In The New Baltic Dance: Black Body Histories, Neighborhood Dance, and Global Award-Nominated Closure | Culture

Four choreographers, including the festival’s opening work “Larsen C”, created by the Greek choreographer Christos Papadopoulos and the closing dance CARCAÇA, which is brought to Lithuania by the Portuguese creator Marco da Silva Ferreira, claim the 40,000 pounds sterling international dance prize.

The closing piece CARCAÇA, which energetically and boldly combines hip-hop and club culture with European folk dance, will warm the Lithuanian audience for three evenings. Choreographer Marco da Silva Ferreira, who received a very warm welcome at last year’s festival with his work BISONTE, is already preparing for a trip to Lithuania with a troupe of ten dancers, while the dancers of Argentinian choreographer Ayelen Parolin, who lives in Belgium, have been rehearsing for two days at the National Drama Theater and will present her latest work to the audience for two evenings. ZONDER – looking at the unpredictability and failures of life through the lens of humor.

Photo by Dmitry Matveyev/Cherisha Menzo

At the same time, two stories regarding the black body are being rehearsed in the black hall of the Arts Printing House – the choreographic productions DARKMATTER and JEZEBEL by the dark-skinned artist from the Netherlands, Cherish Menzo. The duo from Sweden “Land Before Time” will invite the audience to dance for free in three places in Vilnius micro-districts. The dance stages will be the central square of Šeškina, Paupios square on Aukštaičių st. 12 and Giedraičiau – Kintų st. of the Šnipiškii microdistrict. the square

In the first half of the festival, regarding two and a half thousand spectators watched the events, and more are expected in the second week.

“The guests of the festival, choreographers and dancers, sensitively and warmly responded to the Lithuanian audience, they were surprised by the openness and involvement of the audience, they were fascinated by the full hall and the professionalism of the festival team: “We felt like at home”, “We were surprised by the technical service – we will prepare the hall much faster than we expected” , “The audience is fantastic, I don’t remember when I felt so good on stage”. I won’t hide it – for me, this is a great appreciation of the year-long work and pride for our audience, which means a lot of support and thanks for the quality of the presented program”, said Gintarė Masteikaitė, the head of the festival.

Being the largest event of its kind in the Baltic States, NBŠ performs a triple mission: to inform, educate and gather people interested in dance art. More than 6,000 spectators visit the festival every year.

In total, more than 270 troupes from 37 countries of the world took part in “New Baltic Dance”, which showed over 480 dance performances. Festival organizers: Lithuanian Dance Information Center and Vilnius Festivals. The festival is financed by the Lithuanian Culture Council and Vilnius City Municipality.