UKRAINIAN DANCE PLATFORMLET THE BODY SPEAKIN VILNIUS
May 2-3, Arts Printing House
Program of the Ukrainian Platform
Arts Printing House, Siltadarzio g. 6
PERFORMANCES
ONE MORE STEP
What is behind your change?
How did you get here?
Were you alone?
A reflection work on the theme of human transformation. About the causes and people that drive us to change. Our history, it's not just us, it's thousands of people who brought us to this point, the steps of our parents and grandparents, the steps beside us, and the steps of us in the future.
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Thousands of people manifest in us, and we manifest in them.
So how do you change the place you are in? Just take one step.
The project is realized within the residency program of the Derrida Dance Center (Sofia, Bulgaria) with the financial support of the Cultural Events Calendar of Sofia Municipality, the National Culture Fund, the Trust for mutual understanding (USA) and Movement Research (USA).
Duration: 47 min.
Violeta Matyushenko is a dancer, teacher and choreographer. In her work she uses the techniques of improvisation, movement research and contact improvisation. Her growth as a choreographer took place in the framework of the events and festivals of Ukrainian contemporary dance community. She was the participant of many research based pieces and movement laboratories.
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She is an organizer of improvisation evenings in Kyiv, founder of the "Freshfish" dance theater (the basis of the theater was movement laboratories and performances based on improvisation). She is fond of organic movement, the art of speaking with the body, harmonious group work in structures and duets, work on the border between theater and dance.
Violeta`s debut solo work - "How much do I need" was created at the "Artil" festival (Ukraine). The second and the most significant is "One more step" created during the residency at Derida Stage, Bulgaria after the beginning of Russia`s full-scale invasion to Ukraine.
DANSE MACABRE. THE IMMORTAL DANCE
We offer intellectual, refined and highly visual dance performance which is at the same time relevant and conceptual. After all, the audience will read not only the contemporary expressive movements but also the underlying contents, references and contexts. The shared vision of the director and the choreographer is an appeal not only to frank, provocative theater, but also to visual, aesthetic theater. Combinations of opposite, contrasting categories works for maximum expressiveness.
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Nudity, which fits as much as possible to emphasize the movement, leaves visible every micro movement of the body, emphasizes its plasticity and nature, at the same time acquires a certain decorativeness, colorfulness and a new expressiveness that can only arise from the processing of nature by human hands.
A girl with a scythe certainly evokes powerful and recognizable associations. However, her nudity will make this image wider and more universal. You will see both Death and the one who faces it. You will see outrageous brutality and insecurity. Thirty minutes of scythe dance. Thirty minutes of the dance of death. Dance of life.
Duration: 30 min.
Director and scenographer: Bohdan PolishchukChoreographer and performer: Lesia KekuatovaComposer and musician: Varvara TurtaLighting designer: Svitlana Zmeeva
Created with the support of: UA Contemporary Dance PlatformThe PlaceBritish Council Ukraine
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Bohdan Polishchuk is a theater director and scenographer.
Bohdan is a graduate of the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture, Kyiv.
Co-founder of the public organization Gallery of Scenography and the International Festival Lviv Quadrennial of Scenography.
Curator of art projects, art exhibitions, author of publications and compiler of books on the art of theatrical costume and scenography.
For more than ten years, he has been working with various municipal and national theaters of Ukraine and independent artistic initiatives as a scenographer and director.
Bohdan Polishchuk works in the direction of intellectual and visual theater, which combines modern drama, music, dramatic acting and dance.
Lesya Kekuatova is a choreographer, dancer and teacher.
For several years, she taught at the Department of Contemporary Dance of the Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University. She is the founder of the choreographic studio DUNAY.
Lesya is a graduate of Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University.
For more than ten years she has been working as a choreographer and dancer in various art projects, combining dance with her background as a theater actor.
Lesya is a choreographer and dancer of the Dance Macabre performance. She creates and performs the central image of this action - a Girl with a scythe.
Varvara Turta is a professional musician, harpsichordist, pianist and performer.
Varvara is a graduate of the R. Glier Kyiv Municipal Academy of Music and the National Academy of Music of Ukraine named after P. I. Tchaikovsky.
Constantly improves his level at master classes of famous European harpsichordists.
