Art stations fundation - by Grażyna Kulczyk


01.04.2021 - 30.11.2021
Online / Plastforma Festival (1.09.2021) / INTERNATIONAL DANCE THEATRES FESTIVAL

Plastform Festival 

WEAVING BRIDGES

Initiators: 
Art Stations Foundation (Poznan)
Plastforma Festival (Minsk) 

Partners:
Witryna Kultury Foundation (Szczecin)
Lublin Dance Theatre
Movement Research  (NYC) 

This project has been made possible with the support of Trust For Mutual Understanding and Movement Research (NYC)

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WEAVING BRIDGES is a platform of exchange between Polish and Belarus art communities. Centering the project around choreographic research, it is an expression of belief that sharing knowledge and anchoring meetings on both practice and discourse around the art of choreography, can serve as an efficient tool to bring closer communities and support each other in a moment of crisis and uncertainty. While Polish and Belarussian artists seem so close to each other geographically, yet they are so far apart when it comes to choreographic developments. That is due to current political critical circumstances as well as to totally different ways how understanding of contemporary choreography and dance was developing (or not) through the latest history. There are also extremely different day to day conditions under which both communities operate. Last but not least, it is also due to how little critical creative exchange has been developed so far between our two neighboring communities. We believe the time for a change is now. When the world falls apart in front of our eyes, we wish to be together and reach out to each other for support. And prepare for a process of rebuilding our world back anew from pieces… Thus we dedicate ourselves to throwing bridges between our two communities.  Trusting that a seed of change is planted in every ex-change, we hope also our gentle actions will become the first step on the way to establishing sustainable two ways connection and communication.  We want to do it with care, giving it enough time for truly human interactions, and with full respect and understanding for where we come from, where we stand and where we wish to head in future. Weaving our desires, hopes and inspirations into a delicate fabric of our relation and further also, into our co-creations. 

What we certainly share is a deep belief that a rich field of choreographic practices can empower us in the moment of crisis and offer us alternative scenarios of being and working together. Contemporary choreography is the art that more than any other has always been a field of mindful collaborations; respectful of diversity, multiculturalism and as such always seeking to engage in a non-hierarchical creative process dedicating itself also to careful social reflection. As such, it can serve as an expression of solidarity and means of imagining and implementing possible better futures of our communities - futures we so much look forward to in the time of pandemic, but first of all, in the moment of political crisis in Belarus and raising right wing extremism in Poland. 

The project consists of 3 parts:

> online meeting session between Polish and Belarus art communities (realized in April/May 2021) 

> support of artistic process (coaching and residency) of ivited Belarus artists whose work is premiering in Minsk within Plastforma Festival on Septemebr 1st 

> connecting and working visit of Belarus artists and Plastforma directors to Szczecin and presentation of the premiere at Lublin Dance Theatre festival in November 2021. 

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"SomeBody's home

This is a "work in progress", taking shape stage-by-stage. The first stage ended at the residence in Kaptaruny (Belarus) in July 2021. The team will present the results of the second stage at the Plastform festival on September 1. The third stage will take place in Lublin (Poland) in November this year. Each of the stages is a new layer, level, new experience and immersion in the theme of the project with an even more conscious base. The purpose of creating art material is to return home, to the origins of our heart, the roots of our feet, a sense of kinship and beginning, a sense of the path, life, an overview of the body in the context of the house from the attic to the basement.

The ideological inspirer of the project is the Plastforma festival (Belarus) and  Joanna Lesnierowska (Poland)

The ideological inspirer of the production - Yauheniya Nikalaichuk

Project consultants  Joanna Lesnierowska, Katarzyna Sitarz, Inna Aslamova

Movement - Anton Dzioshau, Anastasiya Embulaeva, Yauheniya Nikalaichuk

Music Space- Fillfree

Video space- SH4TTLE

Video mapping - Alex Dolgushin

Photo- L194

Decorations for the project- Dzmitry Vologin

Costumes - Alexandra Anisim