C O L O N Y
winter dance summit | 2025:
Nida, February 10-16, 2025.
P R O G R A M :
GAGA with Natalia Iwaniec (PL)
CREATION PROJECT with Eric Oberdorff (FR)
HIP HOP FREESTYLE and HOUSE with Sophie May (FR)
POLYPHONIC DANCING / TOGETHER APART with IEVAKRISH (LT/LV)
NUTRITION with Dovydas Zenkevicius (LT)
CREATIVE SELF-MANAGEMENT / MENTORING with Laurynas Zakevicius (LT)
PERFORMANCES
☞ 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:
GAGA / NATALIA IWANIEC (PL)
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, understatement and exaggeration. Natalia is guiding dancers through awakening numb areas, increasing awareness of habits and improving the efficiency of movement inside multilayered tasks. Dancers are encouraged to connect to pleasure inside moments of effort.
CREATION PROJECT / Eric Oberdorff (FR)
French dancer, choreographer, film-maker and stage director. Éric Oberdorff sees his presence as an artist as that of a privileged observer of his environment, questioning the physicality of the bodies and their connections to the world as poetic transmitters. After practising martial arts, he studied dance and spent sixteen years travelling the world as a performer. In 2002, Éric founded the Compagnie Humaine, with which he creates interdisciplinary projects integrating choreography, music, image, text, visual and digital arts. he accompanies his creation work by multiple actions towards the public, with particular attention to people in precarious social situation.
Regularly invited to create pieces for companies, opera houses and festivals in France and abroad, his works have won numerous international awards, including the 2018 Fedora Prize and the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale – 2022 Biennale Musica.
THE LONELY GODS
Strength and violence are solitary gods. They give nothing to memory.
– Albert Camus – ‘L’Été’ (1954)
During my week’s residency at Nida, I want to share a process of research and creation with the dancers from Vilnius city dance theatre Low Air, focusing mainly on the writing of movement, both individually and collectively. I’m working on this project for a choreographic piece called ‘Les Dieux solitaires’ (The Lonely Gods), on a theme that is both intimately linked to the history of humanity and still cruelly topical in our modern societies: violence.
GENESIS OF THE PROJECT
For over ten years, artist Étienne Guiol has been studying and drawing human figures affected by violence: ‘I’ve been able to pick out, by chance or by design, the same gestures, the same symbols, the same intensity of expression, the same attitudes, the same draping over the same bodies in action, the same cries or the same screams. It’s a stark observation, a form of astonishment that guides my work.’
It was from this observation and this iconographic work that the idea was born of creating a choreographic piece tackling the states of the body provoked by violence, whether given or suffered, based on their representations in the history of art from antiquity to the Renaissance, as well as the analogy that can be drawn with the images present in contemporary media. Extremely present in debates on contemporary society, both as a substantive subject and as a societal and political issue, violence is also unfortunately often at the heart of our personal journeys.
CREATIVE PRINCIPLE
The line chosen for the creation of ‘Les Dieux solitaires’ is based on a clear and simple principle. The aim is to create powerful images using the visual impact and energy generated by the group of dancers. The choreographer will pay particular attention to individualising the principles of movement and spacing based on the choreographic qualities and experience of each dancer. In each successive scene, this individual phase will lead the dancer to join the others in unison.
MUSIC
The music chosen to support and dramaturgically structure the play is ‘Miserere (op. 44)’, a work for mixed a cappella choir composed by Henryk Górecki in 1981. This is the Polish composer’s most accomplished choral work, not least because of the very large number of singers (around 120) required for its performance. Its genesis and history are also intimately linked to violence. It was composed during the violent police crackdown on the Solidarność movement in the city of Bydgoszcz, where the democratisation movement was initiated and to which it is dedicated. In response, this Miserere was censored by the government until 1987, when it was finally given its world premiere.
HIP HOP FREESTYLE and HOUSE / SOPHIE MAY (FR)
Multidisciplinary creative and Martinican native, Sophie May draws inspiration from a diverse range of artistic circles. Her journey began with hip-hop, but she quickly developed a passion for house and ballroom culture, which have since become integral to her artistic expression.
By combining her unique knowledge and skills to create something truly special, Sophie May’s singularity and sensibility shine through in every piece she creates, leaving a lasting impression on all who experience her work.
POLYPHONIC DANCING | TOGETHER APART / IEVAKRISH (LT/LV)
DUET IEVAKRISH
Artist duo IevaKrish consists of internationally working dancers/choreographers and set designers Ieva Gaurilčikaitė-Sants (LT/LV) and Krišjānis Sants (LV). Their practice uses a hybrid of choreography and scenography to create implicitly immersive and tacit experiences. Communication plays a crucial role and is the content of their work which varies in a wide range of form and media – from direct guided experiences between artist and an individual audience member, to elaborate interactive events bringing together larger groups in spectacles and installations of polyphonic dance, choreographed sound and shared food. Their works have been presented in Latvia and abroad. In 2021 IevaKrish received Latvian Dance Award as Best Choreographers. Both run a performance art company TUVUMI that aims to create a shared art environment between Latvia and the Baltic as well as the Baltics and Europe.
POLYPHONIC DANCE
During their time in Nida, IevaKrish will share their practice of polyphonic (multipart) dancing, a method inspired by and borrowed from the Lithuanian singing tradition of sutartinės, which has been reimagined as a movement and dance practice.
This approach delves into a dynamic interplay between two moving bodies, which are neither fully synchronized nor entirely independent, but instead exist in a tightly interwoven relationship of complementary rhythms.
The workshop will explore themes of coexistence, individual and collective timing, negative space, rhythmicality, presence, and an awareness of the surrounding space and environment.
CREATIVE SELF-MANAGEMENT | MENTORING / LAURYNAS ZAKEVICIUS (LT)
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, Laurynas has developed cultural management, networking and production skills, building new possibilities for Low Air company. Filling out a great number of open calls, applying for funding, managing productions and touring from Greenland to Korea, from New York to the 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 correctly.
NUTRITION / DOVYDAS ZENKEVICIUS (LT)
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.