She practices intense concert activity, is a participant and winner of international harpsichord competitions in Ukraine and Europe.
Varvara is also open to experiments, studies Argentine tango and has experience as a performer in theater projects.
Varvara started playing the hurdy-gurdy, and researched the Ukrainian tradition of playing this instrument, especially for the performance Dance Macabre. Іmmortal dance.
Varvara is not only a performer in this performance, but she is also a co-author, because the music, the main solution of the performance, is created by the method of fixed improvisation
TOGETHER ALONE
Chornomorsk, Odesa, Lviv, Kryvyi Rih, Zaporizhia… cities on the map of Ukraine that the dancers left in search of safety in the EU after the war broke out. Their stories are different, but they have one thing in common: they all fled from an occupied country and are confronted daily with the trauma, uncertainty and fear that comes with being a refugee in a foreign land.
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Five female Ukrainian dancers, torn from their homes, are here and now. Each for herself and yet together. They are kept above water by their creativity, the ability to create and the opportunity to find a new community – an artistic family.
At the same time, Together Alone brings closer the work of other Ukrainian artists. The production is inspired by Anton Ovchinnikov’s verses written during the war in Kyiv and is accompanied by the music of the Canadian-based Ukrainian radical anti-Putin band Balaklava Blues. Tomáš Kerle took care of fine-tuning the sound atmosphere.
Duration: 25 min.
Choreographer: Yana ReutovaPerformers: Diana Khrushch, Olena Korotkova, Anastasiia Pavlovska, Yana Reutova, Valeriia Tsvirkunova (UA)Lightning Design: Dominik Šimurda (CZ)Collaboration on the lighting concept and technical supervision: Katarína Morávek-Ďuricová (CZ)Music: Balaklava Blues (CA/UA), Tomáš Kerle (CZ)
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Poetry: Anton Ovchinnikov (UA)Recitation: Olesa Usata (UA)Producer: Tanec Praha / PONEC – dance venueThanks to: Art Centrum Krenovka, SUDOP Real a Yvona Kreuzmannová su Tanec PrahaPremiere: 2023 PONEC (Preview 25.11. 2022 PONEC)
Yana Reutova worked as a dancer, choreographer and teacher in the Odesa region. In 2014 she founded Dance Theatre Plastilin in Chornomorsk and created several performances receiving some awards. She organized the “Dance Platform Most” festival (5 years), the evening of contemporary choreography “Crossroads” in Odesa and worked a lot with children (Creative Kids project) and her students creating many miniatures for them.
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She participated in the ballet of Aya Perfilieva, Beit Grand Theater, Odesa as well as in projects under guidance by choreographers like Jerome Meyer, Isabelle Chaffaud, Eldad Ben Sasson or Olga Labovkina. After that she started the “Speaking with the Body'' festival, which took place only once.
In March 2022, she took her daughter and several students and fled from the war to Prague, where she now works. She is involved in projects by other choreographers (Anna Källblad, Nicole Beutler, POCKETART) and herself leads workshops for children and develops her own creative work with various artists.
“Together Alone” is the first part of the triptych of the same name, which she wants to complete with dancers from the Czech Republic and Burkina Faso during 2023. Last year she started a series of interactive performances “On the way” as part of the “Dance to Hostels” project for Ukrainian refugees, which she followed up with the premiere of a new interactive work for children called “Childhood Time”.
BEAUTY OF THE BEAST
Russian classical ballet today is one of the main products of Russian cultural export and one of the symbols of Russian art and culture outside of Russia. The performance “Beauty of the Beast” suggests looking at classical Russian ballet as an aestheticized form of violence against a person and over the body.
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Today, when the Russian army destroys cities and the population of Ukraine, inhumanity and destruction become new symbols of Russia. How can this metamorphosis change the view of Russian classical ballet? Can it still be a cover for the lawlessness, anti-humanism and imperial habits of the Russian elite? How the war could change the perception of ballet as an art form that is deeply rooted in European culture but which has become a mainstay and glossy cover of Russian art for export?
The performance offers a new utopian vision of what a traditional classical ballet class might look like in a country where the entire cultural industry works to support the military-industrial complex and is subject to state ideology and propaganda.
