Participate in hands-on workshops led by renowned artists that offer unique opportunities to learn new techniques and deepen a practice designed to bring people together through the shared experience of movement, regardless of their background or level of experience.

Dance with Gravity – Contact Improvisation Lab with Catalin Diaconu
25 – 29. 10. 2024 , 10:00 – 15:00, The Center

In honor of Steve Paxton, we are holding a 5-day Contact Improvisation workshop with Catalin Diaconu from Romania. Catalin is one of the founders of the Contact Improvisation Festival in Bucharest.

Steve Paxton is a seminal figure in contemporary dance, known for his pioneering work in improvisational dance. He is best known for creating Contact Improvisation (CI) in the early 1970s, which had a huge impact on the world of dance by challenging traditional hierarchies in dance, removing the need for formal training and technique, emphasizing that anyone can dance and participate in the creative process, thanks to which it democratized dance.

Contact improvisation provides a foundation for somatic practices that focus on body awareness and movement efficiency and gives strong reflections in all performing arts. It also fosters a strong sense of community among practitioners.

Contact Improvisation contributes to broader cultural discussions about the body, movement and human connection. It fosters an embodied understanding of self and others by promoting the values of empathy, presence and mindfulness.

Catalin shares, “I’m excited to share my passion for cultivating attention and perception of nuance, to focus on what’s actually happening moment to moment, in the dance; to try to lose the plans and ‘known’ paths as we dance to spark creativity and invite our minds to function more as curious explorers.

Everyone is welcome, regardless of experience or professional background. Whether you are new to contact improvisation or have extensive experience, you will have the opportunity to learn something useful at this workshop.”

Workshop Body, origin and speech development with Anna Dankova

30 – 31.10.2024, 11:30 – 14:30, The Center

This workshop will explore the origin and function of language (speech) as a physical and as a mental process. We will work with speech as:
– Sound (music), a musical score that creates meanings and aesthetics for itself.
– Body – how it is created in the body and what it produces in the body, choreography of the speaking body

During the work process special attention will be paid to processes such as:
– the interruption of the automatic rhythm of breath, speech transforms natural breath into human choice, into a work of
– the stages of speaking – from the first cry, through the inarticulate syllables, the first simple words, to the complex abstractions of poetry, philosophy and natural science
– speech as monologue (I am), dialogue (corridor process between two), communication in a large group

The workshop is aimed at actors, musicians, dancers, artists in the field of contemporary performing arts, but also at lay people interested in the physical and mental exploration of the voice and its manifestation in speech.

Creative movement for children (8+ years) with Lyubov Zheglova

31.10 – 03.11.2024, 11:30 – 14:30, The Center

Do we know what dance is? And what is contemporary dance? When did it appear?

In this series of meetings we will look at key examples of contemporary dance from the twentieth century to today – with the different ideas, concepts and techniques.

Who is the event suitable for?
The series is suitable for both children (8+) and their parents!
We’ll be talking about Merce Cunningham and Boris Sharmatz, Igor Stravinsky and Xavier Le Roy, and more.

Surprising stories and exciting hands-on activities await us as we explore “What is Contemporary Dance?”

Enjoy cutting-edge performances by leading choreographers and performers who push the boundaries of contemporary dance and the art of movement.

REFLECTIONS, contemporary dance performance by Iskra Prodanova
31.10.2024, 19:00, City Art Gallery

Performers: Sofia Hristova, Maga Arna

Light design: Iskra Prodanova in collaboration with Hristina Ivanova

Music: Victor Prodanov and Tsvetan Momchilov in collaboration with Iskra Prodanova 

Costumes and stage environment: Iskra Prodanova

Graphic designer: Stoycho Chakarov

Production photography: Gergana Encheva

Produced by Performance Room

Reflections is a choreographic work inspired by the concept of ‘oscillation’, a type of periodic wave that refers to the repetitive back and forth movement of something between two positions or states. The work is a kind of poem, a refrain, a physical and metaphysical movement back and forth, out and in, arrival and return, relationships woven from resonance and dissonance, in the distant and the near, in the light and the dark.

