This weekend marks the beginning of the international contemporary dance festival New Baltic Dance. Even though the sphere of entertainment is currently going through an emotional stagnation of sorts, Ms. Gintarė Masteikaitė, head of the festival, claims that it is necessary to move forward and thus invites everyone to experience a programme full of diverse, life-related topics.
We cannot stop
“We are all experiencing a very difficult and emotional period. Next to the usual activities, we are doing everything to help the people of Ukraine: we donate, keep the contact with our Ukrainian colleagues, while looking for new employment opportunities for the representatives of the dance community who are refugees of war, we work with foreign partners creating long-term support programmes, and urge the international stage art networks and organisations to condemn the aggressor’s actions and state their position clearly. Yet while our hearts are with Ukraine, we should not forget our basic responsibilities: to speak about our world and things that are happening around us through dance,” states Ms. Masteikaitė on behalf of the team of the festival. “Following specialist recommendations, we do our job and would like to remind everyone that art has the power to strengthen our spirit, stabilise emotions and develop critical thinking which is now more important than ever. We must stay in the best shape possible: this is the only way to help one another and resist against the outcomes of the machine of war.”
Back to the great stages
After two years of pandemic conditions and experiments that resulted from them, the festival is coming back to the great stages with a solid programme. Not only it features extraordinary names, but it also addresses difficult ideas and questions as well. “Development of dance in the North and South Korea, the diverse young dance talents from the Western Africa, confrontations of love, gender, politics and climate change as well as other existential questions form our programme and approaches relevant topics,” claims Ms. Masteikaitė.
This year’s New Baltic Dance will be running throughout the entire spring, and both its beginning and end will be marked by the most prominent creators of the stage art. On March 25, the festival will be opened by Dimitris Papaioannou (Greece) with one of the most anticipated stage art events in Lithuania, the premiere of Transverse Orientation. After two months, the festival will be closed by Yoann Bourgeois (France), who is called the playwright of physics, whose works connect dance with various impressive constructions. In Vilnius, he will introduce a programme of short works “Tentative Approaches to a Point of Suspension”.
The festival programme in April will feature some of the most prominent dance personal from the South Korea, choreographer Eun-Me Ahn and Switzerland-based Lithuanian dance artist Anna-Marija Adomaitytė with her new work “Pas de deux” which was chosen as one of the best works of young creators last year by Aerowaves dance network.
In May, a shared work by three African choreographers “Siguifin” will be introduced by Amala Dianor (France), Canadian Clara Furey will invite to two shows: the existential “Dog Rising” and a solo show “When Even” inspired by the poetry of Leonard Cohen. Renae Shadler & Collaborators and Roland Walter (Australia, Germany) will introduce a performance exploring human proximity “Skin”; in their performance “Close”, Hungarian choreographer Adrienn Hód with the group Hodworks and Bremen-based dance group Unusual Symptoms will raise political and social questions. The festival will introduce a shared work by the students from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, Emilija Karosaitė, Povilas Jurgaitis, Martynas Berulis, while spring-like mood and environmental topics will be covered in “Woods” introduced by a team of four creators: Catarina Saraiva (Portugal), Clarice Lima (Brazil), Nina Fajdiga (Slovenia), Aline Bonamin (Brazil) and Linha de Fuga (Portugal), including the members of the local community who can do the headstand.
Free of charge for Ukrainians
The organisers of New Baltic Dance would like to state while it is not possible to welcome Ukrainians on the festival’s stage at the moment, they are welcome in the events of the festival as guests. “Our aim is to invite as many war refugees from Ukraine that arrived at Lithuania as possible and thus brighten up their days and offer some moments of happiness, express solidarity and include them into the midst of festival’s community. Now it is of the utmost important to rally and to share,” says the head of the festival. Information about registration for the free seats will be soon available at newbalticdance.lt
All information about New Baltic Dance is on www.newbalticdance.lt. Tickets available at bilietai.lt. The Festival is organised by Lithuanian Dance Information Centre, Vilniaus Festivaliai (Vilnius Festivals), it is funded by Lithuanian Council for Culture, The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania and Vilnius City Municipality. A part of the festival events are introduced together with international dance networks Aerowaves and Big Pulse Dance Alliance, as well as the Perform Europe project.