Balkan Dance Reality Show
„Balkan Dance Reality Show“ is an international project of „Brainstore Project” Foundation that explores the characteristics of contemporary dance in various cultural contexts in the Balkan countries. The project deals with its aesthetic and cultural-political development since 1989 and its reflections on Western-European dance. „Balkan Dance Reality Show” uses the format of a reality show as a main expressive tool for building the structure and aesthetics of the performance. The over theatrical situation of the TV format serves to re-address the relations between contemporary dance performance and the audience; contemporary dance piece and the role of the curator; contemporary dance piece and the artistic market. „Balkan dance reality show” is a collaborative work between Iva Sveshtarova and Vili Prager (Bulgaria), Sonya Pregrad (Croatia), Rosa Berman (Germany) and Agnelina Georgieva (Bulgaria) who is a dramaturge of the performance.
The project does a residency in Derida Dance Center in February 2015.
Trizavisim 2015
In February and March 2015 Derida Dance Center was a host of the 6th edition of Project Trizavisim for contemporary dance and performance. The project is run by the Guild for conremporary performative arts, part of Union of Bulgarian Artists and "A25" Cultural Foundation.
Wihtin the project this year three choreographers worked on their performances:
Violeta Vitanova with "3V" - performance that recalls the ancient figure of a witch (from the noun "wit" related to someone who has the wits and skills) and describing the female characteristics between the oppositions Vocation - Life, Victim - Power, Vow - Testament.
Petia Mukova with "Graviton" - a dance search for a consolation between the conscious inability to stay in your own zone of comfort and zero gravity, far from others' influences, and the irresistable aspiration for belonging that makes us adapt to the workd going through the zone of interaction and gravity.
Philip Milanov with "Distance" - video installation doing a research on the relationship between two opposite personalities in a situation when there is no opportunity for contact. This is a struggle between differences and our dependence on society.
Mihaela Griveva - "Slipstream"
In May 2015 Derida Dance Center resident is Mihaela Griveva. This is her second residency within the frames of our program. This time she works on her project “Slipstream”.
“Slipstream” is a region behind a moving object, which trace moves with a speed similar to the speed of the object. Inspired by this phenomenon, the choreographer Mihaela Griveva applies this principle in human relationships. Situated in a world of new dimensions and sensitivity, the participants are stimulated by various impulses that change the group hierarchy all the time.
The premiere of “Slipstream” is on June 4th 2015 at Black Box Festival in Plovdiv.
Killer - Creative Box Association
In May and June Derida Dance Center hosts Creative Box Association with its project “Killer”.
The dance performance is a provocative interference in the status quo of the stereotypical value and an ironic demythologization of the image of man as a god-like creature.
The main protagonist (The Killer – performed by Stanislav Genadiev) carries the gift of death. The fear in communication leads to clarification of the motto “if I can’t create, I will destroy”. This remark in reference to the Nietzschean “the thing that doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger” creates the dialogue between the killer and his future only lover (performed by Violeta Vitanova). In his own creation as a god-like human the killer realizes that killing doesn’t matter, but he can bring meaning to it. Thus in the name of reversed values the protagonist thinks himself as an evil that constantly fights the good. This is his reason to be.
Studentina Project
Studentina project explores the importance and irrevocable necessity for dance (art in general) as an intrinsic need in man. It gives meaning and goal and it is through art that man overcomes the feeling of emptyness and boredom. The theme is inspired by Boyan Manchev's book "The body-metamorphosis".
Another emphasis of the project is the perspective of the human being as an exploration of "the uknown". Here the leading theme is Slavoy Zhizhek's idea about the "uknown known" - the thing that we don't know that we know and which actually leads us in our daily life making us think we enforce our will.
In terms of means of expression the performance will include contemporary dance, contact improvisation, documentay theater and momentary composition.
