On dance festivals - Part two

I arrived in Sofia in April 2018, soon after my graduation in Italian philology. I had decided to move in with my boyfriend and see how it was to live in this city. I had got a three months scholarship, but didn’t have much to do, so in the first days here I was browsing the internet looking for events. In the website of Sofia In Your Pocket I found out about Antistatic Festival, a festival of contemporary dance and performance, with international and Bulgarian artists held in Sofia, and I read that they were looking for volunteers. I thought: “That seems so cool!” and immediately applied. A few days later I entered Antistatic Festival office and I met the amazing Antistatic team made by Elena, the coordinator and my first contact, Iva, Willy and Stefan, the organisers. The atmosphere was very friendly, welcoming, and quite chill. As I imagined, the tasks were pretty much the same as the ones I had in Bologna: taking care of the artists at their arrival and during the rehearsals, sometimes helping with the stage setting, managing the ticket check and guiding the audience. But before all of this, the brochures of the festival had to be distributed in bars, info points and cultural spots. So my errands in the city centre started, during which I had the chance to know many nice cafes and especially find out about a Bulgarian cultural peculiarity. 

My Bulgarian was very poor back then, but I was determined to use the sentence I had prepared with the help of my boyfriend: “Може ли да ви оставя няколко брошури на Антистатик Фестивал?” (“Can I leave you some brochures of Antistatic Festival”?). I knew that “da” means “yes” and “ne” means “no”, so I thought in most cases it would be enough, and if they started asking other questions I would just switch to English. However, I didn’t pay much attention to how important body language is, and how more immediate it is than verbal language. Very often the waters would say “yes” and point out the tables where I could leave the brochures, but in a few cases another weird scenario took place. The waitress nodded, with a sort of an unhappy face, and I got very confused, cause her head was saying “yes”, but her face and words were saying “no”! And then I realised that that was simply the Bulgarian way to nod (which is more or less the opposite of the standard one)! Never mind, I learned a good lesson, and distributed many brochures, plus some posters and banners. 

Another episode that helped me with my learning Bulgarian took place during the opening of the festival in DNK, the main location of the festival. After the great performance Hommages by Mark Tompkins, we offered some drinks to inaugurate the festival and at one point Willy asked me to get some ice for the whisky. I took the money and made for a shop, where I confidently asked for some “sled”, which I remembered was the word for “ice”. The cashier looked at me as if I were crazy, then asked me if I wanted “sladoled” (ice cream), to which I answered, a bit pissed: “Ne ne, iskam sled, ice!” (No no, I want sled, ice!). Then, he said: “Ah! Led!”, and finally gave me the ice. I had been saying until that moment “sled”, which means “after” -_- Another good lesson, and an example of contextual learning, I guess :P 

Anyway, besides the language barrier, to me volunteering at Antistatic compared to Danza Urbana in Bologna was slightly easier, due to the fact that the locations were mainly indoor spaces designated for dance or theatre performances. The most curious thing I did on the stage that year was to pick up hundreds of red chewing gums after the gorgeous performance Golem by Anna Dankova and collect thousands of paillettes after the glamorous Neon, by Steam Room. Thanks to the festival I discovered many hot spots in Sofia for performing arts (some of which aren’t operational now, unfortunately), met a lot of artists and made valuable connections. I felt welcomed and found a circle of people bonded by the same passion. I guess it is also because of Antistatic that I decided to stay in Sofia.  

The Red House Centre for Culture and Debate, Sofia

Since then, I assisted in other three editions of the festival and here are some common traits. The artists come from different countries and backgrounds and the program itself is very varied, as it includes performances, talks after the shows, workshops, masterclasses, residencies, round tables, parties... The core of the festival, the performances, always leave me a lot to think about, making me ask myself questions that can also rise from a negative opinion on them: that performance was very weird, why didn’t I like it? What made it so boring to me? This performance was so cool, why did it stand out? Because of the idea, the choreography, the irony, the music? What did this prop represent? Must it have a meaning? This is why I recommend everybody to come attend it: it’s not gonna leave you indifferent! 

Workshop Nature, Antistatic Festival 2021, photo by Teodora Simova

Among the other events, in the previous editions I appreciated in particular the workshop Nature with Dragana Alfirevic and Dejan Srhoj in 2021, that represented an immersive experience through which we participants really listened to ourselves and discovered more of ourselves in our relationship with nature and with the others. I am extremely thankful also for the seminar on dance critique led by Arnd Wesemann in 2019, which contributed to my opening this blog and offered me precious tools for dance writing. I will try to make use of them this year, writing about the 15th edition of Antistatic Festival. Stay tuned!