Hi!
My name is Aneta Dortová and this is my first post for the Leitrim Dance Project - Dance on Film. I’d like tell you a little bit about what I do and how I’ve been progressing with the development of my work for this project.
My dance style is a fusion of various percussive dance styles from all around the world including Ireland, Scotland, England, Canada, US, Spain.. I’ve been very lucky to learn from many amazing percussive, contemporary, street dance and afro dance teachers in my life. These days I focus mainly on contemporary dance. That has been quite influential on my practice and it changed the ways I move and think about movement in general. So what is that I actually do? Well, I don’t like putting myself into a box but I usually call myself a percussive dancer. I move my body and I use movement to communicate and connect. I’m a dancer, dance artist and a mover.
In the past I would have mainly danced to music. I started out as busker the same week I arrived to Galway city. I bumped into a few trad players playing amazing music in the streets and I teamed up with them and started dancing to their music. It was on the street where I started improvising and making up new steps and combinations on the go. I feed off of live music. If the musicians are open and attentive they react to that. Dance and music becomes a conversation.
However for this particular project I will be in conversation with the sound of the place and with the place itself. I will be choosing a space/spaces in or around Galway city where I feel comfortable and I like going to to relax and reconnect with nature (and they’re in walkable or cycle-able distance :) ). Even though I was born in a city and I moved to another city, I find peace being surrounded by nature. I like to spend time around trees and water.
So far I’m in a very early stage of developing my idea. In the next few months I will be spending time in places which I’ve connected the most since moving to Ireland and recording the sound of the places, taking photos and videos and writing down my thoughts. I will be using these for writing my upcoming journal entries.
I’m looking forward to taking you on this exciting journey and sharing more with you next month!
Aneta