Artistic Director & Choreographer: Antonia Katrandjieva Ph.D.
Musical Director, Writer, Composer: Nannette Bevelander 
President & Producer: Stoyan Radev

Company’s Mission & Artistic Statement

Overground Dance Company pertains to Overground 888 Arts Alliance – an art and culture promoting not-for profit organization established in Sofia, in 1991 and seated in NY since 2002. The organization includes internationally acclaimed artists in the fields of dance, theatre, literature, fine arts, film, music and architecture who came together to undertake a threefold mission: to provide a creative lab in the heart of the city that fosters experimental theatre and dance, to present groundbreaking works that challenge, educate and enlighten the audience; to develop a community of spiritually and culturally aware artists, and to promote cross-cultural exchange of artists by organizing international workshops and festivals.

The Dance Company repertory falls into the unexplored Esoteric Dance Theatre niche creating experimental cross-genre work that bridges the virtual causality of theatre with the abstract reality of dance. It explores the parallel realms of dance and theatre and their spiritual roots in the ritual and the sacred, retrieving the sacred relevance of the art forms and often dressing ancient wisdom in modern thought. The boutique work of Overground based on original scripts and dramaturgy offers compelling visceral, verbal and kinesthetic landscapes and excavates association-laden movement from human conditions, relationships and social patterns. The company employs a “total theatre” approach and swings boldly between Chechov’s “Psychological Gesture,” Becket’s “Absurdist Existentialism,” Brecht’s “Alienation Effect,” Bausch’s provocative “Tanztheater,” Butoh’s “raw transcendental states” and the current European avant-garde dance theatre idiom.

Overground works blend theatre, dance, architecture, pantomime, martial arts, video, poetry, multi-media, live art and yoga. The company has no affinity to a particular style, but instead tries to develop original non-literal choreography and authentic scripts for every new project. The lab work of the company is structured like a “multiversity”, where various physical theatre, body mind-centering techniques are explored on a daily basis, where each individual is offered the space for personal creative development and spiritual growth. For more than 15 years the lab has become a self-refinery where the dancers are not only taught to move, but “understand what moves them” enabling everyone to live, experience and share the journey to the source.

Company’s Performance History:

Overground Company earned its critical acclaim with two award-winning shows “Octaves of Reflection” and “Copper Tones” (mentioned in the History of Bulgarian Experimental Dance” by Vasil Indjev) which won the Boundaries-Horizons Prize for Experimental Choreography in Sofia in 1996. That same year the company toured Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand and participated in the International Dance Festival in Singapore with an experimental work “Welcome Kalki Avatar”. In 1998 the company participated in Borobodour Dance Festival with an ethno-contemporary work “Thracian Moon”, and in 1999 was awarded first Prize for experimental theatre for its cross-genre work “Brain Traffic in the Milky Way”. In 1999 the company relocated in Zurich, Switzerland for three years, during which more than 7 original works were produced and showcased: Mandala, Mental Combat; Cocoon, As Above so Below, Made in Heaven, 3 in 1, Aphroditae conquers Mars, and 7xBodhi~Jiwa. In 2001 Overground was selected to participate at the World Expo in Biel with the world famous Bulgarian choir “Mystery of Bulgarian Voices. While in Switzerland the company has performed in Italy, France, Spain, Germany and Austria. In 2002 the company headed to New York with a cross-cultural project “Unity in Diversity” based on ritual symbolism. Since fall of 2002 Overground Dance Company is based in NYC, where it has produced more than 15 dance theatre works. Most notably, in November “Overground” was awarded the Brooklyn Information & Culture Center grant for “Lactobacilicum Bulgaricum” – a compelling ethno-contemporary tapestry of modern dance interwoven into Bulgarian and Chinese folk rituals and mystic scriptures. Other NY showcased performances include: Bound’07(Dance New Amsterdam, NY), Longitude (Ballet Arts, NY) ’07, Overstand‘07(NY-ULT) Bee Pollen (Meta Center,NY) ’07, Blueprint (DNA, Judson Memorial Church, NY) ‘07,Peripheral Visions’06(City Center for Dance,NY), Ostara ’06 (ULT, NY), Overstand ’05 (Fertile Ground, NY), Archipelago Cathartica’05 (Theosophical Society, NY), String of Solar Pearls’05 (ULT, NY), Dragon Eternity ’05 (ULT, NY), Transmutation ’05 (Spark Center, NY), Merkaba ’05 (Meta Center, NY),  Sacred Geometry’04 (ULT, NY)

Members:

Overground Dance Theatre Company Members: Aga Totani (Japan), Antonia Katrandjieva (Bulgaria) Alessandro Blini (Italy), Candace Mootoo (U.S.A.) Cecilia Ceresa (Italy), Grace Bedard (U.S.A.), Ji – Yeoun Kim (Korea), Kristina Stukalenko (Russia), Larissa Chaadaeva (Russia), Mari Sakahara (Japan), Motoko Tadano (Japan), Nannette Bevelander (Holland), Stoyan Radev (Bulgaria) Healing Theatre