Its a story about freedom, understanding freedom…

THE GAP is a joyful, romantic, and incisive love letter to dance and its history, told through the personal journey of Swedish dancer and choreographer Liza Penkova. Drawing on her own archives, Penkova reflects on the cultural contrasts she experienced as a classically trained student from post-Soviet Russia arriving in Sweden in the early 1990s, where she first encountered the boundless aesthetic freedom of contemporary dance. A field that later opened the door to a flourishing career as a dancer. Yet true freedom, with all its aesthetic and emotional breadth, was not always easy to embrace. The GAP is about searching for and finding the key to that freedom.

Alternating between silence and music, stretching from Shostakovich to Coltrane, Tchaikovsky to Jefferson airplanes, voices from the archives of dance heroes and heroines and her own poetic reflections on norms and values between East and West, the audience is invited to witness a process of transformation with elements of dancing, melodrama and humour.

Previously a dancer with well known choreographers and companies such as Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Michele Noiret, Helena Franzen, Kunst-Werk, Gothenburg Dance company and other well known institutions in Europe, the creation of THE GAP, marks Penkova’s debut as a choreographer and as an urging artist.

credits:

choreography/text/dance: Liza Penkova

dramaturgy : Armin Kerber

sound: Per-Henrik Mäepää

lightdesign: Nelson Lima

costume: Anne-Catherine Kunz

co-production: Vitlycke Center for Performing Arts

production/admin: Producentbyrån

special thanks to team 2022: Håkan Jelk, Wannes de Rydt, Liza Winzel

co-production: Vitlycke CPA

with residency support from: LeBoson/Bruxelles, 3eVåningen/Göteborg, DCVäst, MDT/STockholm, Hallen/Farsta, Konstkollektivet/Mölndal

subsidized by: Swedish arts grants commette, Swedish arts council, Gothenburg city arts concil, Västra Götalands region.