Line up: Zornitsa Stoyanova
Open: 19:00 - 21:00 hrs
Tickets: € 7,50-20
In our present reality of alternate facts, deepfake AI, and political fraud, I seek an answer to some of the biggest questions in popular culture today:
What is the value of truth?
Do we believe in honesty?
Or has Honesty become only an abstract idea, a belief of something unreal, ultimately only an “honest lie”?
Is the embrace of the multiplicity of all that we are (honest lies and fake beliefs) a political act? Or are we only “right” when we are part of a social, political, or historical movement or trend?
A multidisciplinary solo project, the piece interrogates what is personal truth and whether we can ever be truly honest with ourselves and others. Zornitsa is a choreographer and improviser with 20 years of stage experience, who dances, speaks, sings fake opera, makes up poetry on the spot, interviews the audience, moves objects around the room, drinks the cold water when things get too hard, and ultimately attempts to define and understand honesty. Breaking the 4th wall the performance works within the boundaries of the confessional, the mundane, and the absurd. Sometimes funny, the piece includes nudity and live-feed special effects. Interrogating what it means to be honest and authentic, Zornitsa questions normative behaviors, societal norms, and the performative nature of all our identities.
Biography:
Zornitsa Stoyanova (USA/BUL) is an award-winning performance artist, curator, writer, lighting, and video designer. Based between Sofia, Bulgaria, and Philadelphia, US, she directs her company BodyMeld which along with presenting her work, focuses on creating programs to support independent choreographers in both her locales.
Her stage, video, and photographic work use the female body as an abstract object revealing ideas of strength in female sensuality and emotionality. On stage, she explores the power dynamics between dancers and audiences, and personal stories using vulnerability as a strength. Her esthetics merge the mundane with the fantastical and futurist sci-fi imagery. Since 2013 an overarching theme in her work has been exposing the “otherness” living within us, as a way to recognize that all humans are the same. Since 2020, she has been researching a movement and speaking practice – Brutal Honesty – that has the goal of not censoring oneself. Zornitsa is presently working toward her master's degree in Choreography - COMMA at Codarts and Fontys Universities in the Netherlands.
As a dancer, she has performed for Zhana Pencheva, Sasha Waltz & Guests, Eiko & Koma, Boris Charmatz, and improvisation companies Emergent Improvisation Ensemble, and Graffito Works in the US. Her screendance films have been shown in festivals across the U.S. and in Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Bulgaria, Ireland, Germany, and Bangladesh.
She teaches improvisation techniques for performance, dances on camera, and composition and has done so in Philadelphia, France, Hungary, her native Bulgaria, and online. Zornitsa is also a mother of two and editor for thINKingDANCE.net.
www.bodymeld.org
Price: €12 - €25 sliding scale payment (pay what you want)
The showing is in English