About us

SHOOMA [‘ʃumʌ / forest] is an artistic organization that believes in the transformative power of art. Inspired by the forest as a perfect ecological factory, it is conceived as a creative factory where dance art meets and plays with different artistic areas to create various innovative art formats. It starts with the body, movement, and dance as an inspirational moment and approaches creating content focusing on young audiences.

Since the organization's beginning, the are formats that have emerged include:

  • dance performances
  • site-specific performances
  • small forms
  • online creative content
  • audience development projects
  • various workshops for children, youngsters, families and adults

The driving force of the organization is the artistic director Irma Unušić, who maintains a visionary-motivational role. The deputy artistic director in the creative leadership, Tea Maršanić, also strengthens the driving force. SHOOMA acts as a collective in which collaborators create and perform various artistic content for children and youth intertwined with play and art.

The organization was founded in 2017 in Bjelovar. Since then, it has contributed to the popularization of contemporary dance in Bjelovar city and its surroundings. In addition to the local and national levels, it also operates internationally. Although the most significant focus of the work is placed on the young audience, children, and young people, with the content we create, we strive to touch the hearts of every human being, regardless of age.

The vision of the organization is to create innovative, inspiring, high-quality, and age-appropriate performance-artistic experiences. It is followed by playfulness and careful consideration in creating content that aims to contribute to the children and youth quality of life and their families lives. Art and creativity are used to improve the well-being of children, youth, and adults, strengthen interpersonal relationships, self-confidence and encourage personal development.

Manifesto

SHOOMA loves to hug.

Likes to discover.

It's changing.

She guards.

Authentic.

Creative.

Curious.

Bold.

Brave.

SHOOMA is a place for you and me; it arises for us and out of us.

Loves dancing because dance can say more than words.

Created to house everything loved, imagined.

To accomplish!

SHOOMA is for play and art.

Play is art, and art is play.

We playfully create art.

Art plays us out, and playfulness makes us complete, preoccupied, fulfilled.

Dancing is like a playful movement of the body, and art is when we feel that playfulness does well for us.

We find the play in the body, movement, dance, words, thoughts, drawing, sound, and every human and natural action.

We turn our plays into performances, projects, and various formats for children and adults.

Our plays turn into places for you.

SHOOMA drives your creativity.

Out of love for the world.

Irma Unušić

artistic director
Irma Unušić was born in 1989. She acquired her professional dance education at the Art School Franjo Lučić (2014) in Velika Gorica. She studied Preschool Education (2011) at the Faculty of Teacher Education and Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology (2015) at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. She focuses on research, creation and motivational work in the field of contemporary dance. She presented her first choreographic work at the Platforma.hr festival (2013) within the project TASK. In the summer of 2017, Irma founded the art organization SHOOMA, aiming to create artistic content for children and youth and emphasize innovative forms that support interactivity. She collaborates with the DIVERT collective, where she expands her field of activity to inclusive dance. As a dance artist, she participates in three full-length performances (Octet Stream, Nukleon, and Bella Ciao) and one short work (Is There Magic). Irma Unušić focuses her artistic activity on developing dance theater for young audiences by participating in various international projects and residencies (Generator platform, Clicker platform, Teen Generator, Touch/ed residency, Island connect). The play Astronauts, directed by Maja Zećo (2018), is the first play for children produced by SHOOMA, in which she has the role of choreographer and performer. In her work, she emphasizes the popularization of contemporary dance in Bjelovar and the county through various programs. Since December 2020, she has been a member of the Professional Association of Dance Artists of Croatia (UPUH).

Tea Hlušička

deputy artistic director
Tea Hlušička, born on August 3, 1992, is a dance artist based in Zagreb. She acquired her pedagogical and then dance education at the Faculty of Teacher Education in 2017 as a master of primary education. In 2019, he completed contemporary dance at the Department of Dance - performance direction at the Academy of Dramatic Arts.
During and after graduating from the Academy, she primarily deals with the performance aspect of contemporary dance. In recent artistic experience, she creates and performs in dance projects and productions such as Invisible (dance) choreographed by Irma Omerzo (Zagreb, 2021), Petra Hrašćanec (Zadar, 2021), Spectacle (SSP) by Irma Omerzo (Zagreb, 2021) and Found Choreography for Antisezona online + live performance (Zagreb, 2020). The author's solo performance Dobro je (za) sada (It's good (for) now), under the mentorship of Zrinka Šimičić Mihanović, was created as part of the final research work during her studies and performed at the Dance INN OUTside festival (Zagreb, 2020), Barutani (Osijek, 2020) and Monoplay festival (Zadar, 2020). She has collaborated with Sonja Pregrad, Marina Bauer, Maayan Danoch, Tijen Goosen Lawton, Johannes Härtl, Robert Mileva, Aleksandra Mišić, etc. In the academic year 2018/2019. Tea received the Dean's Award of the Academy of Dramatic Arts for her outstanding contribution to working on the choreography Thin Line by Alexandre Janeva Imfeld.
As a dance pedagogue, she works in the Lepeza dance studio with preschool children. From 2020, she became part of the art organization SHOOMA, within whose programs she seeks to directly integrate two aspects of acquired formal education in working with children and youth.
She is a member of the Association of Professional Dance Artists PULS.

Annual reports

© 2023 Shooma
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