View this email in your browser

Dear <<First Name>>,

Next week I head over to Philadelphia, USA. It still feels surreal to be traveling and working on both continents. Vaccine, test, mask, residency papers - so many hoops to go through in order to travel. This is all made easier by my US credit card - which has lots of miles on it and makes it so the cost is a bit less. I also learned that my Philly house where we have renters might have termites - so the visit will be interesting - lol.

2022 is already super busy. I hope we all gather more, sense our aliveness together, and experience joy. Joy has been so hard to embody and feel during this pandemic. I think that's what I try to do with my classes - working toward reminding us the joy of sensing and composing through the senses.

A bit of news:
This coming weekend I'm starting rehearsals for a project with Sasha Waltz and Guests dance company here in Bulgaria. Its called "In-C" and it is improvisational and based on the music by composer Terry Riley.
Then in early spring, I'll be touring in Europe with "Dance Baby Dance" performance of great Bulgarian choreographer and friend Zhana Pencheva.

Yesterday was also magical and important. Along with friends and dancers Ivo Dimitrov and Silvia Cherneva, we initiated Platform for Improvisation and Composition - we held an audition for 4 additional dancers/movers to join us. This is the first such platform in Bulgaria, so we are very excited and pumped.

And in a bit over a week - I'd be in my favorite place in Philadelphia - Fidget Space - where I will teach and continue researching my new performance Brutal Honesty. I have a tiny grant to research it, but still working on finding more opportunities to develop it into a performance sometime in October. (After the festival, I'm producing in September... which I'll just have to tell you about in another email... )

Me and co-director of Fidget, Megan Bridge are also performing our duet Altered States - a performance conversation at Bryn Mawr College inf the Philadelphia area. We are always developing this duet and looking for more places to perform it - even if its online. So, if you have ideas for platforms that would be of interest, please let us know. We have connections and invitations already in France and Georgia (the country), but we'd have to find all of the funding ourselves.

Somehow after this whirlwind, I'm gonna make it back to Sofia by mid-February and start offering online classes again. I am planning on sharing a general Improvisation Performance Practice, Brutal Honesty practice and a long 6 class series of Digital Dance.
That's my update for now... and of course here are the classes that you can already register for. Send me an email if you have any questions.

Composing with Gesture - dance improvisation practice

Jan. 26, 27, 28 through Zoom
15:00 - 16:00 Central European Time or 9:00 - 11:30 East Coast Time (NYC)

Gesture reveals a plethora of information – the nonspoken, the unrealized, or the potential for meaning. In contemporary and post-modern European-centric dance, gesture is often missing.

In the center of Zornitsa’s 20+ years of dancing and choreographing has been the idea of the potential for meaning. NOT creating meaning — But rather creating the potential for reading the ephemeral and ever-changing body.

This is one of many dance practices Zornitsa has developed over the years getting toward the potential for meaning and composing in the now. Composing with gesture practice works with recognized or unrecognized gestures, as well as livening the face, fingers, and toes to be as expressive and specific as any other body part we are trained to move through space here and now.

Scores we will do:

Jan 26th

Composing with known gestures vs. with gestures that lack cultural meaning

Gesture as its own dance vs. as decorative add on to existing choreography

Jan 27th

Distorting the self

Shifting meaning one at a time

Shifting meaning through full-body transformation

Jan. 28th

Translation through gesture

Composing with rhythm, repetition, and space

Info and Registration

Brutal Honesty – IN - PERSON - dance and language improvisation practice workshop

Sat. Feb. 5th
10AM – 1PM and 2PM- 5PM

Location:

The Fidget Space
1714 N. Mascher Street – 4th floor
Philadelphia, PA 19122

COST: $40 to $75 Sliding scale payment for the whole day

Brutal Honesty is a dance and language improvisation practice developed by Zornitsa Stoyanova. It works toward the goal of not censoring oneself in movement and the language, stories, emotions, and bullshit that comes up while in it.

The generation of language is a juggle between the sensual body, memories, feelings and the here and now.

Brutal Honesty practice is part of Zornitsa’s research for a new performance by the same name.

Within this practice, she works with repetitions, derailed desire, the confessional, the highly emotional, and the vulnerable.

Join Zornitsa for this one-day in-person workshop research in language and movement practice unearthing the notion of personal truths and what it means to be honest, with yourself and others.

Info and Registration

This is all from me for now. As always I welcome all correspondence and really looking forward to being in Philly again. If you have something in improvisation and digital dance you are interested in and would like me to organize a class, just let me know.

All the best and wishing you all tiny and large slivers of joy in your daily life.
Zornitsa Stoyanova
Director of BodyMeld