As Theater Director / Dancemaker of the ARTSHIP Ensemble, Slobodan Dan Paich is working in close partnership with the company members - actors, dancers, musicians, storytellers, language & visual artists - on two shows.

The first, "Tarantella, Tarantula," recently had its world premiere in September / October 2006, and is ready to go on tour in 2007. The second, the "Burning of the Ancient Library of Alexandria," is currently in pre-production and scoping rehearsals after initiation of the idea and Slobodan’s background research in 2005 /2006. It is moving toward full rehearsals and a premiere in San Francisco during the 2007-2008 season.

Ensemble process is at the core of Slobodan’s work. ARTSHIP Ensemble has a deep commitment to an ongoing weekly process of rehearsals, skills-building, inspirational improvisations and co-creation. This incubating process is a living kernel from which are pulled artistic standards, the shaping of new productions, community involvement and celebrations.

Our work attempts to create poetically rich space from the moment someone enters the theater, an outdoor or site specific space, to see our performance. Great care is taken that every aspect of the many-faceted field created gives the audience breathing space for their own spirits to expand.

A brief summary below of Slobodan’s roots and background serve as an introduction and context for his current engagements & projects. His is a search for the synthesis of theater, movement, music, story, and sculpture, culminating in poetic communication.

From the very beginning of his "life in art," Slobodan Dan Paich has been mixing categories without knowing. Throughout his childhood, he participated in the rehearsal process 3 to 4 times a week. Thrown into the ensemble process, he "learned by doing." Thus he assimilated the art and craft of theater and cinema on the job, working under the direct and indirect mentorship of his adult colleagues.

He sang solo and in the chorus of Radio Belgrade from age 7 to 14, acted in children’s programs on radio, TV and later in film. He sang, as well, in the children’s chorus of the opera Carmen, which inspired him to make productions, one a year, from age 11 to14, in a homemade model theater where he performed all the parts with cut-out figures. His last two productions were adaptations of Oscar Wilde’s Birthday of an Infanta and Madame Butterfly, re-created as narrated stories, which he staged for his closest friends. The making of this model theater with its figures and sets led to a deep, lifelong interest in painting, drawing and sculpture. His involvement with the miniature theater resulted, two years later, to his convening a number of small independent theater groups in which he encouraged dancers to act and actors and singers to dance.