Dance Move Cities project: Residence & creation by contact Gonzo
Riga 2014
Performing Arts
At the basis of Dance Move Cities project is a series of city residencies in Riga, involving international performing collectives working in collaboration with Latvian dance artists and drawing inspiration from the elements and phenomenas in the city. Japanese company Contact Gonzo will stay in residency in Riga for 4 weeks in August 2014 and together with a group of local dancers/performers will explore one of Riga’s suburbs, working site-specific in parks, squares, streets and places of social importance for local community (libraries, sports centres). Here they will they make regular artistic interventions in the public space and by the end of the residency develop and present a new collaborative creation for wider audiences.
Residence
Japanese artist: Contact Gonzo
*More details: New Theatre Institute of Latvia website
Presentation of new creation
Date: 23, 24 Aug. 2014
Meeting point: Koka Riga, Krāsotāju street 12
*More details: New Theatre Institute of Latvia website
Artist
Founded in 2006, contact Gonzo is an improvisational performance group based in Osaka, Japan. This collective of five performers, has developed a specific mode of contact improvisation that borrows from sources ranging from martial arts to internet trends. Based on both physical strength and agility, and trusting relationships within the group, contact Gonzo powerfully balances elements of contemporary dance, performance art, and urban and popular cultures. Dispersing and occupying public buildings, theaters, museums and alleyways around the world, their work is typically a series of arresting encounters that teeter on an edge between violence and tenderness. Contact Gonzo has been presented in Japan, Singapore, New York, Moscow, Rio, Reykjavik, Zurich, Budapest, Ljubljana among other places.