, and capable of surprising you when you least expect it.
Maybe that’s what “While No One is Watching” made me reflect on regarding the police: they’re there to protect and serve us – but fear, circumstance, or power can moderate their behaviour, shift their loyalties, and make them bare their teeth in ways we didn’t anticipate.
