Jana Milenkovic

Born in Belgrade/Serbia in 1994.

Jana Milenkovic is a freelance artist specializing in contemporary dance and choreography. She graduated from the Belgrade Dance Institute with a qualification in contemporary dance (2013), and studied fashion design at the University of Belgrade (2019). She honed her choreography skills via her participation in the Belgrade-based educational program Puzzle (2018–2021), held at the Station Service for Contemporary Dance, and was also one of the 2018 cohort of participants in the Paris-based scholarship Camping, sponsored by Station and ONDA.

Milenkovic has been professionally engaged in contemporary dance and performance on the independent cultural scene in Serbia since 2014. Some projects that showcase her outstanding skills as a performer include Species (2015) and Scrape (2018) by Jovana Rakić, Aphanisis or about changing (2015) by the group Hajde da, The Partisans will come again (2019) by Dušan Murić, the short dance movie Glance (2019) by Marko Pejović, and the interactive performance Binema (2021) by Marko Milić.

As a choreographer, she often explores the physical manifestation of unity, using choreography as a tool for interpreting different ideologies, sociopolitical and aesthetic phenomena. She looks for inspiration in the choreographic potential of the body’s behavior in relation to others, focusing on finding common physical material that arises from joint activity.

She won the prize in the Best Idea category at the International Competition of Young Dance Performers, OPUS 1, in Slovenia with her short dance piece LAP. In 2020, inspired by the idea of a joint approach to artistic work, she founded the dance group NEUT with colleagues in Belgrade, whose recent work includes the performances Finale and Kolo, which premiered at the Kondenz Festival in October 2020 and 2021 in Belgrade. In 2020, she performed in the final program at the Belgrade Festival of Choreographic Miniatures with NEUT, showing their piece Easy. She has also performed at art festivals such as Pokretnica in Novi Sad/Serbia, and the Month of the independent cultural scene at the Bitef Theater with her play Kolo, also featuring as part of the accompanying program in cooperation with Station and APAP network in Belgrade in 2022.