Part of dunaPart7  - Platform for Contemporary Performing Arts in Hungary.

"Hi, I’m Luca and I’m Maja and we decided that we want to be the way we want to be even though we don’t know the way we want to be." Two years on, following several international and festival appearances, the two creators look back on the legendary nine-part performance series, as now meets then once again. 

“THE MANUAL was a performance series of nine episodes at Trafó by two emerging performance artists, Maja Juhász and Luca Kovács. They presented a new episode every month, eventually condensing the episodes into a whole-night marathon as part of an endurance performance. THE MANUAL thus readily shifts shape, much like the two members of the duo, who are at the start of their careers. With their ambitious first project, they were presumably searching for an artistic identity, a creed. At the same time, with courage worthy of Yes Girls, as it were – after the Yes Men –, they infiltrated various communities that were presumably as alien to them as to their audiences. They ‘tried on’ many strange identities, but all this time they were searching for themselves, both in the exotic landscapes of Hungary and in their own deepening friendship. Both had graduated from classes of the Freeszfe Society, the counter-institution established following the 2020 political takeover of the University of Theatre and Film Arts (SZFE), one in the Theatre-Making programme and the other in the Performance programme. By self-ironically pushing the boundaries of autobiography while not shying away from taking risks, they made a splash with their debut: THE MANUAL.” (Noémi Herczog, curator of dunaPart)

Maja JUHÁSZ and Luca KOVÁCS have been working together as a creative duo since 2023. Their 2024/25 project is a performance series titled 'mostakkor', which consists of nine episodes and was presented at Trafó Kabin. In addition, supplementary parts of the series were shown at the U500 Festival, Forróváltás, NextFest, and Thealter Festival. The use of autobiographical elements and fieldwork as a form of research are of particular importance in their work. Luca KOVÁCS graduated in 2024 from the Theater and Performance program at the Freeszfe Association; during her studies, she met Maja JUHÁSZ, who graduated in 2023 from the Theater Production program at the Freeszfe Association and is currently studying film directing at ELTE.