Open up through dance
Collective Dope is a formation established in 2016 by Nóra Horváth and Jenna Jalonen who are building their collaboration on the idea of opening up towards each other and inviting all kinds of artists to participate in their performances. Soon they’re organising a festival - in cooperation with the Workshop Foundation - in Trafó with the title [D]OPEN your move where genres of contemporary dance and urban dance will be present side by side. We asked them about the arrangements and the program, which will be one of the opening events of CAFe Budapest on the 4th of October. (Detail)
How did you meet each other and what brought to life Collective Dope a couple years ago?
Jenna: We both are contemporary dancers and we knew about each other earlier. Our first common project was Unknown Kingdom by Éva Duda Dance Co. which was choreographed by Máté Mészáros. Later on he invited us as guest-artists to a performance in Bremen and that’s when we first thought about working together.
Nóra: In that performance we created a duet together which we fell in love with and wanted to improve it further. After the idea of turning it into an individual piece, we had already known we’d have more common performances. That’s why the collective was founded, it is not a dance company but a creators union in which we all have our freedom to create shows and events together, alone or with whoever we want to.
In urban dance ‘battle’ is a typical component. Will contemporary dance and urban dance battle on the feastival [D]OPEN your move ?
Nóra: ‘Battle’ might be a bit too strong, we don’t think about this as a fight. [D]OPEN your move is a lot more about meeting and sharing our love for dance with each other irrespectively of the genres we usually practice. We all prefer to move in different styles and this festival ensures a platform for sharing knowledge, meeting new people and getting inspired.
Jenna: Looking at it technically it won’t be a battle neither, dancers will form “two vs two’ pairs and will compete others together. This holds a chance of having to cooperate with someone with a different style. The performances will be juried by three professionals including dancers from the Hungarian contemporary and hip-hop dance era and a foreign guest having experience in both genres.
You have already published a couple names, who are they?
Jenna: We will have two djs with us; one of them is Ábris Gryllus who comes from the contemporary underground world and has experience with dance shows. The other is Mátyás Kántor who is a dancer turned into a dj with the stage-name Dj Lil Matt. They will be in charge of the live music throughout the competitions. We have two hosts as well; Bence Bárány slam poetry artist and Éva Duda choreographer. In the jury Adrienn Hód choreographer and ‘oldie but goodie’ Róbert Fazekas aka Pizsy will be present. French B-boy Link Bink is known for his own style, he will be one of the foreign guests and will hold a workshop as well.
author: Melánia Miklós
photos and videos: Krisztina Csányi
This is a detail of the full interview, which is available in Hungarian on the following link: https://trafo.hu/blog/collective_dope_interju
