The Critics Battle ‘Silent Period’

DESCRIPTION

The final event of the project on contemporary dance and dance criticism, initiated by the Isadorino Gore dance cooperative, will be held as a hybrid of a science slam and an evening of dance performances. The winner will be determined by the audience.

From July 16 to July 20, Russian and foreign experts in contemporary dance have delivered workshops to students selected by open call from all over Russia, and given public lectures for the wider audience. Now they will show their own works and analytical methods. Each performer will demonstrate his or her unique artistic strategy and technique.

The programme teachers will show three fifteen-minute performances, and critics will offer their interpretations. Audience members are invited not only to see the artistic practices of the performers Elena Demyanenko, Anna Kravchenko, and Fernando Belfiore, but also choose one of the analytical methods they prefer.

We suggest broad interpretation as the criterion of judging the competition: the interpretation, openness to the user, and how much it inspires independent research.

For Elena Demyanenko, the body is a space where opposites meet and interact, and ideas and truths are endlessly tested and challenged. Her goal is to turn the body into a decision-maker. Anna Kravchenko's method is based on improvisational movements and the somatic perception of dance. Fernando Belfiore focuses on immersion in the unconscious. Contemporary dance researchers and theorists Charlotte Imbault, Anna Volkland, and Anna Kozonina will offer their versions of how to decipher the artists' images immediately after the performances.

The final battle will include the following performances:

  1. Elena Demyanenko. Carnival, 2018. 15 minutes
  2. Anna Kravchenko. Faces, 2018. 20 minutes
  3. Fernando Belfiore. Cave, 2018. 15 minutes

The Silent Period, a joint project of the Isadorino Gore dance cooperative and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, is a program of workshops on contemporary dance, performance and their analysis, aiming to expand the understanding of live art practices.

Garage Live is a program of performances, music and theater events, and contemporary dance pieces. In the Museum’s 10th anniversary year, Garage Live aims to provide a visitor experience which draws on sensory rather than analytical perception. The Garage Live program was initiated in 2012 to acknowledge the value of live experience and present the Museum as a public space which feeds upon the ethics of empathy.

Anna Volkland’s visit to Russia is supported by  Goethe-Institut.

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS

Anya Kravchenko (b.1985, Berdiansk) is a choreographer, performer, and curator. She studied art theory and history in The Russian University for Humanities (Moscow, 2009–2014), received international danceWEB scholarship (Vienna, 2015) and recently graduated from the MA program in choreography e.x.e.r.c.e (International Choreographic Institute in Montpellier). Since 2015, her choreographic works have been presented in Russia, France, and Switzerland, in which she elaborates new forms of perception and interaction. Kravchenko lives and works in St. Petersburg.


Elena Demyanenko (b. 1976, Moscow) is a performing artist and choreographer. Demyanenko was a recipient of a Jerome Robbins Fellowship for the creation of Disparate Bodies with Joseph Poulson, made and premiered at the Baryshnikov Arts Center (2011). Performed at various venues including the Théâtre National de Chaillot (Paris), Montpellier Danse Festival (France), Dance Umbrella Festival (London, UK), Danscentrum (Stockholm), Festival de Fortaleza (Brazil), Festival Panorama de Dança (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). Currently Demyanenko is teaching Dance at Bennington College.


Fernando Belfiore (b.1983, Sao Paolo) is a choreographer and performance artist. In 2012 he graduated from Sao Paolo Public University. Belfiore works explore performance art having the body as his main medium trough the mixture of theater, choreographic questions and visual arts references.  Each work proposes a diverse experience because Belfiore drinks from diverse themes and experiments with modes of creation. Currently based in Amsterdam.

ABOUT THE CRITICS

Anna Kozonina (b. Nizhny Novgorod, 1992) is a contemporary dance researcher, journalist, editor, participant of the Proscenium laboratory at the Volga-Vyatka branch of the National Centre for Contemporary Art. Was part of the curatorial team for the contemporary dance choreographers’ residence Ruza-2017. Worked as correspondent for the Open Look and Diversia festivals, edited the online magazine Culture in the City. Writes about dance for Roomfor.ru and the Art Magazine.


Anna Volkland (b.1985, Weimar) is a contemporary dance critic and theorist. Studied Dramaturgy at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig and following this, Dance Studies at the Free University Berlin. 2007 she was co-founder of the initiative Werkstattmacher e.V. to support young experimentally and interdisciplinarily working performing arts artists in Leipzig and received the first Marie Zimmermann Fellowship for junior dramaturgs (2008). In 2009 she wrote her diploma thesis "Theatre without Stage" about special forms of theatre that create uncertain borderlines between fiction and reality. Since 2014 she has been a research assistant at the University of the Arts Berlin.


Charlotte Imbault (b.1985, Paris) is a dance critic. Co-founder and editorial coordinator of watt magazine, she was previously associate editor of the journal Mouvement. Imbault writes for art press and Transfuge and develops radio scripts writing through various sound editing techniques around the idea of ​​criticism in act. She lives and works in Paris.

HOW TO TAKE PART

Free admission with advance registration.

The event will be held in Russian.
The event will be accessible for deaf and hard of hearing visitors and will be interpreted into Russian Sign Language.

REGISTRATION