New Dance into the New Venue was held, for the first time, in autumn 2013 in the cultural centre Latgale embassy Gors (“spirit”, Latgalian dialect) in Rēzekne, while, October 2014 saw it taking place in Vidzeme region’s concert hall Cēsis. This project’s lasting success is the reason it continues its progress forward, to the next ‘new venue’, this time, to Saldus College of Art and Music.

Within its framework, this project will feature training sessions for international group of dance critics, held by art theoreticians and choreographers from Latvia, Nordic states and USA, to be joined by several choreographers and dancers interested in wider view of their profession and in dialogue with modern chronologists of dance. This year, New Dance into the New Venue will reach an unprecedented international scope uniting guests and artists from nine countries.

A particular collaboration is envisaged with the Society for development of art ‘Ilizanna’, within the project titled ‘Rozentāls Summer school dances’. This event will offer several activities: alongside the usual sessions for the students of painting, master classes of dance movement will invite their participants, and, supported by Programme DANCE, Elīna Lutce and Krista Dzudzillo will present their performance ‘Corpus’ on August 17 – an encounter of contemporary dance and visual art, which is listed among the works nominated in the category ‘Achievement of the year in contemporary dance’ in the annual ‘Players’ Night 2015’ awards series. These activities are financially supported by Society ‘KIT.’

The second public event is organized by ‘DANCE.LV journal’ in collaboration with Rozentāls Summer School. On August 18, joined by the program ‘Increasingly More Contemporary,’ not only solo works and duets will be presented, but also an encounter of two seemingly incompatible groups – experienced dance critics from nine countries and 9-10 year olds studying art – will occur. Both these groups will present dances and movement installations created during the master classes, and all members of public will be invited to enjoy events of both these evenings for free.

A morning moment from ‘New Dance into the New Venue” in 2014, photo: Maija Uzula-Petrovska

In 2012, ‘DANCE.LV Journal’ was selected to be the Latvia representing media in collaboration project of Baltic and Nordic states – Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Iceland – ‘Writing Movement’. This project emerged in reflection of still insufficient cultural inter-action among the countries in the region, as well as in search of collective solutions of problems emerging in dance criticism, definition of the place of culture in media, as well as with the view on promoting education and information of the society about the subject of contemporary dance. Conceptualising the central activity of Latvia, ‘DANCE.LV Journal’ saw it best for the project to take place outside Riga, choosing the geographical points where contemporary dance is still very little known, while also aiming to embrace different groups of society and promoting understanding of contemporary dance and the art of dance in general. Opening of Latgale embassy Gors in the season of 2013-2014 coincided favourably with these plans, and, thanks to openness to such ideas on the part of this cultural centre’s management, the project New Dance into the New Venue went to Rēzekne in October that year. The objective of this project is introduction of contemporary dance to wider society, while emphasizing well-thought through initiatives in order to ensure the interest in and understanding of this genre of art and its relationship to other genres and forms of dance.

Project ‘Writing Movement’ was concluded in 2015, however, several of the partners were unwilling to interrupt the successful collaboration, therefore, ‘DANCE.LV Journal’ emerged as a leader of the short-term collaboration network of Baltic Nordic countries ‘The Writing Movement Network’, which earned support by The Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture. As part of this collaboration, four laboratories for dance critics of the region will be held, the first of which will open as part of NDINV events in Saldus. The project gains an additional international dimension by the successful collaboration with the USA dance organization ‘Movement Research,’ in 2015, supporting choreographer luciana achugar, choreographer and dance critic Will Rawls as well as several guests from Bulgaria, Estonia and USA visits of Latvia in order to participate in the program of the project.

Organizer: DANCE.LV Journal, Latvia Association of Professional Contemporary Dance Choreographers, Saldus College of Art and Music, Society for development of art ‘Ilizanna’.

Supported by: The Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture, Movement Research with funding from the Trust for Mutual Understanding, State Foundation of Cultural Capital, recreation centre ‘Radi.’