Riga Dance Atelier
By and with: Veli Lehtovaara, Elīna Lutce, Krišjānis Sants, Kristīne Brīniņa and Maria Ferreira Silva
Producer: New Theatre Institute of Latvia.
Premier: 9th, 15th September 2016
Location: Riga, Free Riga location “Zunda dārzs”
Riga Dance Atelier is international artistic lab that took place in Riga. Five young choreographers had come together to negotiate their different artistic interests and languages and to look for answers to questions “What is the value of artistic work and process? Does artistic process have place outside the rehearsal studio – in the city, in library, in park? Can we offer it to public the
On two nights Riga Dance Atelier had opened doors to visitors and invited people to watch, wander around, engage into conversation or participate along with the artists as long as they wish!
Riga Dance Atelier continue the series of ateliers in Brussels, Helsinki, Stockholm and Jyväskylä, initiated by the Finnish choreographer Veli Lehtovaara in 2012.
About artists:
Veli Lehtovaara, choreographer and dancer, is based in Brussels. He works regularly in Helsinki and lives part of the year at Villa Kaunisto by the Lake Päijänne in Central Finland. For Veli, art is a way of being in the world – a journey of comprehending otherness and being comprehended by it. In 2015 Veli created a performance of five solo works for artists of different disciplines titled “Clandestine sites: Displaced, inspired by the text of Roland Barthes and a novel by Virginia Woolf. This year he is working on a new project about the ecology and natural resources.
Elīna Lutce is a Latvian choreographer, known for her work with theatre directors Elmārs Seņkovs and Viesturs Kairišs on several drama productions in National Theatre and National Opera. As a performer Elīna has worked with choreographers Koen Augustijnen, Willi Dorner, Heine Avdal & Yukiko Shinozaki and contact Gonzo. Her solo piece “Corpus” in collaboration with visual artist Krista Dzudzilo, revealed her interest in the visual language of dance.
Krišjānis Sants studied dance in the Latvian Academy of Culture in Riga and P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels. In his work Krišjānis explores the ways to transmit the rythmic codes of Latvian ornaments and folk songs into movement. Their collaboration work with Swedish dancer Erik Eriksson “Vērpete” premiered at Homo Novus festival 2015 and was enthusiastically received by audiences and critics alike.
Kristīne Brīniņa since last year lives and works in a small village of Cīrava in the western part of Latvia where together with her husband they run a small artist residency centre and try to restore a local water mill. Kristīne has created several solo pieces and has participated in international projects in Latvia and abroad She is interested in people, their stories and uses daily encounters as her inspiration. Her latest solo piece “I’m a really shy person” was inspired by a fictuous meeting with the renowned Latvian conductor Andris Nelsons.
Maria Ferreira Silva studied dance in Lisbonb ann Brussels. As a dancer she has collaborated with Willi Dorner, Daniel Linehan, Maud Le Pladec, Xavier Le Roy and Radouan Mriziga. In addition to her dance career she is studying photography in Belgium.
Riga Dance Atelier is a part of [DNA] Departures and arrivals activities in Latvia and is made possible by support of Creative Europe programme of EU and Latvian Ministry of Culture