Celebrating Choreography, Practicing Soft Resistance

The Imaginative Choreographic Center (ICC) was born from a need to imagine other ways of institutionalizing in the field of dance and choreography. Too often, continuity in our field is secured only through precarious employment, cultural market demands, political constellations, or the privilege of private wealth. These models reproduce gatekeeping, meritocracy, dependency on curators and programmers, and the fragility of public funds.

ICC proposes something else. It is a project institution: an ongoing practice and research that insists on co-thinking, co-dreaming, and co-imagining other forms of continuity and sustainability. It is a structure of soft resistance, constantly reshaping itself as a reflective tool for our field.
This year, directed and produced by Aleksandar Georgiev (Ace), sometimes in dialogue with the Dreamers Group of ICC and a wide constellation of collaborators, ICC proposes the festival YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

At its core, the festival celebrates choreography, not only as an artistic form, but as a way of organizing, relating, and imagining. Choreography is both practice and proposal, both structure and gesture. Through it, we rehearse other ways of co-existing and re-distributing value beyond spectacle, exclusivity, or market recognition.

DAY PROGRAMME / ICC Context
For the 7th time, ICC Context creates a space for collective process and imagination. This year, it unfolds in Sofia during YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
The day programme is a two-week process where ten artists gather for co-thinking, co-dreaming, and co-imagining institutionalization in contemporary terms:

Participating artists: ALEKSANDAR GEORGIEV - ACE, DARÍO BARRETO DAMAS, ZHANA PENCHEVA, IDA DANIEL, VIKTORIJA KOSTOVA, IGOR KORUGA, MILICA ILIĆ, MIKE DELE DITTRICH FRYDETZKI, OMER KEINAN, YANITSA ATANASOVA.

The Inputs are open doors for local audiences and will be held from 3–6 November at Toplocentrala and Etud Gallery. They include presentations, workshops, and sharings, which you can find in our programme.
The day programme culminates in a public presentation on 11 November, 16:00–18:00 at Toplocentrala Studio 4, where the group of 10 artists will share their artistic and cultural practices with the wider public.

NIGHT PROGRAMME / Collective Withenssing
The night programme is dedicated to watching choreography together. It presents seven performances at Toplocentrala Hall 1 and Derida Dance Center, curated through a model of reciprocal motivation: some are co-produced or supported by ICC, others are brought through public recommendations and shared motivations.

Performances by: ZRINKA UZBINEC, KARIS ZIDORE, NAZARIO DÍAZ, ALEKSANDAR GEORGIEV - ACE, DARÍO BARRETO DAMAS, ZHANA PENCHEVA.

The full details and updates of the programme will be shared via ICC social media channels.

AROUND PROGRAMME / Expanded Fields
The Around Programme gathers materials and events that orbit the concentrated festival period of 16 October – 16 November. It explores the aroundness of the festival both conceptually and temporally: choreography as an expanded field, and programming that happens before and after the main festival dates.
It consists of: Hot Topics (podcast conversations), Critically Hot (texts in poetic, critical, or experimental forms), Off Programme (performances shared before and after the main period)
Details of the Around Programme will be announced progressively through ICC’s platforms.

TICKETS LOGIC / Accessibility and Celebration
YOU ARE NOT ALONE insists that accessibility and diversity are not only questions of identity politics but also of economic possibility. For this reason, the festival adopts a pay-as-you-wish ticket model, offering four different price options for audiences to choose from according to their means.
This approach celebrates not only inclusion but also the diversity of financial strength and capacity in our communities. It affirms that choreography, as a public practice, must remain accessible, collective, and celebrated across differences.

Soft Resistance
YOU ARE NOT ALONE is not only about presenting works. It is about celebrating choreography and resisting together. A festival where we practice insistence rather than repetition, consistency rather than interrupted spectacle, and resistance through softness.
Here, resisting is celebrating, and celebrating is resisting.