site.btaPlovdiv to Host 16th One Dance Festival, May 10 - June 2, 2024

The One Dance 2024 International Dance and Performance Festival will take place in Plovdiv between May 10 and June 2.

Organized by ONE Foundation for Culture and Arts and formerly titled One Dance Week & Sofia Dance Week, the festival has emerged as Bulgaria's biggest forum entirely dedicated to the contemporary dance scene. Since its first edition in 2008, it has presented the works by hundreds of artists and companies from all over the world.

This year's event features a Focus France and 12 works by emblematic and emerging European choreographers, including five co-productions. The organizers said that the main goals are "to celebrates life, diversity, peace and inclusiveness," "to legitimate the contemporary dance genre on a national level, to strive to achieve its institutional recognition among the other arts in the country, to develop new audiences, and to turn Plovdiv into a stage for internationally acknowledged dance groups, choreographers, and artists."

The opening performance on May 10 will be by Compagnie MazelFreten - Rave Lucid. Rave Lucid's magically expressive ten electro dancers present a spectacular triumph of a mix of house music and disco lighting, choreographed by Brandon Masele and Laura Defretin.

On May 11, French choreographer Joachim Maudet will stage WELCOME, in which the dancers' trio interacts, detaching voice from body. The performance explores human contradictions between what is said and done, addressed and received, conceived and experienced.

On the same day, Benjamin Kahn's Bless the Sound that Saved a Witch like Me, performed by Sati Veyrunes, examines the scream as an ear-piercing, unapologetic, and powerful expressive tool of the urgent.

On May 12, in Hairy, Lithuanian choreographer Dovydas Strimaitis will explore the opposition between the static of hair and the dynamics of the body, between its out-of-control nature and dance as the art of physical (self-)control.

Focus France is implemented with the support of the French Embassy in Sofia.

In For Four Riders on May 17, Spanish dance company Mucha Muchacha will conceptualize Spain's rich heritage of folklore, transmitted and performed to ride through the ages with the conviction that it belongs to its community and identifies it.

Finnish choreographer Tiia Kasurinen drew inspiration for her ONSTAGE - The Concert from the performances of famous singers and their arsenal of expressive tools. On May 18, Kasurinen and Olli Lautiola will partner on stage with the duo Amanda & Lydia.

On May 19, Greek dancer and choreographer Ioanna Paraskevopoulou's All of My Love will pay tribute to all those that are no longer with us. The performance is a kinetic and sonic cry for all that is not here, for all that is ending, for all that exists and transforms, for all that is always there.

On May 24, Bulgarian choreographer and dancer Yanitsa Atanasova will present Awl, the third co-production between One Dance and Toplocentrala. The five-dancer performance aims to highlight the state of being "stuck" in one place and how the body can transform even the most limited environment around it.

On May 25, the Trevoga collective of authors and performers Neda Ruzheva, Antonina Pushkareva and Erikas Erikas Zilaitis will turn into trans-humans infected with the parasitic emoticons of virtual existence, which seems to prevail. Their performance, titled 11 3 8 7, is a co-production of One Dance Festival and ICK Amsterdam. The project has received an award at the Amsterdam Fringe Festival and has been selected for Aerowaves Twenty24.

Also on May 25, Greek director and performer Euripides Laskaridis will present his latest work, Lapis Lazuli, which ambivalently reflects on existence as a constant search for balance between opposites: the earthly and the heavenly, the profane and the sublime, the animal and the spiritual aspect of human beings. The performance is a One Dance co-production with Big Pulse Dance.

Portuguese choreographer Catarina Miranda's latest work, Atsumori, co-produced by One Dance Festival, will be staged on May 31. The five-dancer performance intersects past and future, phantasmagoria and reality, dance and light, coupling unconventionally a Japanese Noh theatre classic with contemporary performing arts.

The last item on the Festival's programme, on June 1, is another Big Pulse Dance Alliance co-production: Fairy Tales. The Czech performance with a strong visual identity features eight female dancers and two musicians. The show has been created by the internationally acclaimed POCKETART collective, directed by choreographers Sabina Bockova and Johana Pockova. 

One Dance is part of Big Pulse Dance Alliance (BPDA), a network of 12 European dance festivals/institutions sharing a common aim to develop and strengthen the contemporary dance sector.