Mind in Motion

The sixth annual Belgrade Dance Festival is due to be held this year April 1^st – 15^th with participation of the most eminent national ballet companies and dance troupes from eight countries from three continents. The leading stars from the dance scene at BDF are taken for granted.

By Vesna Knežević Baletić

The 6^th edition of Belgrade Dance Festival (BDF) is scheduled to take place from April 1^st-15^th and will present productions by national ballet companies and dance troupes from Monaco, Sweden, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Brazil, France, Israel and Germany. The performances will take place in the Sava Center, the Yugoslav Drama Theatre, Atelier 212 and, according to tradition, in the Belgrade Drama Theatre, under this year’s slogan "Mind in Motion".

The Belgrade Dance Festival, from its inception, established itself as one of the most outstanding and ingenious festivals in the Serbian capital and in the region. Now, in its sixth consecutive year, it is the leading festival of its kind and a Festival on par with the most prominent cultural brands of Belgrade, like international festivals that have for decades enjoyed the highest reputation – Bitef and Bemus. In these six years, BDF has brought to Belgrade the latest and best productions, superb artists from international scenes, the European Initiative Award from the Jelena Šantić Fund and recognition by UNESCO that BDF is one of the leading dance projects in the South-Eastern Europe. Domestic and foreign critics have been unanimous in their compliments. The audience has also recognised the event as exceptional and has responded enthusiastically, and here we refer not only to the public from Belgrade but also from surrounding areas, so that a new audience has been developed and domestic ballet artists now have a unique Master Class in the form of a Festival.

"In recent years, dance is in vogue", says Aja Jung, president of the Dance Council of Serbia, CID UNESCO, and one of the founders of the Belgrade Dance Festival, as well as one of the Festival’s selectors. "It inspires other arts, is superior in a technical sense and interesting in its diversity, representing a mixture of modern choreographic signatures. The fragility of dance always has a mystery because time imposes limits on both dancers and their instruments. Dancers belong to a special guild that carries its knowledge and art within it. Without any assistance, a body must produce sound and music. On the other hand, no art form is so mercilessly doomed to an instant. Everything that is performed is the outcome of persistent and painstaking practice, but it can never be repeated in the same manner. Dance lives on the scene, it is never as convincing on screen as it is on stage, and its only defence against transience is a topmost photograph."

"The Belgrade Dance Festival was founded with the idea of presenting new dance trends, to establish standards and to develop dance buffs. In view of its programme and the number of people who turn out to enjoy the performances, we can conclude that it has been growing fast, and has confirmed itself as a brand at the European level. All acclaims and recognition have been accepted as responsibility. The concept is still to endeavour to show the best: the most prestigious ballet and dance companies, the leading and popular choreographers but also the latest titles of international productions. In this way Belgrade’s public at the Festival has a chance to enjoy in all that marks today’s international dance during Festival’s two weeks in April", says Aja Jung.

Program

The 6^th Belgrade Dance Festival will be opened with Ballet of Monte Carlo (Les Ballets de Monte Carlo) in the Sava Center, performing for the first time in Belgrade under the auspice of HRH Princess Caroline of Hanover. The programme includes two productions, Vers un Pays Sage and Altro Canto, creations of the choreographer and director of the Monte Carlo Ballet, Jean-Christophe Maillot. Karl Lagerfeld is set and costume designer. Vers un Pays Sage and Altro Canto are titles that, with their unique dynamics and esthetics, confirm how extremely demanding the ultimate standards of contemporary dance are. The Monte Carlo Ballet, one of the most prestigious in the world, deserves the most credit for reestablishing ballet as an international brand that can inspire the other arts. Anna Pavlova, Marius Petipa, Michael Fokin, Vaclav Nijinsky, Serge Lifar and George Balanchine all made their careers in this ballet company while music composers for its productions included Debussy, Prokofiev, Ravel, and Stravinsky, while Braque, Picasso, Matisse, Miro, Dali, Utrillo and Channel designed costumes and stage settings.

From London’s Sadler’s Wells comes Random Dance, whose director and choreographer is Wayne McGregor, one of the most fascinating dance artists of the 21^st century. Known for his use of modern technologies in productions and, to a broader public, as the movement director in films about Harry Potter, McGregor is the only resident choreographer ever hired by the London Royal Ballet. His project Entity, in collaboration with leading British psychiatrists, deals with the relationship between the brain and dance as its creation, and it explores ways of using the body in order to find out who we are…

A special event of the Festival is Rebound, a production by well-known Netherlands’ choreographer Conny Janssen. This production is charged with a strong driving energy that assumes well chosen music, excellent direction and light design, along with the virtuoso dance of this male dance troupe.

Dance Company Sociedade Masculino from Sao Paolo is also a male dance troupe that will for the first time present to the Belgrade public two productions by two very popular choreographers, Henrique Rodovalho (Entre o Corpo y o Azul) and Andonis Foniadakis (Palpable). The leading ballet company of South America is Balé da Cidade de Sao Paolo, which comes to Belgrade with three dance productions of different sensibilities signed by choreographers Gagik Ismailian (dualidade@br), Sandro Borelli (Lac) and Luiz Fernando Bongiovanni (Dichotomy).

The Stuttgart Ballet and Stuttgart Theaterhaus come with their production Don Q, whose choreographer is Christian Spuck, read Cervantes’s hero in an entirely new way, resulting in an unforgettable production. Emanuel Gat, one of the best dancers in Israel, and one of its most talented choreographers – a representative of the contemporary Israeli dance school, comes with the productions Winter Voyage and Rite of Spring, which have brought him the Besi Award in New York and the first engagement by the Ballet of Paris Opera.

For the finale, returning after a highly successful performance at the 4^th Belgrade Dance Festival, the Swedish Cullberg Ballet once again performs in the Sava Center with two productions by Johan Inger. Both titles (Empty House and Walking Mad) had in the several last seasons been an inescapable part of the repertory not only of the Cullberg Ballet but also many other leading ballet companies worldwide, first and foremost due to a completely new terminology by which this exceptional choreographer skillfully establishes contemporary dance standards.

Side activities at the Festival are also attractive and include Master Class, an exhibition of dance photography, discussion with artists, a film programme and presentations.

The Belgrade Dance Festival was founded at the initiative of UNESCO’s International Dance Council. Embassies and foreign cultural centres, the ministries of culture and other institutions and foundations of countries that participate at the Festival, as well as the Ministry of Culture of Serbia and the Secretariat of Culture of the City of Belgrade participate in the Festival planning process, organisation, as well as in domestic and international promotions.