Sidra Bell - residuals
SIDRA BELL (Artistic Director), is a Master Lecturer at the University of the Arts (Philadelphia), and was an Adjunct Professor at Ball State University (Indiana) and Barnard College (NYC). She has a degree in History from Yale University and an MFA in Choreography from Purchase College. Ms. Bell has won several awards, including a notable 1st Prize for Choreography at the International Solo-Tanz Festival in Stuttgart, Germany. Her critically acclaimed work has been seen and taught throughout the United States and in Denmark, France, Austria, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Turkey, Germany, China, Canada, Aruba, Korea, Brazil, and Greece. Bell has received many commissions from institutions internationally and has produced over 100 new works. Bell was commissioned as the choreographer for the feature film “TEST” set in San Francisco during the height of the AIDS crisis. The movie was nominated for a 2015 Independent Spirit Award. “TEST” was also awarded two grand jury prizes from the Los Angeles Outfest and was a New York Times Critic’s Pick. The film has had many screenings at LGBT festivals worldwide and is enjoying an international theatrical run. She was recently named one of 50 outstanding artists living or working in Westchester County as part of ArtsWestchester’s 50th Anniversary. SBDNY has an extensive educational and mentorship program and works with institutions for dance and theater internationally with a particular emphasis on young artist development.
REBECCA MARGOLICK (Performer) was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada. She graduated with an honors BFA in Dance from NYU - Tisch School of the Arts and received the J.S. Seidman Award for Excellence in Dance. Primarily based in New York, Rebecca is in her fourth season with Sidra Bell Dance New York. She works with Shay Kuebler Radical System Arts in Vancouver, Chuck Wilt's UNA Projects in NYC and with Derrick Belcham and Emily Terndrup. She has worked with Barak Marshall, Donald Sales and apprenticed with Aszure Barton. She has received Professional Development Grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and BC Arts Council to attend and participate in workshops around the world. This year, Rebecca was chosen to be a 14th St Y LABA Fellow.
TUSHRIK FREDERICKS (Performer) is originally from Johannesburg, South Africa. He graduated from the Peridance Capezio Center Certificate Program in New York City in 2015. He has had the opportunity to dance with Ate9 dANCEcOMPANY (Danielle Agami, Artistic Director) and has performed works by Milton Myers, Cindy Salgado & Charlotta Ofverholm. This is his first season with Sidra Bell Dance New York.
Sidra Bell Dance New York did a residency in Derida Dance Center with its piece "residuals" - "pure animal in short form" as Sidra Bell described it.
Stephanie Handjiska - "TheTimeStopper"
In September and October Derida Dance Center welcomed Stephanie Handjiiska – a young contemporary dancer who graduated Dance PORT Derida program and a debut choreographer. Within a month she worked on her first author project – TheTimeStopper – together with a team of performers, a musician, a scenographer and a dramaturg.
“TheTimeStopper” is a contemporary dance performance exploring the topic of communication between generations and the disappearing connection between them. It represents the meeting between young and elderly artists, who tell their stories to each other through the means of physical theatre and contemporary dance. The young learn the history of the old people and they get to know the modern times.
Marion Alzieu and Michael Avron (Compagnie Ma) - "W"
"W"… is an exchange between dance and music. How to introduce this dialogue which is so often choreographed, and is perhaps obvious, in a new encounter to raise the issue linking.
The link between people, between two energies, between a sense and a sound, between a thread and a bobbin, a piece of chalk and a line… A link, a connection, family trees and friendship ties. A relation to others is inevitable. Life links us. Beliefs, knowledge, ideologies, sensations, events, codes, universality, all connect us and bring us to a common and communicative universe. We share it in an grid arrangement of threads, of circuits, which form a network of invisible and powerful waves, linked to its core. We must be connected to be linked. To hook up to the invisible and the intangible in order to create a contact, a link, and to connect to the notion of being. To be someone to follow, to look up to.
On stage, we’ll imagine a backdrop of threads, cables, links. A hubbub of connections, like a concert scene which would showcase a massive computer, a brain. The primary location where our connections, our memory, our recollections, our images, our reality, our network, our relations all engage.
