For the very first time in history the festival of young European dance Aerowaves Spring Forward will take place in the Czech Republic. During one single weekend, from 22 to 24 April 2016, six stages in Pilsen will host 22 productions by artists from 19 countries of the world. Europe’s best dance performances will be presented to Pilsen audiences every night from 7 pm at DEPO2015, which becomes the epicentre of the festival thanks to the main partner of the event – Plzeň 2015 o.p.s, and at the New Theatre.„Pilsen is not the hosting city just by accident. When Pilsen was competing for the title of European Capital of Culture, Yvona Kreuzmannová, the Czech representative in the Aerowaves network in the position of Associate Director, suggested the Czech Republic as a host of Spring Forward and after all difficulties the city succeeded in the competition of other countries, or more precisely cities applying for the 2016 title. The festival is symbolically the next phase of the European Capital of Culture,” explain the organisers.
The tradition of this event started five years ago in Ljublan (2011) but Aerowaves’ network has been working for twenty years. After Slovenia, the festival was held in Italy’s Bassano del Grappa, in Zurich, Umea (ECC 2014), Barcelona and now in Pilsen. Next year’s destination is Aarhus, Denmark (ECC 2017) and then in Sofia, Paris and Rijeka in 2020 (recently confirmed by ECC).
The Swedish city of Umea became the first European Capital of Culture that provided suitable conditions for the Spring Forward festival. The festival works on the following principle – it should present as many as possible out of the twenty productions which have been preselected from hundreds of young choreographers’ works by the representatives of forty European countries. There were more than 500 applicants last year and the jury voted for the twenty most interesting performances to be presented in 2016, so called Twenty16.
„Naturally we don’t expect the local visitors to attend the marathon of nineteen shows in two and a half days, it is an uneasy task for the experts coming from all around the world in this year’s record-breaking number of 220. Pilsen’s audiences can watch, as well as people coming from other places, the Stream Spring Forward 2016 – live relays of the performances available on www.aerowaves.org. The local spectators can choose from the rich programme of the festival as we prefer to offer them tickets for all the three evenings in the New Theatre featuring five diverse shows,” say the organisers.
On Friday 22 April at 7pm, the Swiss artist Yasmine Hugonnet will give a concert for a single instrument –the human body. Her performance Le Récital Des Postures (not suitable for children) will be followed by the Portuguese chorographer Luis Marrafa and his Home revolving around the theme of searching for home and belonging. Ten Czech dancers, some originally from Pilsen, have had the opportunity to participate in his piece.
The visitors can spend the evening of 23 April in the company of five dancers, pulsating around the topic of taking pleasure in killing or participating on violence. Collective Loss of Memory was created by the multiple-award-winning Slovak-Greek tandem Jozef Fruček & Linda Kapetanea for the DOT504 company. Last year it was awarded the main prize of the Czech Dance Platform: Dance Piece of the Year.
The Sunday evening, 24 April, will belong to Italy’s Francesca Pennini and her short choreography 10 Miniballetti and to Greece’s Christos Papadopoulos who has created a piece called Elvedon, inspired by Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves.
Besides the two dance evenings, the Bus hall DEPO2015 will also host some more performances. So for instance, on Friday 22 from 5:30pm you can watch how far the choreography in Russia has evolved thanks to the Vozdukh dance company, or you can wait till late night (22:30pm) to see a dialogue of live music and dance rendered by the French Christian Ubl and Kylie Walters.
DEPO2015 will become the epicentre of the festival on Sunday and Saturday. You should not miss the successful Czech dance group ME-SA performing the piece Let Me Die in My Footsteps on 24 April, 12pm. It was tailor-made for the Czech dancers and a Slovak guitarist by the Spanish choreographer Renan Martins de Oliviera. The programme of 24 April will continue at 3pm by the solo This is the Title by the Finnish choreographer Ima Iduozee.
The tickets for all the performances are available online on www.goout.cz or in person at the reception of DEPO2015 in Pressl Street, Pilsen.
The other performances will be presented at the Moving Station, at Klempírna DEPO2015, studio stage of the New Theatre and at Papírna, however due to the limited capacity these performances will be reserved primarily for foreign experts. For other spectators who are interested, there will be live relays of the performances on the aerowaves.org website.
The title Czech Encores covers some more productions of Czech artists: Martina Hajdyla Lacová & Stano Dobák and Tereza Ondrová & Peter Šavel.
„The exceptional activities of Tanec Praha abroad enabled Aerowaves Spring Forward 2016 to attract an unrivalled number of visitors – experts and media from all around the world. More than 220 personalities from Europe and overseas have confirmed their attendance and it is the first time the number of guests have gone over 200. The registration has be closed due to the limited capacity of the venues and many people did not get their tickets,“ says the Director of Dance Prague, Yvona Kreuzmannová.
„Aerowaves Spring Forward in Pilsen proves that the legacy of the European Capital of Culture is still alive – it is not just about welcoming 300 foreign guests here in Pilsen but also about the venues – DEPO2015 and the New Theatre were realised within the project of the European Capital of Culture, the reconstructed Moving Station opened in 2015. I’m happy the long-term collaboration with Tanec and Yvona Kreuzmannová culminates in such a remarkable event,” says the Programme Director of Pilsen 2015 Jiří Sulženko.
Source: Tanec Praha
Josef Bartos
Thank you for your thoughts. One got stuck in my mind – that passion makes us different from AI. Just yesterday I read…I am a dance critic. I am a member of an endangered species