The idea for ‘ReMOVE Boundaries’ was born out of our desire to create links between arts professionals and give them opportunities to get to know each other’s work and create together, while at the same time using their professional experience to help develop the local artistic community. The two choreographers and the musician/sound designer will come together for 12 days in Varna. Each choreographer wil create a dance piece with local and international dancers. The two pieces will be united and unified by the music which will be created for the performance, developed further together with the choreographers, and performed live.

The performance will take place on April 23 at ReBonkers, a recently renovated atmospheric cultural space that used to function as a gunpowder warehouse back in the days.

Etienne Bechard is a French choreographer working in Brussels (Belgium). He studied at the renowned Ecole-Atelier Rudra Béjart and joined the Béjart Ballet Lausanne upon graduation. Under the encouraging eye of Maurice Béjart, (who gave him several lead roles) he developed his talent as a dancer and choreographer. In 2010, he left the Béjart Ballet Lausanne and moved to Belgium to found his own company Opinion Public. He also choreographs in other companies around the world, including the Ballet du Rhin, Tanz Konzert Theater Bern, Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, and others.

Mihaela Griveva is a choreographer, dancer, teacher and entrepreneur. She holds an MA in Contemporary Dance Performance from the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance. As a freelance artist based in Ireland, she continues to work and study extensively in Europe and Asia. Mihaela’s work has been performed in the Netherlands, England, Germany, Bulgaria and Ireland. Recent work includes her feature-length dance film “The 12th Hour” part of the omnibus La Ballet de la Nuit, touring internationally. Her project “The 12th Hour” was subsequently exhibited as an installation at Uillinn West Cork Arts Center. In 2021 she was invited to take part in Dublin Youth Dance Company’s Resilience Program, where she had the opportunity to mentor young dancers and simultaneously create her dance film “Furari Tempus”.

Benjamin Schultz is a musician and sound designer. He was born in Berlin and received his music foundation education (violin, viola) at the Schwerin Conservatory &  the Lübeck Music Academy (remedial class). He studied at the Mittweida University of Applied Sciences as well as audio design  and viola at the Music Academy and Schola CantorumBasel (Switzerland). He played in the Amici Musicae Leipzig and the  Akademisches Orchester Leipzig and has supervised numerous recordings of classical and new music with, among others, the  Mondrian Ensemble Basel, the NDR Sinfonieorchester and Zeitkratzer Berlin. He has worked as a freelance sound engineer at  numerous theatres in Germany and Switzerland including (selection) for the Akademie der Künste Berlin, the Maxim Gorki  Theater, the SchaubühneBerlin, the Berliner Ensemble, the Rostocker Philharmoniker & the Festspiele St.Gallen (Open Air) both  as a musician / sound designer and as sound supervisor. In the last three years he worked mainly at the Berlin Schaubühne with the director Herbert Fritsch.

 

ReMOVE Boundaries is an initiative of Varna Dance Theater. The project is made possible thanks to the support of the i-Portunus Houses pilot scheme, implemented, on behalf of the European Commission, by a consortium of organisations that have been pioneers of European cultural mobility programmes themselves. Coordinated by the European Cultural Foundation (Amsterdam), the i-Portunus Houses consortium involves MitOst (Berlin) as main mobility implementer and the Kultura Nova Foundation (Zagreb) as lead in evaluation and analysis.