The Anniversary

On November 21, Vitebsk / Diana Kurilo - BELTA /. The jubilee XXV International Festival of Modern Choreography (IFMC) will be solemnly opened today in Vitebsk, as reported to BELTA correspondent by the "Vitebsk" Cultural Centre. The opening concert will feature the Chelyabinsk Contemporary Dance Theatre, the Cologne-based HeadFeedHands Theatre, the "Kyiv Modern-Ballet" Theatre of Modern Choreography, Sergey Smirnov's "Eccentric Ballet" from Yekaterinburg, the D.O.Z.S.K.I. Theatre of Modern Choreography from Minsk, and the Evgeny Panfilov Perm State Ballet Theatre. A premiere performance of the play "Sepia" will also be presented by the "Provincial Dances" Theatre from Yekaterinburg, a laureate of the Golden Mask National Theatre Award. The jubilee has provided an opportunity for IFMC to extend beyond Vitebsk for the first time. Evenings of Modern Choreography will be presented in Minsk (November 22 at the "Minsk" Concert Hall and November 28 at the National Academic Grand Opera and Ballet Theatre), Molodechno (November 22), Bobruisk (November 23), and Grodno (November 26). In Vitebsk, the modern choreography festival programme is scheduled for November 21-25. The venues for its events will be the "Vitebsk" Concert Hall and the Yakub Kolas National Academic Drama Theatre. The main event of the festival is the international competition of modern choreography. Traditionally, it is held in two nominations – "One-Act Ballet" and "Choreographic Miniature" – in two rounds, the final of which is public. This year, based on the results of the preliminary online video selection, 45 works out of 92 submitted will be presented at the competition in Vitebsk. Collectives from Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Switzerland, Estonia, Japan, as well as a number of international projects, are invited to participate in the international competition. The performances of the participants will be evaluated by a representative jury chaired by the People's Artist of the USSR, the renowned choreographer Vladimir Vasiliev. The jury also includes figures widely known in the world of contemporary dance: Susan Link (Germany), Alice Dor Cohen (Israel), Paul Johnson (Ireland), Wendy Perron (USA), and Radu Poklitaru (Ukraine).

IFMC is one of the prestigious festivals in the field of choreographic art in the CIS and Eastern Europe. The historical and cultural significance of the festival lies in the revival of the city's artistic traditions associated with the renaissance of the 1920s, when Vitebsk was one of the centers of the Russian and European avant-garde. Currently, the festival records and shapes the development paths of contemporary plastic theatre and is the only educational forum for contemporary dance in Belarus. It integrates the creative potential of Belarus in the field of contemporary choreography into the global cultural space, continuing to stimulate the development of international relations in the field of art. Thousands of artists from over 40 countries have performed on the Vitebsk stage over the 25-year history of the festival, which all these years has contributed to strengthening the image of Belarus as a modern state with highly artistic traditions and cultural values of the new century. The founders of the festival are the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee, the Ministry of Culture of Belarus, the Vitebsk City Executive Committee, and the National Academic Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theatre of Belarus. The organizer is the Vitebsk Culture Center. -0-

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