Olga Dukhovna (UA)
LEGAL DANCE - WORKSHOP
10:00 - 13:00, Monday November 10th to Friday November 14th
Dansverkstæðið
Free
Interested parties should write to info@reykjavikdancefestival.is to register. Please note attendance is only required for one of the weeks.
Where does homage end? Where does plagiarism begin? The reuse and recycling of gestures remain central to my choreographic thinking. After exploring these questions in a duet with a legal expert, I now open the process to a group of dancers.
In this workshop, we will collectively examine how iconic choreographies can be legally reused, transformed, or appropriated to generate new creations. What happens when we rearrange a sequence of steps, collide incompatible choreographies, invert gender roles, or alter speed and intention? What remains protected by copyright, and what becomes original?
By treating the law itself as a score, participants will experiment with improvisation, transformation, and recycling as tools for composition. The workshop invites dancers to explore legal constraints as creative partners—producing new choreographic forms that emerge precisely within the space between what is permitted and what is forbidden.
The workshop is part of the R.O.M - Residencies On the Move project, which is funded by the European Union's Creative Europe program.
Olga will be presenting two performances at Reykjavík Dance Festival (November 12th - 16th).
Born in Ukraine, Olga Dukhovna received her training at the P.A.R.T.S school in Brussels, under the direction of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, and later at the National Center for Contemporary Dance in Angers under the direction of Emmanuelle Huynh. As a choreographer, she navigates the intersection of incompatible artistic approaches while exploring creative clashes and unexpected collisions. On one hand, she draws inspiration from a lost Ukrainian folklore erased by the Soviet regime, reinterpreting its movements ; on the other hand, she incorporates elements from the contemporary dance legacy that she kept from her studies in Belgium and France. Out of this confrontation, two pieces emerged: Korowod (2012), based on traditional Slavic dances, and Hopak (2024), inspired by the military training of the Cossacks. During the pandemic, she created Swan Lake a solo piece entirely crafted in her room by watching excerpts of many different version of Swan Lake on YouTube. Since 2022, Swan Lake has enjoyed rapid success and initiated an international tour. The piece originates from a childhood memory: in the ex-Soviet bloc countries, whenever a leader died, programs were interrupted to broadcast Swan Lake. Today, Olga explains that she dances Swan Lake while awaiting news of the fall of the Russian government of Vladimir Putin.