The performance is based on the poem “New Russian Ballet” by Anton Ovchinnikov, which was written at the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, namely on March 31, 2022
Duration: 35 min
Anton Ovchinnikov — multidisciplinary artist. He works as choreographer, performer, composer, lecturer, and organizer of the annual international dance festival Zelyonka Space UP in Kyiv.
Ovchinnikov was born in Kyiv in 1971. Graduated from Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts, MA.
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Since 2008 he is the artistic director of the Black O!Range dance productions company. The company was recognized as one of the most distinctive and original dance projects in Ukraine.
In 2015 Ovchinnikov co-founded the All-Ukrainian Association “Contemporary Dance Platform”. Since then he is the President of the institution. Main objectives of the Association are to support young Ukrainian choreographers, integrate contemporary dance into the modern cultural life of Ukraine and establish the national center of contemporary dance.
In 2016-2021 Anton Ovchinnikov presented a few solo performances and created four multidisciplinary projects. In 2017 he was the fellow of CEC Artslink Residency in the USA.
Since 2018 Anton Ovchinnikov is the member of the expert panel of Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.
THE WAY FROM / TO
Solo performance reflecting the experiences of Ukrainian people since February 24.
“Is there an instruction on how to abandon your whole life and leave? Suddenly. How to pack a suitcase when you don’t know where and how long you are going for. Because you are not going TO, but FROM”.
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Director and performer, Rita Lira, who was forced to move from Ukraine, created a performance based on interviews from real people who are from or have been to the deoccupied territories after the invasion of russian soldiers. The majority of the sounds for this performance are documentary recordings.
Rita recorded on her phone almost everything that happened around her during her stay in Ukraine in the first days of the invasion. All music for this performance was created without the use of professional equipment or studios. Composer Maryana Savchenko recorded vocals for a choir in a hotel bathroom in China. Singer Pavlo Moskalenko recorded his vocals on a telephone recorder in Ukraine.
The movement of the performance is always in a free form, which makes each showing of this performance unique. Rita decided not to work with exact choreography because this performance is not about beautiful dance. “This is a real story of real people, and for me only improvisation at the moment of each part can create and convey true emotions”. The performer conveys the feeling from the first emotions of absurdity, confusion and horror through pain and loss to the present strength, pride and insurmountable struggle for life, peace and freedom!
Duration: 55 min.
Director and performer: Rita Lira, UkraineСomposer, sound producer: Mariana SavchenkoMastering: Viacheslav Shevchenko Video editor: Pavlo LykholatLight designer: Helena CaixetaProject manager: Anita Avakian
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Illustration for poster: Oleksiy SamovarovInterviewees: Alyona Kazanska, Anton Topchiy, Inna Demkovych, Valera Simonchuk, Maksym KotskyiMusic: «Молитва за Україну» (“Prayer for Ukraine”) – Church of the Holy Martyr Ludmila of Bohemia church choir, Orthodox Church of Ukraine, director: Pavlyuk Oleksandr «Через поле широкеє» (“Through the wide field”) – arrangement for choir: Pavlyuk Oleksandr , soprano: Mariana Savchenko, first and second tenor: Pavlo Moskalenko, baritone and bass: Oleksii FishchukSupported by: La Briqueterie – CDCN du Val de Marne, Paris, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, Mille Plateaux – Centre Chorégraphique National La Rochelle, Centre Intermondes, La Rochelle
Rita Lira (born 1996) graduated from Kyiv Boris Grinchenko University in Contemporary choreography in Ukraine. From 2013 Rita began to learn street dance styles such as: hip-hop, house, popping.
Her teachers: ZULU (Mad State), Maximus (Mad State), Nastya (The Vibe), Anrey (The Vibe), Nikkipop, Boogaloofreak and etc.
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In 2017 she became a member of G. Dance Theater in Ukraine. Rita was in the team more than 2 years. Choreographer – Maria Korosteleva. They worked with live performances and dance video: “G-effect”, “Phases”, etc. Rita started to take part like independent dancer in 2018. First performances were “Pistok” and “Pistok. Turning”. Idea: Oksana Rozumna; concept and production: Anton Ovchinnikov. Ukraine/Africa
Since 2019 Rita started to teach contemporary and street dance: Worked as a choreographer-director at Splash Theatre-Studio 2019-2020. Work as an teacher at MyWay Dance Centre, style: “Experimental contemporary” 2021-2022.
