Without Distance Platform
Performance Situation Room
The Without Distance educational platform is an integral part of the International Festival for Contemporary Dance and Performance Antistatic in Sofia. This year's programme, taking place within the festival from 8-20 May 2026, features the workshops PAM_YA_TA_TY / to REMEMBER by Ukranian curator and choreographer Anton Ovchinnikov and Kosta Karakashyan, as well as Dissonant Bodies: Voice, Movement, Dramaturgy, by Deva Schubert and Lotta Beckers. See the full programme of Antistatic festival here.
PAM_YA_TA_TY / to REMEMBER
Screening and talk with Anton Ovchinnikov
Four Ukrainian women endure the trials of war but do not participate in armed confrontation with the enemy. These are the women who "haven't done anything extraordinary" for victory but, nonetheless, through loss, emotional exhaustion, forced migration, and the inability to live a "normal" life, are direct participants in the war.
They work with the body not as illustration, not as therapy, but as a carrier of experience - experience that cannot be reduced to headlines or statistics. Each artist choose a site that resonates with her own history of rupture: a place marked by fracture, adaptation, stubborn continuation. These locations became stages for site-specific solo performances
- In A Fragile Circle - OLENA CHUCHKO
- Exit - NINA BULHAKOVA
- Warm Of The Cold Walls - JULIIA HRYSHYNA
- Drowsiness - KATERYNA KUZNETSOVA
The event opens with a conversation with Anton Ovchinnikov - curator, multidisciplinary artist, choreographer, and performer from Ukraine. He is the founder of the dance company Black O!Range Dance Productions and co-founder of the Ukrainian Association for Contemporary Dance - one of the associated partners of the Life Long Burning network. In conversation with him is Bulgarian director, producer, choreographer, and writer Kosta Karakashyan, who with his Studio Karakashyan and dance company Karakashyan&Artists explores empathy and emotion through movement. The work of both artists is connected to dance, immersive performance and film production, which are the themes at the heart of this event.
In Ukrainian, "pamyataty" means "to remember." But hidden inside this word are two pronouns: "ya" – I, and "ty" – you, as if to emphasize that memory exists between us, in me and you simultaneously, and that it must be shared. The project is an attempt to hold memory without aestheticising pain. At a time when Ukrainian culture risks being reduced to a political symbol, "PAM_YA_TA_TY" insists on complexity and awareness that Ukrainian artists are not witnesses, but creators shaping the cultural memory of today. "PAM_YA_TA_TY" is also a bridge between Ukrainian artists who remain in Ukraine and those who have settled in Europe.
Disclaimer: The event is part of the educational platform 'Without Distance' 2026, within the project 'Life Long Burning – Future Lost and Found (LLB 3)', funded under the Creative Europe programme of the European Union. It is implemented in partnership and with the financial support of the Goethe-Institut Bulgaria and the National Culture Fund under the programme 'Targeted Support – Creative Europe'."
9 May 2026, 19:00, Toplocantrala, Sofia
Anton Ovchinnikov
Anton Ovchinnikov is a curator, multidisciplinary artist, choreographer and performer.
In 2008, Ovchinnikov founded Black O!Range Dance Productions, recognized as one of Ukraine’s most original and distinctive dance companies. Between 2008 and 2018, the company’s artistic focus evolved from dance theatre and site-specific performances to experimental works with a strong political dimension, reflecting the shifting cultural and social landscape of Ukraine.
In 2015, he co-founded the Ukrainian Association Contemporary Dance Platform, where he continues to serve as President. Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Association has focused on promoting Ukrainian contemporary dance internationally.
Since relocating to Lithuania in late 2022, he has continued to develop and present work across Europe, both as an artist and project manager for the UA Contemporary Dance Platform. His recent works — the performance The Beauty of the Beast and the dance film Monochrome — have been showcased at numerous European festivals between 2022 and 2025.
Kosta Karakashyan
Kosta Karakashyan is a director, producer, choreographer, and writer exploring empathy and emotion through motion.
His work across film, dance, and immersive performance through film production company Studio Karakashyan and dance company Karakashyan & Artists tackles bold, socially engaged topics such as LGBTQ+ rights, mental health, and the climate crisis. His multidisciplinary projects have been presented in over 10 countries and featured by NOWNESS, The New Yorker, The Guardian, and ELLE. Described by The Columbia Spectator as “an important voice for LGBTQ+ struggles in Chechnya and elsewhere,” Karakashyan blends visceral choreography with cinematic storytelling and audience-driven interaction. He is a Berlinale Talents alumnus, a Forbes Europe 30 Under 30 honoree, and a member of the European Film Academy.
He holds a BA in Dance from Columbia University and a European Master’s Degree in Human Rights & Democratization from the Global Campus of Human Rights, which strongly informs his artistic practice and social sensitivity. Karakashyan & Artists’ latest work, INSERT COIN / PLAYER ONE, was selected for the Moving Balkans 2026 Showcase and recommended by Aerowaves. Positioned at the intersection of contemporary dance and theatre, cinema, and immersive performance, his work contributes to a new generation of socially engaged European performance.
Dissonant Bodies: Voice, Movement, Dramaturgy
Workshop with Deva Schubert and Lotta Beckers
This workshop invites participants to explore the interplay of body, voice, and dramaturgical thinking. Led by choreographer Deva Schubert and dramaturg Lotta Beckers, it investigates how collective voice, dissonance, and choreographic practice can open new ways of being together and make space for the unheard.
Drawing on the performance practice of Glitch Choir, participants explore disruption and dissonance as creative tools for body and voice. Through practices such as overtone singing, yodeling, polyphonic dissonance, and the mouth as a resonance space, the workshop focuses on voice as a physical, spatial, and collective phenomenon.
20, 21 & 22 May 2026, 10:00–16:00, Goethe-Institut Bulgarien
Deva Schubert
Deva Schubert is a choreographer and dancer based in Berlin. Her artistic practice explores the voice and combines dance, installation and digital media. Her work has been presented at venues including Haus der Kunst Munich, Kunsthalle Zürich, Radialsystem and Sophiensaele Berlin. In 2024 she received the ImPulsTanz Young Choreographers’ Award for Glitch Choir. In recent years, she has begun sharing her practice in the form of teachings.
Lotta Beckers
Lotta Beckers (she/they) lives in Berlin and works as a dramaturg and artist. They studied, among other subjects, Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen and are currently part of the Class for Performative Arts at the HGB Leipzig. As a dramaturg, they have a long-standing collaboration with the choreographer Deva Schubert. In addition, they regularly work with director Noam Brusilovsky and scenographer Magdalena Emmerig, developing research-based theatre pieces. Lotta’s own artistic research focuses on the entanglements of desire, power, and feeling, as well as on the historical within the personal.