C O L O N Y
winter dance summit | 2023:

Nida, February 13-19, 2023.

P R O G R A M / T E A C H E R S.
we are back to re-search, re-imagine, re-think, re-treat, re-create with:

GAGA dancers / IMPROVISATION with Natalia Iwaniec (PL)
HIP-HOP with Maxim Orobets aka Maximus Mad State (UA)
HOUSE with Maxim Orobets aka Maximus Mad State (UA)
FLOORWORK / URBAN MEETS CONTEMPORARY DANCE with Carlos Aller (ES)
THE CHOREOGRAPHIC METHOD “CONDENSING MOVEMENTS” with Silke Z. & Caroline Simone (DE)
CREATIVE SELF-MANAGEMENT with Laurynas Zakevicius (LT)
NUTRITION with Dovydas Zenkevicius (LT)

☞ A full detailed program and schedule will be shared with registered colonizers.

T E A C H E R S

Get to know your teachers for a little bit more:

NATALIA IWANIEC / GAGA DANCERS / IMPROVISATION

From deep listening to the body to physical sensations. It’s a framework for discovering and strengthening the body and adding flexibility, stamina, agility, and skills including coordination and efficiency while stimulating the senses and imagination. Natalia’s classes offer a workout that investigates form, speed, and effort while traversing additional spectrums such as those between soft and thick textures, delicacy and explosive power, and understatement and exaggeration.

Natalia is guiding dancers through awakening numb areas, increasing awareness of habits, and improving the efficiency of movement inside multilayered tasks, and dancers are encouraged to connect to pleasure inside moments of effort.

CARLOS ALLER / FLOORWORK / URBAN MEETS CONTEMPORARY DANCE

Carlos’s classes start with an inner meditation to improve body awareness and deepen the ́dancers movements. The classes are progressive, beginning with a warm up improvisation and developing into higher complexity moves. In these classes you will experience the junction between contemporary and urban dance. Carlos generally teaches floorwork, acrobatics, theatre tasks, text, character work, hiphop, isolations, musicality and repertoire from Frantics Dance Company. The classes embody a mixture between theatre and dance helping the dancers to find their own character and theatricality. They strive to teach the dancer to listen and adapt to the flow of the music, while infusing the dance with there own
creative mark.

MAXIM OROBETS AKA MAXIMUS MAD STATE / HIP-HOP / HOUSE

Born in Cherkasy, Ukraine, and now residing in the city of Kyiv, Maxim Orobets (UA) is a passionate dancer, teacher, and events organizer. As of February 25, 2022, he has been resiliently managing an Artist fund to support dancers and their families who’ve been affected by the Russia-Ukraine war. Maxim is the Director of two dance studios: Max Dance in Cherkasy and Explosion School in Kyiv. He has been teaching young dancers for 15 years and has organized some of the biggest dance events in Ukraine such as ‘Explosion Battle’. In addition, Maxim has created the Ukrainian Underground Camp, a dance camp that unites dancers for workshops every 6 months. Maxim is dancing since 2004 and is a member of two major dance collectives “Mad State Crew” and “Explosion Team”. He has more than 200 titles and wins around Ukraine and internationally in his backpack and over 14 years of teaching experience.

Workshops led by Maxim are designed in the ever-changing format of freestyle with a closer focus on dance development using foundations; work with space and directions; complex isolations and combining it with basic dance; creation of the concept and use of it during freestyle; musicality development. Enhance even more: rocks, footwork, lines, ground moves, and grooves.

SILKE Z. / THE CHOREOGRAPHIC METHOD “CONDENSING MOVEMENTS”

Condensing Movement – Exposing Energy
The workshop is designed by dancers and choreographers for like-minded dancers and choreographers in order to help them to focus on developing personal choreographic movement material with the aim to dissolve the form and the design, moreover, to let go of what dancers already have in their bodies and minds. Following a specific method that Silke calls condensing we will search for a state of openness in the body that allows a joyful time with the unknown material and the fun that will appear when we start to deconstruct our patterns. Be prepared for a great sense of surprise and PEACE-ful grounds for growth.
There is plenty of space for new movement directions, let it happen.

