After the showcase you'll have the chance to meet the artists.

'In this genre-bending ‘contemporary dance stand-up’, choreographer Kata Juhász speaks bluntly and from first-hand experience, about the life of an independent artist who is based in Hungary,  but also does projects and workshops abroad. Her voice is of the more mature generation of artists. Artists, who have been balancing on the edge of burnout and existential failure for many years, whilst being stigmatized and marginalized by the conservative majority of society. They constantly debate and bargain with themselves, and even with their families, whether or not they should quit. Kata herself pursued a second career as a GP. In Declaration of Independence she talks about an autocratic political system on the rise, about oligarchs, double standards, toxic public speaking and the silencing of free thinkers, including artists. At the same time, her movements enhance and accentuate her absurd but true stories, and occasionally counterbalance them with irony and humour.' Orsolya Bálint, curator

CREDITS

Dance, choreography and costume: Kata Juhasz

Text and dramaturg: Tamás Lóky
Music: Alexis Cuadrado
Consultants: Anna Lengyel and Zsuzsanna Rózsavölgyi
Lights: Géza Budai

KATA JUHÁSZ

...is a Budapest based dancer, choreographer, teacher and physician.  She studied classical and Graham technique in Columbus, Ohio, then contemporary dance at the Centre National de la Danse Contemporaine (CNDC), Angers. She got the chance to participate in The Dance Web Scholarship Programme in Vienna. She toured internationally with the French-Hungarian Compagnie Pal Frenak for 8 years. In 2006 she launched her own company called Cie.ooops/Kata Juhasz.

In her stage work she often incorporates related arts, including: live music, video (documentary or abstract animation), spoken words, contemporary circus and multimedia. By doing so, she aims to open up a path for multi-channel communication. This allows her to go beyond corporal or interpersonal issues. Instead, while still using the language of dance, she broaches sensitive social problems with the aim of initiating or simply contributing to a social dialogue. Her new solo, Declaration of Independence, is simultaneously articulated in oral speech and movement. It is a short and personal reckoning with some historical outlook on the possibilities of an authentic artist; one who is willing to preserve her independence in a politicized public life that is on the shifting borderline of the EU. The first, American version was conceived in the frame of the Philadelphia Dance Project’s Bilateral Artist Exchange Programme and was inspired by the city where the USA Declaration of Independence was published in 1776.

She regards site-specific performance as an opportunity for re-structuring the cartesian relation of audience to the spectacle, and transform it into an immersive situation, where participants may interact. As a result of transferring contemporary dance from the traditional theatre space, her company has performed in cafés, classrooms, art galleries, fares, school gyms, cinemas and specific industrial sites. Her credo is that of keeping dance at eye-level. Consequently therefore, she has recently developed a full repertory that is targeted at different age-groups; from the youngest to the eldest of audiences.

She has been teaching dance since 1996 all over Hungary and in several other countries: Denmark, Germany, Poland, Japan, France, Russia and the USA.

She was awarded the Viktor Fülöp Award for Choreographers by the Hungarian Ministry of Culture. She also received the New York based CEC Artslink Independent Project Award 2017 for her work with the Link Vostok NGO in Minneapolis. In 2018 she was a resident artist in Philadelphia at the Bilateral Artist Exchange Program of Philadelphia Dance Project.

PREMIERS

The American version was created during the Bilateral Artist Exchange Program in Philadelphia and premiered in Philadelphia Dance Garage. The European version was premiered in Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium, Holstebro, Denmark.

Co-PRODUCERS

Workshop Foundation, Philadelphiadanceproject/Bilateral Artist Exchange Program, Aulea Foundation

SUPPORTERS

Summa Artium, Hungarian National Cultural Fund, the Ministry of Human Capacities of Hungary

CONTACT

Tamás Lóky
info@aulea.hu
+36.30.435.6679