DanceMeld Platform Choreographic LAB with Galina Borissova
Total Theatre: Concept, Choreography & Multi-Genre Performance Lab
“If you don’t have a masterpiece — start out with something else.”
Summer Dance Intensive in Sofia
June 29–July 3 from 10:00 – 17:00
July 4 – Public Showing – time TBA
BAZA Space, Sofia
This is the motto of Galina Borissova’s five-day lab: a direct invitation to begin from where you are, with the ideas, questions, materials, doubts, images, texts, movements, and unfinished impulses that are already available.
The lab asks how we can create a clear concept for a multi-genre performance. How do we combine different approaches into one artistic idea? What tools do we use when choreography is no longer only about creating movement and placing it onto music?
Galina Borissova invites participants to think of performance through all available means: dramaturgy, text, scenography, visual environment, musical environment, dance, and theatre. The aim is not to abandon choreography, but to expand how choreography is understood and practiced — as part of a larger field of total theatre.
An important part of the lab will be research: how do we investigate a theme? Has it been explored before? If yes, how can we contribute something of our own, especially when similar directions have already been developed successfully?
Over five days, the group will collect the ideas of all participants and combine them into one shared theme. Each participant may propose a solo or group presentation as part of the process.
Who is it for?
For dancers, choreographers, performers, theatre-makers, and interdisciplinary artists interested in choreography, concept development, dramaturgy, text, scenography, visual composition, music, dance, theatre, and multi-genre performance.
Participation Options
Participants can sign up for the full week or choose one lab only. MAX 12 people.
Full Week Pass
Want to bundle with another workshop?
Check out the full schedule at the DanceMeld Platform bellow
- Jul 03 2026
- Expired!
- 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
- €140.00
- BAZA Program
- Mladost 4, ul. Aleksanar Paskalev, Bitov Kombinat,
- https://maps.app.goo.gl/rLBc5eVBrSVkbtss6
- zornitsa@bodymeld.org
- https://www.bodymeld.org
BodyMeld is the NGO organization and the artistic company that runs BAZA space. BodyMeld is the artistic project of Zornitsa Stoyanova, owner of BAZA space.
With
Galina Borissova"Mutant" Choreographer / Writer / PerformerGalina Borissova is known to Bulgarian and international audiences for several emblematic solo works, including How Quickly Life Flows from January to December, an exploration of time and the dynamic world of Virginia Woolf; Down Here All Lilacs Die, inspired by the writings of Marcel Proust and the music of Richard Wagner; Antigone — This Is Me, created with Romanian dramaturg Gina Șerbănescu, which examines the central antagonism of ancient Greek tragedy — the personal versus the political — through the artist’s own perspective; Juanita Hildegard Bo, where photography becomes a provocation for dance; and I Dance Maria Callas, which explores the dramatic intensity of nineteenth-century operatic characters.
In recent years, Galina has worked on projects such as This Is All, a manifesto on postmodernism; The Story of Yesterday, based on Leo Tolstoy’s research diaries; Three Plays, Four Acts — Play Chekhov, inspired by the work of A. P. Chekhov; Giovanni, Lucia and Cecilia, a chamber “false opera” inspired by instant composition, failed singing, and operatic librettos; and If You Don’t Have a Masterpiece, Do Something Else, a reconstruction of choreographies by the postmodernists of Judson Dance Theater, New York, from the 1960s.
She has created and produced more than 45 projects, presented across Europe and the United States. Her work has been shown at Spring Festival, Bard College, Dance Theater Workshop, Aerowaves, PoliTalu Center, Dance Across Borders, Duncan Centre, Krakow Dance Festival, Silesian Dance Festival, Balkan Dance Platform, the International Theatre Festival “Varna Summer,” and many others.
Galina has collaborated with Theatre Giljotin in Stockholm, Grand Theatre in the Netherlands, Hippodrome Theatre in Florida, Kubilai Khan Investigations in France, Deja Donne in the Czech Republic/Italy, Louise Bédard Danse in Canada, Elsa Limbach in the USA, the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad, and others.
In 1998, her work A Never Ending Story won first prize at the International Competition for Contemporary Choreography in Groningen, the Netherlands. She has been a guest lecturer at New Bulgarian University in Sofia from 1998 to 2011, Duncan Centre in Prague in 1999, the Theatre School in Groningen in 2004, and NATFA “Kr. Sarafov” in Sofia in 2003, among others. In 2005, she received a gold medal in Belgrade for her solo Juanita Hildegard Bo as Best Solo Performer. She was nominated for an Ikar Award in 2014 for I Dance Maria Callas and again in 2018 for Down Here All Lilacs Die.
Galina organizes annual dance concerts in collaboration with the Etude Foundation, initiating and producing new short dance premieres. Recent editions have included artists from Romania and North Macedonia. After the ninth edition of the dance concerts, Galina, together with Ani Collier, initiated the festival Etudes and Friends. The festival is a platform for dance and education, presenting Bulgarian productions as well as Bulgarian artists based both in the country and abroad. Over its last five editions, the international festival has developed a dynamic program. In 2020, the festival held its fifth edition online, dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the death of choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky. Its program includes exhibitions, meetings, discussions, and documentary film screenings, with the aim of presenting dance in all its genres and diversity.
Galina is the initiator of numerous seminars and workshops. She is currently resident at Etude Gallery.
In recent years, her choreographic interests have focused on instant composition, hangout technique, copy/paste culture, and the development of an artistic ethics through which she analyzes her own body of work.
Galina is the author of the book Artists and Preferences, published by New Bulgarian University in 2011. Since 2011, she has written regularly on her blog, publishing professional reviews and translated texts on dance. She also writes poetry under the name Ute Baumwoller.
She calls herself a mutant choreographer.