It’s the era of the transitional. Webs pace the universe, establishing humanity devoid links. Technology facilitates, technology modernises, technology desocialises.
Voices talk to each other, images are displayed, and the void remains. We grow apart to our greatest pleasure.
How, therefore, in this cordless society, in this purely network and waves society, can we remain linked to the present, to the spontaneous and tangible reality? How to grasp solitude and self-confrontation in this world that crackles and fuses?
To go beyond the link with our knowledge, to distort it so that the link is less obvious, less simple, to desperately attempt to find one another. As if in a network-free zone, in a way…
Min Li - Fetus Need
Min Li is a talented dancer with rich experience. After studying in the Beijing Dance Academy for 6 years he then joined The National Ballet of China and four years later was accepted in the California Institute of the Arts. During his study, he was invited by Ohad Naharin to join the Batsheva Ensemble in Israel.
"I am strongly influenced by the new era of the digital time and the age of self-advertisement. It seems like almost everyone has a online profile and social circle more active than the real one in life. We look for more attention than ever, the likes we get defines our social status, or how popular we are. In order to fit in to the certain social groups, we are trying so hard to collect friends, likes, positive comments… sometime we forget what is real and whats not, what we really value in life,
what happiness is about." answers Min when asked about the provocation for his new project Fetus Need.
Lindsey Renee Derry - Would_She
Would_She has at its core the spirit of “pushing the edge” with the theme centered on risk-taking driven from the desire to feel most alive. “Would she...?”, when posed as a question, implies risk and daringness along with its necessary counterparts, willingness and courage. Would_She dives into risk as concept and action. Risks can be terrifying yet invigorating and they are often the bridge from restriction to freedom where vitality is tested and tasted. The risks we take in the pursuit of feeling alive pushes us from doing what makes us feel slightly uncomfortable (like performing Karaoke) to doing what overwhelms us (like skydiving). In challenging herself to not only portray the daringness inherent in the theme but to be daring herself as the creator/performer and in entering a space of vulnerability, the only place where true risk and courage can live, Lins repeatedly encounters her “edge”, thus keeping her in a provocative relationship with her own intrinsic vitality throughout the 45 minute show.
Saju Hari - Cos u r worth it?
Saju Hari is from Kerala (South India) where he graduated in Electronics Engineering (Bangalore) and trained in contemporary dance and Kalaripayattu (martial art) with Jayachandran at Attakkalari, but has lived and worked in the UK since 2003. He started dancing with Imlata Dance Company (1998-2003), the Bedlam Dance Company (2004-2005), before joining Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company (2003-2007) touring internationally throughout the UK, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Portugal, Korea and Hong Kong. He toured in Akram Khan Company’s "Bahok", a collaboration with National Ballet of China, dancing (2008-2010) across Europe, Asia, and The Americas, including Sadler’s Wells (London), Theatre de la Ville (Paris) and City Center (New York). Saju also worked with Fabulous Beasts Dance company, touring two productions: "Rian" - a collaboration between Fabulous Beasts and Irish musician Liam o Maonlai of Hothouse Flowers, as well as the latest Stravinsky double bill, "Rite of Spring" and "Petrushka". Saju also worked with Sasha Waltz & Guests for Sasha Waltz’s production "Gefaltet".An experienced teacher, Saju has taught masterclasses and professional classes at The Place, for Akram Khan Company, disabled and behaviourally-challenged groups, schools, colleges, residencies in London and Brussels, gave choreographic workshops for the West End musical "The Far Pavilions" and choreographed on Jatinder Verma’s (Tara Arts) "The Merchant of Venice". Saju is an Associate Artist at UK Foundation for Dance in London.
"Cos u r worth it?" is the project Saju started working on during his residency in Derida Dance Center.
"This conflict within me.
the conflict between my left and right eye
between flesh and bone
bling and blood"
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