Fifteen events are planned, including performances, meetings with artists, conversations, as well as the premiere of issue 3 of the only annual Bulgarian Dance Magazine.
Programme Highlights
28th May 19:00 Hommage an Merce Cunningham
The celebration against static begins with a special free opening performance for which choreographer Paula Rosolen (Germany) is coming to Sofia. She will work together with 20 Bulgarian dancers of all ages and backgrounds to create the performance 'Hommage an Merce Cunningham'. 2019 saw 100 years since the birth of the dance legend and to mark the occasion, we will see a large-scale group choreography score, assembled by Paula Rosolen, and based on 20 individual solos by Bulgarian artists. It will be presented only once along with music composed and performed live by Emilian Gatsov-Elbi.
Venue: Sofia Arsenal - Museum for Contemporary Art
29th May 19:00 To the Point
The incomparable Kevin Jean (France) will turn reality and the theatre hall environment into a metaphor. This time the French choreographer turns his gaze to the concept of masculinity today, constructed to a large extent by sarcasm, sexism, and violence. In 2019, he began working on a new cycle with 'The Cyclon Pursuit' (to destroy a world and be reborn), 'To the Point' (to sabotage masculinities), as well as 'Time for Nothing' (to contemplate) from 2021. It is 'To the Point' the last complete part of his trilogy, that the audience of the 14th Antistatic festival will be treated to.
Venue: DNK space for contemporary dance and performance
31st May 19:00 Morphic Resonance and Consent
A double dose of the work of choreographer and performer Megan Bridge (USA). In one evening she will present two solos, Morhpic Resonanse and Consent, in which the key partner is music. In the first work we will see how her dancing body reacts to the sonic architecture of Peter Price, while in Consent she will “dance” the female sexuality, prompted by the rhythms and delicate details of Beethoven’s final piano sonata, Opus 111.
Venue: DNK space for contemporary dance and performance
1st June 19:30 FLAGS
Flags will be flown and the “culprit” will again be choreographer Paula Rosolen, who will turn to this long neglected means of communication in her second performance in Antistatic’s programme in partnership with Goethe-Institut Bulgarien. In 'Flags' Rosolen superimposes several semiotic systems to create a visual language of her own to connect between dancers and audience, turning the theatre hall into a communication station. So forget about satellites and broadband and join the lords of concise messaging.
Venue: Derida Stage
4th June 19:30 Retrospectrum 5 Solos for 5 decades
Tomi Paasonen (Germany) in partnership with Goethe-Institut Bulgarien. A reliable feature in the creative approach of the choreographer and ex-ballet dancer Paasonen is that with every artistic project he tries something he hasn’t done before. So at the age of 50, he realized that there is a form he has long evaded and it is time for his first solo project, which is why he began work on Retrospectum - 5 Solos for 5 Decades. With this autobiographical work Tomi Paasonen returns on the stage as a performer after 23 years of choreography and teaching.
Venue:Derida Stage
5th June 19:30 Less might be more, but sometimes less is just nothing
„Before COVID-19, the development of contemporary art followed the principle of modernity – a less is more approach. Restrictions in recent months, less communication, fewer meetings, less dancing, less participation, less protests, less socialization, less interaction, less interpretations, less criticism, less demonstrations, fewer participants, less of… makes the performance question this thesis and explores whether less is still more or nothing.” – shares the author of the next performance from the festival programme. Less Might Be More, But Sometimes Less is Just Nothing is the latest choreography project of Willy Prager, inspired by the Spanish disco dance troupe Ballet Zoom, formed in 1973. For its realisation, Prager worked with the students from the Academy of Dance and Performance organised by The National Center for Dance, Bucharest.
Venue: Derida Stage.
6th June 19:00 Choreomaniacs
There is no better ending to a festival than a performance that sums up the philosophy. Choreomaniacs is the work of choreographer and dramaturg Simona Deaconescu (Romania), . The performance is dedicated to one of the most mysterious phenomena in Europe at the beginning of the 16th century, when, in Strasbourg’s central square, a dance epidemic broke out. Eventually known as St. Vitus Dance, Chorea Lasciva, dance mania, or choreomania, mixing pseudo-science, theology, and medieval science-fiction. Deaconescu and her team create a performative docufiction of the events and focus on the historical record, marking the perspective of the observers of the epidemic and never the perspective of those who experienced it.
Venue: DNK space for contemporary dance and performance
More details on Antistatic’s programme can be found at www.antistaticfestival.org, as well as on Instagram , Facebook and Antistatic's YouTube channel.
Ticket Center - NDK, Derida Stage, Easy Pay and on the day of the performance online at EPAYGO.BG for 15 lv.
Expect a live, passionate, and exciting edition that brings back that much needed sense of proximity!
The festival programme will be held in accordance with the current anti-epidemic measures.
