Laura Gorodko and Rūta Ronja Pakalne (Latvia) – FREEDOM TO LOSE CONTROL TOGETHER WITH THE MANY
Duration: 45 min.
ATTENTION: The performance includes loud sounds, flashing lights, smoke or similar effects.
The performance is part of the Baltic Dance Platform programme.
“Freedom to Lose Control Together With the Many” is an immersive performance experience in which we invite you to create and be part of a safe and inclusive space together in the given time and place. An informal dance party/meditative rave performance that is based on utopian ideas about the perfect society. Everyone is invited to surrender to rhythmic electronic music and to lose control together with the many.
Audience member have a chance to choose what kind of participation they feel the most comfortable with (active participant, observed or switch whenever they feel like it). A space that gives the audience a possibility to be part of non pressure environment, by following the guidance of the performers and making decisions for themselves.
Rūta Ronja Pakalne is a Latvian-Estonian freelance dance and film artist based in Estonia. Her interdisciplinary practice spans choreography, performance, filmmaking, and teaching, investigating body, presence, and everyday experience.
She holds a BA in Choreography from the Latvian Academy of Culture, further training at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels, and an MA in Film Arts from TLU, BFM. Since 2019 she has been a lecturer at Baltic Film, Media and Arts School of Tallinn University. Currently also teaching at MUBA (Tallinn Ballet School) and ETA Tantsukool. She has been sharing her practice and teaching throughout schools in the Baltics.
Her recent projects include The Space Between Us Is Not Empty (2025), Body of Dreams (2023)—a co-creation with Laura Kvelstein exploring body archives, Freedom to Lose Control Together with the Many (2023)-a co-creation with Laura Gorodko exploring inclusive meditative rave performance setting. She also creates experimental dance films that explore movement and embodied storytelling, her most recent work is a dance-architecture film H61 (2024) that is part of a project Dance+City by Lithuanian Dance information centre and ARTE Channel.
Laura Gorodko is a contemporary dance artist based in Riga, Latvia. She is a board member of the Choreographers Association of Latvia and a member of the dance collective LDM5. In 2018, she graduated from the Latvian Academy of Culture with a BA in Contemporary Dance Art. She works as a freelance choreographer, dancer, and movement teacher.
Currently, her artistic practice strongly focuses on social engagement and the integration of community practices into contemporary art processes. Her most recent works include a collaboration with a youth community centre in Riga, resulting in the dance-documentary short film “Contact. Children of the Universe” premiered December 2025, created as part of the international residency project Magic Carpets and an immersive dance performance “Freedom to Lose Control Together with the Many”, which premiered in September 2023 at the international new theatre festival Homo Novus.
Laura has performing experience in contemporary dance, circus, and transdisciplinary performing arts. She has been performing in the site-specific performance Laika Nospiedumi over the past two years. As a performer, she has also taken part in the contemporary dance production FEMINA by the dance collective LDM5.
With Rūta Ronja Pakalne, Laura Gorodko
Dj / Music selector: oneanders
Photos by: Aivars Ivbulis
The Baltic Dance Platform is a biennial event held in a different Baltic capital since 2019. It consistently and purposefully showcases contemporary dance from the Baltic region and its artists in both international and regional contexts. At the same time, the Baltic Dance Platform provides opportunities for collaboration among cultural professionals and the exchange of knowledge and experience. This year The Baltic Dance Platform will take place on April 22–25 in Vilnius.
Baltic Dance Platform organizers: Lithuanian Dance Information Centre, Latvian Dance Information Centre, Estonian Dance Performance and Development Center “Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava”
Partners: Contemporary Dance Association (Lithuania), Association of Choreographers (Latvia), Estonian Union of Dance Art and Dance Education
Supported by: Vilnius City Municipality, Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture, Lithuanian Council for Culture, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, Latvian State Culture Capital Foundation, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Estonia.
