URBAN DANCE is the project by Alina Belyagina A-i-R programm in Ustka & Słupsk. 

​

Living in different cities in Europe and Russia one can notice that houses, landscape and
general environment influence people a lot - in particular, their ideas, wishes,
aspirations, their inner freedom. The goal of my project is to have a look at a city as if it
were a human organism and to answer the question whether the city environment has the
same capabilities as a human body.

Theoretical part of the project is based on the ancient Greek notions of “the birth” and
“the destruction” and their analysis done by Lev Shestov in his work “Kierkegaard and
the Existential Philosophy”. Developing the theory of Shestov, I pay attention to the
architectural objects of the city that can inspire a person or, on the contrary, cause
negative emotions. Everybody knows the broken windows theory: looking every day at
dirty gray concrete districts, people do not want to change themselves and feel complete
apathic towards any changes in their lives. In order to try to alter this perception, I want
to organize a series of public performances with a choreography of free dance together
with creative or destructive elements of a street happening such as drawing on the walls,
planting or breaking of objects (e.g., ice).
The use of city locations, which are not intended for the theater performances, attracting
the attention of the residents of the city to them.

The second stage of the project consists of an interpretation of the paintings of the
Spanish artist Pablo Palazuelo. His view on the transgeormetry will be represented by
the choreographic shapes – special geometric forms made up by the bodies of the
dancers. This part of the project will be implemented as the series of photos. The final
result will be the photography exhibition and video-installation “Body as a city,
geometry of the body – geometry of the city” where the focus of attention will be on the
form and not on the content. In this context I will consider “city as a body” - the concept
of the atoms and cells of the human body.
The third stage of the project would be the work with the theory of homotypy of the
body by Pavel Florenskiy, which, in particular, considers the isolation of some parts of
the body from the others. The result of this part of the project would be the series of
choreographic workshops.