During April 12-14th 2019 very interesting movement research session with renowned Latvian choreographer and leading figure of Latvian Academy of Culture Olga Zitluhina took place in Tallinn, Estonia. The aim of the meeting was to study methods, how to create contemporary choreography and how to develop movement ideas while creating dance performance as a whole. Young students from TLU BFM choreography curricula and Estonian contemporary dancers from the freelance field were together participating in these workshops and classes. Different experiences of the participants from the actual field of contemporary dancing and creativity work was an additional plus to this workshop – it created new possibilities to learn from each other. For mentors it was interesting to follow the classes and discuss topics such as how to lead the team of dancers when working with creative ideas in the process of creating choreography, how to give feedback to the process and to participants, how to keep the whole atmosphere live and open to further developments of creative ideas.
Feedback from participants:
“I liked the working process with new teacher: good and quite calm exercises in the beginning of the process to take time to get into the process and start working with movement ideas. I loved the couple-work with hands – it was something new for me. I have done something like this before, but the experience I got from working with my partner was new. Telling the story with my fingers was new. Olga has lot of creative ideas, that are sometimes very funny and humoristic. I like that she gave time in the class to experience what we were just working with at that moment.”
“Good to have possibilities to take time to work with myself in the class. It was surprising to work as a group and in couples – to hold to each other hands, while we were working in the groups of 2-3 people and working with pushing-pulling exercise. The music she was using (J.S. Bach) also had very big impact on me, while we were improvising.”
“I would like to mention Olga´s positive and inspiring working method. Somehow she managed to find out “right places” in each of us in the class and pushed these buttons and guided us very delicately… I loved her spontaneous “tricks” and “foolish games”, she was very motivating. I would like to meet her in the next workshops and find more time to research and develop these ideas we found now.”
The creative research and laboratory work with Olga Zitluhina will continue during longer period of time next time: from June 20th until July 10th 2019. Then we will have a goal to start the process of creating new piece in collaboration with professional dancers and TLU and EMA (Estonian Music Academy) students in dance and music studies. The process will continue in August 2019 and the finalization of the new creative work will be in Sept 2019.
Olga Zitluhina visit was supported by “Explorations and Collaborations in the Arts / The ECA Network” mobility grants.
