Author: Zuzanna Berendt.
When planning my last festival trip within the Beyond Front@ Stipend for dance writers, I didn’t realize that, in a sense, this journey would close a certain circle. It began in Budapest — with a critics’ residency during the Sissi Dance Autumn Festival — and it ended in Budapest, with a visit to the 14th edition of that same festival.
Of course, a lot has changed over the past two years — dozens of performances watched and texts written, new skills gained, new acquaintances made… Yet another change seems key to me. When I was in Budapest in 2023 — a city I had visited several times before, but always briefly and always as a tourist — I didn’t know anyone there. Thanks to the residency, however, I met several new people who do the same thing as I do: write about dance. I also met people from the Central European Dance Theatre, L1Association, Bunker and the residency mentors. These individuals came to Hungary from various places to spend a few days learning together by exchanging perspectives, expertise, and working methods.
When I arrived in Budapest in 2025 and sat in the audience at the Bethlen Theater, I realized I was surrounded by familiar faces — organizers, curators, critics, fellows. It turned out that this project — initially just a pleasant addition to my other commitments — had made me part of a network spanning multiple European countries.
Dance Communication Lab (mentor: Márta Ladjánszki) – Budapest, Hungary – 15 Nov 2025. Photo by Gábor Dusa
Accompanying programme of the 14. Sissi Dance Autumn Festival
The strength of the Budapest festival lies in the diversity of its programme, which allows the audience not only to experience a wide range of dance aesthetics, but also to respond to the needs of the international dance community — a community that develops through mobility, networking, and artistic exchange.
In November, I took part in three events: a series of presentations within DancEUA — Choreo Sync, which showcased the results of work between dancers from the Central European Dance Theatre and young choreographers from Ukraine, Sweden, Croatia, Hungary, and Romania; the Dance Communication Lab performance prepared by dancers selected through an open call and mentored by Márta Ladjánszki; and a presentation of the dance-theatre piece Border/Body Line by the Ukrainian group LeRoy Dance Company.
Dance Communication Lab (mentor: Márta Ladjánszki) – Budapest, Hungary – 15 Nov 2025. Photo by Gábor Dusa
The first event primarily served to present the results of collaboration between Hungarian dancers and international artists — it became a kind of mini-platform through which various aesthetics, rhythms, and dance forms were passed in less than an hour and a half.
The next two events corresponded with each other in an interesting way. The Dance Communication Lab presentation was essentially designed as a site-specific movement intervention. Six dancers (Daniela Carler – Sweden, Lea Filipčić – Croatia, Boróka Kőmíves – Romania, Urška Centa – Slovenia, Iga Kwintkiewicz – Poland, Réka Horváth – Hungary), accompanied by live saxophone (Zsolt Varga), explored the space of the Bethlen Theater — not the stage, as might be expected, but the places that are usually somewhat invisible to the audience.
Their moving bodies led us through corridors, encouraged us to peek into bathrooms, and to observe the foyer as an aesthetic space. Within this structure, each dancer had a “solo” moment, yet they also functioned continuously as a single, mobile organism. The short preparation time highlighted the individual movement languages of the participants, for whom Ladjánszki created a shared space.
Dance Communication Lab (mentor: Márta Ladjánszki) – Budapest, Hungary – 15 Nov 2025. Photo by Gábor Dusa
Border/Body Line
The DCL presentation was scheduled directly before the performance of the choreographic piece Border/Body Line, in which themes of materiality and shared space also resonated compellingly.
In the piece choreographed by Olha Drobysh, two dancers engage in a game over space. They begin by outlining shapes on the dance floor with paper tape, attempting to fill these shapes with their bodies. Over time, their interventions become increasingly intense, and at one point the stage is divided by a thick line into two nearly identical halves. This line is both a border and a threshold — balancing on it reflects the performers’ condition, as they constantly exist between “there” and “here,” “at home” and “somewhere else.”
Border/Body Line by Leroy Dance Company (chor. Olha Drobysh) – Budapest, Hungary – 15 Nov 2025. Photo by Gábor Dusa
Drobysh skillfully navigates between different tonalities of movement — marking one’s place in space sometimes takes the form of childlike play, and at other times evokes an almost war-like conflict with the highest possible stakes. In the struggle for space, the body reveals its fragility and dependence — on another person, on external factors, on visible and merely sensed rules.
This performance could be read as a political statement of an era marked by migration, forced displacement, and battles for space and resources. The artists of LeRoy Company avoid literalness, yet through the use of minimalistic scenic elements and the universal white costumes, they open up a field of interpretation for the audience. The performers’ interactions may be interpreted as personal histories or socio-political metaphors, but they can also be received primarily on a bodily or affective level. While watching Border/Body Line we can feel both the discomfort of being pushed away from familiar space and the warmth of being welcomed by the loving arms.
Border/Body Line by Leroy Dance Company (chor. Olha Drobysh) – Budapest, Hungary – 15 Nov 2025. Photo by Gábor Dusa
What is next?
I would truly love to know what the next possible stop on the journey I began through the Beyond Front@ project might be.
Perhaps it will be dancing along the traces of past travels — returning to festivals and theatres I visited for the first time.
Perhaps it will be a path guided by others — and I have met many people here whose recommendations I could follow.
In any case — it is time to unfold the map and swipe finger across it.
This text was written by Zuzanna Berendt within the framework of the Beyond Front@: Bridging Periphery project.