ORATORIA, contemporary performance by Ana Dankova
01.11.2024, 19:00, City Art Gallery

Performers: Vasilia Drebova, Galya Kostadinova, Alexander Gotchev, Georgi Naldzhiev
Speech collage: Yoana Robova
Costumes: Pola Popova

ORATORIA constructs neo-dramaturgy made of musical articulations in various genres – from opera to thrash and hardcore, using only intonation and sound extraction. The work constructs a contemporary dance out of the gestures we use as we speak and traces human verbal development solely through the non-rational, automatic and affective aspects of speech – intonation (music) and gesture (dance).
ORATORIA reconstructs a universal “authentic” that is understood by every eizk and opens up a space for exploring the causes and functions of speech as a human phenomenon.
The project reflects language by distancing itself from it, depriving it of construction and meaning. When we know what we say, words are superfluous.
Presentation of anyway association, co-producer RCCI “Heat Plant”
The performance is realized with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Bulgaria and Etud Foundation
Goethe Institute Sofia, NBU

ALL THAT MATTERS
or notes on the performance of friendship
02.11.2024, 19:00, City Art Gallery

Concept-Choreography-Performance: arisandmartha | Aris Papadopoulos & Martha Pasakopoulou
Dramaturgy Consultant: Anastasios Koukoutas
Sound, set, and costume design: arisandmartha
Lighting design: Elisa Alexandropoulou
Photography: Alaa Ghosheh

In this work, the collaboration between Martha Pasakopoulou and Aris Papadopoulos is essentially put under a microscope and examined as an attempt to represent friendship on stage. The two interpreters, but also friends, collaborators and artistic partners, embark on a shared archive of movement material, dance practices and notes that, while drawing on the past, is built up on stage. In the process of discovering what really matters, they reshape it, reimagine themselves, and bring that intangible in-between space to the surface. “The property of neither, the potential of both”. The audience is present as another point of view, reflective of the duo’s friendship and its to be witnessed.

Production: arisandmartha
The creation of this work was kindly supported by Duncan Dance Research Center -Athens.
With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sports of Greece (2020-21)

KADZE
03.11.2024, 19:00, Re-Bonkers

Directed by Ani Vasseva
Consultant: Boyan Manchev
Camera Man: Ivan Nikolov
Photography: Pavel Gramatikov
Sound design: Angel Simitchiev
Music: Kristof Pechanac
Ceramics: Katrin Metodieva
Graphic design: Monika Vakarelova

“Kadze” is wind. “Kadze” is also water flowing backwards, time biting its tail, a flight of thought and body, a flight down to the core of the earth,

and a flight up to the eye of the sun and the cool, frozen brow of the storm. “Kase” is the way we go back to where we didn’t know we could and wanted to go.

“Kadze” takes motifs from the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, as well as images from Japanese choreographer Tatsumi Hijikata’s hypnotic essay “Kadze Daruma.” In this mythological plot turned inside out, Eurydice follows Orpheus and Orpheus follows the ghost of Eurydice, now irreversibly returned to the shadow realm. The time before and after the fatal sight have merged. The following is endless and without a horizon of expectation. The events surge, not in their clear reckoning, but in the stacking, the offsetting, the interval, amidst the wind of the unexpected, amidst the elements of nature whose action is unsuspected and overwhelming. The event is where what is appears as what never was and never suspected to be.

“Kadze” is another name for the search for the impossible.

Live performance by Leonid Yovchev and Katrin Metodieva

Video starring Leonid Yovchev, Katrin Metodieva, Maria Panayotova, Emona Ilieva, Galin Popov, Boris Delchev, Ivan Nikolov, Mikhail Zhekunov, Michaela Lyutskanova, Boyan Manchev, Svetlana Yancheva and Pipi.

“Kadze” was shot with the kind help of TAM Veliko Tarnovo, Dupini Group, Dupini Art Center, Galin Popov, Lidiya Karkelanova, Boris Delchev, Nikolay Zarkov.
Architectural and Museum Reserve “Nikopolis ad Istrum”, managed by the Regional History Museum – Veliko Tarnovo and its director Dr. Ivan Tsyrov.

“Kadze” was realized by “Meteor” with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality.