Ten Belarusian ensembles will perform in the competition of the XXII Festival of Modern Choreography in Vitebsk

October 29, Vitebsk / Olga Bogacheva - BELTA /. Ten Belarusian companies will perform in the competition program at the XXII International Festival of Modern Choreography in Vitebsk, Marina Romanovskaya, Deputy General Director for Special Projects of the Vitebsk Culture Center, told a BELTA correspondent. The XXII International Festival of Modern Choreography (IFMC) will be held in Vitebsk from November 18 to 20. Throughout its history, the main intrigue of IFMC has been the modern choreography competition. This year, the mandatory condition for its holding is the Belarusian citizenship of the choreographer-director participating in the competition program. This is due to the specifics of holding international festivals in Belarus. Thus, four dance studios from Vitebsk, dancers from Grodno, Minsk, and Mogilev will perform in the competition. The works presented by the contestants will be evaluated by members of the international jury, chaired by People's Artist of the USSR and Belarus Valentin Elizaryev, in five nominations: "Best Production," "Performance Skill," "Artistry," "Tradition and Innovation," and "Post Scriptum." The jury will determine the winner in the latter nomination together with the members of the expert council. Foreign dance companies will perform out of competition. Fans of modern dance will be delighted by the perennial guest and friend of the festival, the "Ballet of Evgeny Panfilov" theater, which will come in two casts, Sergey Smirnov's "Excentrique-Ballet" from Yekaterinburg, the international project Cocoondance, the Ukrainian collectives Soul B and D.TigerS, the Estonian Fine Fife Dance Theatre, as well as ballet stars Ulvi Azizov (Latvian National Opera) and Sharon Petschak (soloist of the Felix Parnell Ballet School, Poland). The IFMC's information program will also be rich. It includes round tables, theoretical and practical master classes, and meetings between Belarusian choreographers and companies with directors and managers of foreign festivals and competitions. Meetings with representatives of the Polish association for international cooperation in culture and art Artbale, the prestigious Düsseldorf International Dance Fair, and the Lithuanian Information and Modern Dance Center are also planned. The International Festival of Modern Choreography in Vitebsk is designed to popularize the work of the best Belarusian modern dance companies and to promote choreographers in the European and global cultural space. To ensure that these goals are not just on paper, an obligatory condition has been put forward for invited representatives from other countries to invite a Belarusian company they like based on the results of IFMC, Marina Romanovskaya emphasized. The founders of the festival are the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee, the Vitebsk City Executive Committee, the Ministry of Culture, and the National Academic Grand Opera and Ballet Theatre. The organizer is the Vitebsk Culture Center. -0-