Collectives from the west and east of Ukraine will take part in the IFMC festival in Vitebsk

Approximately 20 applications from the western and eastern regions of Ukraine have been submitted for the competition program of the XXVII International Festival of Modern Choreography (IFMC), which will be held in Vitebsk from November 19-23. As Marina Romanovskaya, Deputy General Director for Special Projects of the Vitebsk Culture Center, admitted to journalists during a press conference, the organizers themselves were surprised by this number, reports a correspondent of BELTA.

"The fact that so many Ukrainian collectives wanted to come to us, and at their own expense, indicates that people are starved for kindness and humanity, for normal human feelings. We provide a stage, a platform to express themselves through the language of dance and plasticity and to begin to understand each other, therefore the concept of this year's festival is dialogue. Between dancers and spectators, between countries, people with different points of view. We call to hear and listen. And we expect an educated, open audience," explained Marina Romanovskaya, adding that the idea for this concept was born after visiting a dance fair in Dusseldorf, which featured modern choreography from 53 countries of the world of varying quality. And one of the collectives spotted there will become a participant in the IFMC concert program. This is the renowned Belgian company Jan Martens cіe with the dance performance "Sweet Like a Girl". Also for the first time in Vitebsk will come the winner of the prestigious "Herald Angel" award – the company "Gandini Juggling", which British choreographer Sean Gandini assembled by casting artists from different countries. Throughout the dance performance, they juggle apples, demonstrating a crazy synthesis of circus and modern dance. This is a hit on all world stages, which will now also be shown in Vitebsk. After a 10-year break, an American collective will come to IFMC again. The "Koresh Dance Company" has been allocated 45 minutes of the concert program of the festival's grand closing ceremony for their individual miniatures.

Nearly half of the participants in the IFMC competition program will be new young companies. Over a hundred works from Armenia, Belarus, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Estonia, Japan, and other countries have already been submitted for the qualifying video round. Applications are still being accepted, and no more than 150 works will be selected. Radu Poklitaru, artistic director of the "Kyiv Modern-Ballet" theater, whose productions will also be showcased during this year's concert program, has been chosen as the jury chairman. Traditional guests of IFMC will include the "Ballet of Evgeny Panfilov" theater and the Chelyabinsk Contemporary Dance Theater. Spectators will experience Swedish and Estonian choreography performed by Andersson Dance and Five Five Dance Theatre, once again witness the mastery of Spanish dancer Alvaro Esteban Lopez, and experience a "fifteen minutes of tears" due to a sentimental story performed by the Israeli company "Israeli Ballet." The organizers promise a lot of classical music, many premieres, and a lot of emotions.

The festival also includes practical and theoretical master classes for dancers, an expert council meeting, photo exhibitions "Portrait in Contemporary Dance" by Russian photojournalist Vladimir Lupovsky and "Fixation of Movement" by Belarusian photographer Anna Moiseuk, and the exhibition "Non-Objective Art" by Anatoly Kuznetsov, a member of the Belarusian Union of Artists and a classic of Belarusian avant-garde.

The International Festival of Modern Choreography in Vitebsk (IFMC) aims to popularize the work of the best Belarusian contemporary dance companies and promote Belarusian choreographers in the European and global cultural space. It is rightfully considered one of the most prestigious festivals in the field of modern choreography in Europe.

The founders of the festival are the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee, the Ministry of Culture of Belarus, the Vitebsk City Executive Committee, and the National Academic Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theatre of the Republic of Belarus.

Ekaterina Knyazeva