Instagram: @_rio_rita_
EVERY MINUTE MOTHERLAND
The minimalistic yet powerful dance piece under the title “Every Minute Motherland” was created in response to the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine and the refugee crisis that followed it. The performance is developed by the Polish-Ukrainian team, including refugees, who shared their professional and first-hand war experience.
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“Every Minute Motherland” is a documentary work with internal and external views on the events of the last months. The experience engraved in dancers’ bodies will be released on stage transcribed in motion and time and reaching for the spirit of ritual and myth.
Maciej Kuźmiński, who also helps refugees as a volunteer, calls the war in Ukraine one of the most influential events of his life. In “Every Minute Motherland” he considers the war as a massive force that over and over brings the world in physical and existential motion, questioning our values, identities and ideas of safety and home.
The performance features 7 high-class dancers who are also its co-authors. Only with the language of movement they honestly express a living experience of being torn and unsettled, suspended between the memory of the past and the unbelievable present, hoping to find a path of mutual understanding with the world.
Duration: 60 min.
Choreographer: Maciej KuźmińskiAssistant Choreographer: Monika WitkowskaDramaturg: Paul BargettoPerformers and co-writers: Daria Koval, Anna Myloslavska, Monika Witkowska, Vitaliia Vaskiv, Szymon Tur, Anastasia Ivanova, Omar KarabulutProducers: Maciej Kuźmiński, Polina Bulat
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The work was created during the project residency that started in 2022 at Klub Żak Cultural Centre
In collaboration with Materia Łódź (Przestrzenie Sztuki programme), Creators for Ukraine Foundation (founders of CIAS and ZAIKS) and Ukrainian Institute.
Maciej Kuźmiński is a choreographer, pedagogue and producer, creator of the Polish Dance Network. The graduate from Trinity Laban Conservatory in London, where he completed the BA Dance Theater and MA Choreography studies. Artistic work of Maciej Kuźmiński includes either critical, politically engaged and feminist performances, or choreographic explorations of metaphysics, philosophy and existentialism.
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Since 2014, Kuźmiński’s works have been presented over 170 times in 21 countries and has won over twenty international awards and distinctions.
The project is supported by
The project is being created by
All-Ukrainian association "Contemporary Dance Platform" was created in 2015 by the professional dance community during the festival of contemporary dance theater "Zelyonka FEST". Creation of the Platform was a result of shared understanding that there was a need for an organization which would:
- develop networking in the contemporary dance community;
- assist in creating international projects and establishing contacts with international organizations in the sphere of contemporary dance;
- promote contemporary dance as a genre of experimental stage art and increase its audience numbers;
- seek opportunities for financing projects;
- establish contacts with art institutions in other spheres to create interdisciplinary projects.One of Europe’s most exciting, innovative dance spaces, where artists from all over the world come to push creative boundaries, to experiment and to perform outstanding new work for audiences who expect to be surprised, inspired and delighted. The Place is home to London Contemporary Dance School, a 288 seat theatre, an extensive range of classes, courses and participatory opportunities for adults and young people, and professional development programmes for artists.
The International contemporary dance festival New Baltic Dance (NBD) is taking place from April 26th to May 14th in Vilnius, Ukmergė, and Žagarė. This year, the festival speaks of IN EXPLICABILITY of the dance and invites the festival’s regular audiences as well as the newcomers not to “understand” but rather reflect contemporary life through emotions and experiences, told through body.
Sensitively responding to the current events of our time, the festival makes space for Ukrainian dance artists, and presents the dance program “Let the Body Speak”. The performances and sketches of those, who experience the horror of war or temporarily had to flee their country, are being created during the time of invasion – in the program, the deepest experiences are expressed through bodies.The UK/Ukraine Season of Culture is giving a voice to Ukrainian creatives and focusing on the changing needs and priorities of the Ukrainian cultural sector.
The British Council is an international organization for cultural links and educational opportunities.
The Ukrainian Institute is a state institution under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine
Contacts
e-mail: moc.liamg%40mroftalp.ecnad.au