New Baltic Dance
The International contemporary dance festival New Baltic Dance (NBD) is taking place from April 26th to May 14th in Vilnius, Ukmergė, and Žagarė. As one of the most significant events of the year, the festival will shine the light on worldwide tendencies of the art of dance and will introduce promising Lithuanian artists as well as foreign choreographers, who are making the history of contemporary dance.
The creative team of NBD festival visits all the most essential global dance events and puts together a program out of the most interesting dance companies and shows, which are leading the whole contemporary dance community ahead in Europe and beyond. While being the biggest event in The Baltic States of such nature, NBD carries out a triple mission: to inform, educate, and gather people who are interested in contemporary dance.
This year, the festival speaks of IN EXPLICABILITY of the dance and invites the festival’s regular audiences as well as the newcomers not to “understand” but rather reflect contemporary life through emotions and experiences, told through body.
The main program of the festival includes innovators and rebels of contemporary dance, that represent the current times: newly looking The Ballet National de Marseille along with its team of art directors ((LA)HORDE, France), who are currently dictating the fashion of dance; choreography virtuoso Catherine Gaudet (Canada), effervescent Marco da Silva Ferreira (Portugal), and edgy Oona Doherty (Ireland).
Side by side with the globally famous dance artists stands the program of Lithuanian dance creators, in which the work of choreographers Dovydas Strimaitis, Lukas Karvelis, Liza Balaisnaja, Grėtė Šmitaitė, Erika Vizbaraitė, Be kompanijos, who are active both in Lithuania and abroad, will be introduced to the public. This program involves not only the newest performances but also sketches of future premieres.
Sensitively responding to the current events of our time, the festival makes space for Ukrainian dance artists, and in collaboration with the choreographer and curator, Anton Ovchinninkov, presents the dance program “Let the Body Speak”. The performances and sketches of those, who experience the horror of war or temporarily had to flee their country, are being created during the time of invasion – in the program, the deepest experiences are expressed through bodies.
Since 1997 organizers of the festival introduced to the public companies from all North and Baltic countries, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Israel, Canada, Slovenia, Serbia, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Poland, Switzerland, Greece, South Korea, Liban, Portugal, Taiwan, China, Senegal, Brazil, Netherlands, Cape Verde Islands. In total, more than 230 companies from 35 countries with more than 450 dance performances participated in thefestival New Baltic Dance.
Festival organizers are happy that so far they were able to present such companies as Dimitris Papaioannou (Greece), Eun-Me Ahn (South Korea), Yoann Bourgeois (France) Marlene Monteiro Freitas (Portugal), Oona Doherty (Ireland), Euripides Laskaridis and Osmosis (Greece), „Les Ballets C de la B” (Belgium), Nederlands Dans Theater II (Netherlands), Club Guy and Roni (Netherlands), Cloud Gate Dance Theater (Taiwan), Compagnie Marie Chouinard (Canada), Louise Lecavalier (Canada), „La La La Human Steps“ (Canada), „Cullbergballet“ (Sweden), „Aterballetto“ (Italy), Liquid Loft (Switzerland) „Kibbutz“ dance company (Izrael), Russello Maliphanto company (United Kingdom), Lothringia Ballet (France), Danish Dance Theater (Denmark), etc.
Festival organizers: Lithuanian Dance Information Center and Vilnius Festivals. The festival is part of the “Vilnius 700” program.
Festival curators:
1997 – 2016 Audronis Imbrasas
Since 2017 – Gintarė Masteikaitė.