Balkan modern dance gets a boost. (News).

Will the Balkan region become a center for contemporary dance? American choreographer Mark Taylor, director of Pittsburgh's Dance Alloy, already sees Balkan choreographers "as part of the dance discourse in Europe." Taylor, who initially visited Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1995, recently returned there to teach at the First Balkan Dance Platform from November 29 to December 2, 2001, an event aimed at establishing the area as a contemporary dance hub.

Sponsored by The Red House Centre for Culture and Debate in Sofia, the four-day forum for cultural exchange included discussions on the development of contemporary dance in Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, and Yugoslavia. It also offered contemporary dance classes and video screenings, and gave Balkan choreographers networking opportunities and chances to show their work.

"I was impressed by the Romanian discussion [of contemporary dance development]," says Taylor. "There is no infrastructure for dance and little support or funding. What has emerged is a breed of artist/administrator. These people are taking responsibility for creating an infrastructure at the expense of their artistic impulses." Essentially, contemporary dance must survive outside the state system, which has long supported opera and ballet.

According to Taylor, independent artists--there are few professional companies--participated nightly in four-hour performance showcases attended by presenters and independent arts administrators from Western Europe and the U.S. The premise was to draw presenters to the region while providing the participants, some of whom have already appeared in Europe and the U.S., with additional contacts in the West.

As part of the Platform, Taylor and Manhattan-based choreographer Yoshiko Chuma each taught classes to local dancers who usually have to travel elsewhere to study since the area has so few contemporary dance schools. However, "my role was not merely as a teacher," says Taylor. "I was assessing artists for commissions and collaborations." Among several collaborative possibilities, Taylor is interested "in a potential project that will create a dialogue between Balkan folk vocabulary, which is a highly developed form, and the kind of work that I do."

Because of the Platform, Taylor is also arranging a U.S. residency in management studies for Cosmin Manolescu, a producer and choreographer based in Bucharest, Romania. Taylor first met Manolescu several years ago at the American Dance Festival in North Carolina.

Taylor initially learned about the Platform from Manolescu, who helped organize the event. But he first traveled to Bulgaria after former Alloy director Elsa Limbach arranged for him to create a site-specific work for the Sofia-based Arabesque dance company and to teach an open workshop. "I was happy to see that several people that I had worked with in 1995--who were then just beginning their choreographic explorations--have developed into interesting artists," says Taylor.

The Balkan choreographers tend to use "a physical vocabulary that is recognizably contemporary dance with traces of release technique and dance theatre," Taylor notes. Although several works performed for the showcases utilized English text and some humorously referenced folk forms, "there was a universal sense of urgency about the works presented," Taylor says, attributing it to "the life experiences of the people, working in circumstances where it is hard to make a living and hard to dance."