New roads - premier

József Trefeli and Gyula Cserepes came to work with the Angyalfoldi Vadrozsa Ensemble from the Swiss contemporary dance company Cie József Trefeli. Both choreographers often use Hungarian folk dance elements in their contemporary choreographic work. The goal of this project was to expand Vadrozsa's collective knowledge in current trends in contemporary dance and to increase possibilities for the outline and structure of new choreography. We aimed to create to combine contemporary and folk dance to broaden the audience, opening towards those who would enjoy this new kind of choreography.

The process of dance making is just as important as the end product. This is the time for learning, research and invention. The two main focal points of this project were to discover new ways to use theatrical space and to create our own dance vocabulary. We have worked with personal space, collective space and negative space and the sharing of these spaces together. A symmetrical map of 14 pathways was laid out on the floor from entrance to exit. The dancers follow these paths which cross over many of the other paths creating meeting points yet like schools of fish, the groups seamlessly slide past one another busy with their own dance. We explored the creation of custom made movement by each individual dancer, concentrating on combining prior folk dance knowledge with the addition of the use of the torso, arms and hands. A new contemporary folk dance vocabulary was created with a focus on the original and the new.

Cie Joseph Trefeli