STF 2024: Ukrainian dance platform

Ukrainian dance platform is part of the STF 2024: Sõltumatu Tantsu Festival (26.09 - 5.10.2024). Get your festival information and passes HERE

Ukrainian Dance Platform presents three productions by Ukrainian choreographers Rita Lira, Tetyana Znamerovska and Mariya Salo in collaboration with Petras Lisauskas. Since the active phase of the war, Ukrainian dancers have not been able to make their own platform at home or to be in dialogue with people in their field internationally, which is why they have currently chosen the path of showing their work every year in different foreign countries. Sõltumatu Tantsu Festival has the honor of hosting a part of the Ukrainian Dance Platform in Tallinn in 2024, allocating one day from the festival program to show here three Ukrainian dance productions that have gained international attention and get to know their creators. In addition, there will be a presentation of the program of Ukrainian dance films and a meeting with the creators.

More information: https://www.stl.ee/en/lisaprogramm/festival-en/ukrainian-platform

Rita Lira “The Trap”

Choreographer: Rita Lira
Composer: Yana Shliabanska (UA)
Costume designer: Louise Carton (BE)
Director of photography: Denys Lisovets (UA)
Photographers: Mauricio Saldaña (Mexico) Miri Hamada (CH)
Video editor: Alexander Legostaev (UA)
Duration: 20 min
Premiere: 1st of March 2023 at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris.

Have you ever felt like you were stuck in space and in your own mind?
It's as if you have built a trap that you can't get out of.
How does this trap feel to you? How can you free yourself from it?

This performance reveals the state of feeling stuck inside oneself and in the environment one finds themselves in. The costume, which consists of a ‘second skin’ cocoon from which long pieces of fabric stretch out, intertwines with the objects around the performer to illustrate this physical and mental entrapment. 

Rita Lira graduated from the Boris Grinchenko Kyiv University, specializing in Contemporary dance. In her work, she combines contemporary dance, street dance styles, visual and documentary art. Rita’s performances were presented in France, Lituania, Romania, Czech Republic, Poland and Ukraine. She is also a member of the UA Contemporary Dance Platform. In 2022 Rita was forced to leave Ukraine. She moved to Paris, where she spent a year on a residency at Cité Internationale des Arts. Here she created and presented her performances "The Way from/to" and "The Trap." She has already presented these pieces in France, Lithuania, Poland and Czech Republic. She is currently participating in the Hérodote education program at the Beaux-Arts de Paris. Also she is a part of the international project “Moving Borders” organized by Aerowaves.

Supporters: Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris La Briqueterie CDCN, Vitry-sur-Seine

Tetiana Znamerovska “The Traces”

Choreographer: Tetiana Znamerovska
Performers: Kateryna Pogorielova, Tetiana Znamerovska
Composer: John Hope (Ivan Harkusha)
Costume artist: Oleg-Rodion Shurigin-Grekalov
Duration: 60 min
Premiere: April 14-15, 2023 at the Les Kurbas Lviv Academic Theater

The purpose of man is in the awareness of his unconscious.

The performance was created in collaboration with the Contemporary Dance Platform (UА) and The Place (UK), with the support of the British Council, the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation, and the Trust for Mutual Understanding (USA).

The work is based on the ideas of C. Jung about the collective unconscious. Our actions in the present are conditioned by what happened in the past, and our behavior is a mirror of previous generations. The connection with them іsn’t limited to memory alone. The performance "Traces" is a dance visualization of the piles of psychological trauma caused by historical tragedies. They show how our culture, our relationships with people, and our fate can be determined by the past. But it is worth remembering that these imprints can also be the key to changing the scenario of our future.

Performer and choreographer Tetiana Znamerovska was born in Ukraine. She graduated from the Faculty of Choreography in Lviv in 2017 and the Faculty of Drama Theater Directing in 2021 in Kyiv. Tetiana works with acute social issues at the intersection of contemporary dance and physical theater. Also she explores various methodologies of creating dance and dance dramaturgy. Since 2022, Tеtiana has been a resident of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch.

Supporters: Kulturbüro Wuppertal, Stadtsparkasse Wuppertal, Bergischer Kulturfonds, Verein zur Förderung der Bergischen Heimatkultur e.V. Insel e.V.

The performance was created in collaboration with the Contemporary Dance Platform (UА) and The Place (UK), with the support of the British Council, the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation, and the Trust for Mutual Understanding (USA).

Mariya Salo, Petras Lisauskas “Insomnia”

Author: Goda Giedraitytė, Donatas Bielkaukas
Choreography, dancers: Mariya Salo, Petras Lisauskas
Light artist: Stasys Jamantas, Donatas Bielkaukas
Sound artist: Yana Shliabanska, Donatas Bielkaukas
Producer: Goda Giedraitytė
Produced by: kollektiiv Fish Eye
Photos: Donatas Bielkaukas

The joint work of Lithuanian and Ukrainian sound creators and dancers – performance”Insomnia”, created in Lviv under the rocket fire as well as in Paris after fleeing the danger of war and in Lithuania, a country very much aware and promptly providing help.

A few months of the creative process for the artists being separate and seeing each other only with the help of Zoom platform, not even knowing if it will be possible to show the performance live in the end. This creative process was accompanied by four creators Yana Shliabanska and Mariya Salo from Ukraine and Donatas Bielkauskas and Petras Lisauskas from Lithuania.

The idea of insomnia became the creative axis of this performance. Producer Goda Giedraitytė and sound artist Donatas Bielkauskas came up with the idea of connecting artists with different experiences and reflecting on the insomnia and anxiety they experience in the face of war. In cooperation with Viktor Ruban, a dance creator and producer from Ukraine, two Ukrainian creators were invited to join the project.

Sound interpretations on this topic, guided by personal experiences, were created by Yana Shliabanska in Paris, where she left after the beginning of the war in Ukraine, and Donatas Bielkauskas in Klaipėda. Their extremely strong music became the basis for the choreographic solutions of the two dancers. Petras Lisauskas rehearsed in Molėtai, and Mariya in Lviv under rocket fire. 

P.S: The event is being photographed and filmed. The materials may be used to promote the European Union by the EU institutions and the “Let the body speak: rebuilding the community” project on websites, social media, newsletters, leaflets, press releases, publications and/or other communication materials.

The STF2024: Ukrainian Dance Platform is part on the project “Let the body speak: rebuilding the community”. The “Let the body speak: rebuilding the community” project is implemented by Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava with support of IZOLYATSIA foundation, Trans Europe Halles and Malý Berlín and co-financed by the ZMINA: Rebuilding program, created with the support of the European Union under a dedicated call for proposals to support Ukrainian displaced people and the Ukrainian Cultural and Creative Sectors.

Artists presented in the framework of Aerowaves, co-funded by the European Union.