Silke Z. resistdance develops her work within the artistic sphere since 1999 over 40 dance productions at home and abroad, in cooperation with international, national, and regional institutions and artists. She presents her work worldwide (including South Africa, the USA, Canada, Estonia, Lithuania, Portugal, Finland France, Poland, and Spain). The choreographer has received the Cologne Dance and Theater Prize several times, won the Cologne Children’s and Young People’s Theater Prize (2015), and twice won the “Förderpreis Freier Theater” as part of the festival Theaterzwang (now Favoriten). She was nominated for the Isadora Duncan Prize in California and for the FAUST Theater Prize in 2008. She develops and curates festival formats in Cologne (including TanzKonkret, Echt. Jetzt, Wie Leben Geht, Tanz.Fest.Spiele). Since November 2015, she has directed the dance production and performance space ehrenfeldstudios, a venue with an intergenerational focus and professional stage productions, residencies, and outreach programs for students and seniors.

Silke Z. is working with her ensemble to establish artistic dance research and laboratory work with mixed-able people and people over 60 years of age with performance output in various cities. Internationally networking, Silke Z. co-founded the European dance network STUDIOTRADE which combines 13 partners from the following countries: Iceland, Portugal, France, Holland, Lithuania, Germany, Ireland, Finland, and Spain. The network has been working since 2010, offering international residency programs, sharing resources, and presenting artistic dance platforms since 2015 at Festival de Danse, Cannes, Euroszene, Leipzig, Palma Dansa, Palma de Mallorca, Sharing Across Borders, Cologne, among others.

CAROLINE SIMONE / THE CHOREOGRAPHIC METHOD “CONDENSING MOVEMENTS”

Condensing Movement – Exposing Energy
The workshop is designed by dancers and choreographers for like-minded dancers and choreographers in order to help them to focus on developing personal choreographic movement material with the aim to dissolve the form and the design, moreover, to let go of what dancers already have in their bodies and minds. Following a specific method that Silke calls condensing we will search for a state of openness in the body that allows a joyful time with the unknown material and the fun that will appear when we start to deconstruct our patterns. Be prepared for a great sense of surprise and PEACE-ful grounds for growth.
There is plenty of space for new movement directions, let it happen.

Caroline Simon was born in Brussels in 1977. She studied contemporary dance at the Performing Arts Research and Training Studios, directed by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. She graduated in June 2001 from the Rotterdam Dance Academy as a dancer, dance teacher, and choreographer. Since May 2001, Caroline Simon lives and works in Cologne, where she produced her own work until 2008. Her Solo piece (2008) was nominated for the Cologne Dance Award 2008 and selected for the European festival Aerowaves.
With her piece, she was nominated “best female performer” at the Dublin Fringe Festival 2009. In 2014 she won the Cologne Performer Award. She is the co-founder and co-director of the dance and performance venue ehrenfeldstudios (Cologne) and co-founder of the European network Studiotrade. Since 2009 she is a team member of the Silke Z./resistdance company and since 2016 of Silke Z.’s intergenerational ensemble The metabolists. She is currently working on dance improvisation solos, with artists like Andrew Morrish, Bryce Kasson, Stéphanie Auberville. Her interest in dance and performance is the human being “behind” the movement. Her personal motor is fed by trying to push her own performative limits and finding new movement strategies. She aims to merge the knowledge and experience she acquired through the years with her curiosity about the unknown.

LAURYNAS ZAKEVICIUS / CREATIVE SELF-MANAGEMENT

How to build a sustainable life and navigate my career as an independent dance artist? This session provides some insights, tips, and tools for managing your everyday life and artistic career. Whilst dancing, creating and being on tours with Low Air dance company Laurynas developed cultural management, networking, and production skills building new possibilities for Low Air company itself. Filling out a great number of open calls, applying for funding, managing productions, and touring from Greenland to Korea, from New York to French Riviera it seems to be the right time to share the “Do’s and Don’ts“. Possibilities are everywhere it is important for a dancer to understand and interpret them right.

DOVYDAS ZENKEVICIUS / NUTRITION

Dovydas is a professional chef. Dovydas will not only prepare food but will also present everything that is important for a healthy, moving body diet. There is more than one interesting piece of advice waiting for participants: how to maintain a healthy and vibrant body during rehearsals and tours, how to take care of nutrient balancing, and, of course, learn to cook.
If it’s not about dancing, it’s definitely about delicious food.