Stara Zagora Opera House - host of the sixth edition of the LINKAGE International Choreographic Competition
News публикувана на: 20.10.2025
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Stara Zagora Opera House - host of the sixth edition of the LINKAGE International Choreographic Competition 26-27 October 2025 LINKAGE is an international choreographic competition for young choreographers, which includes in its regulations contemporary choreographic miniatures - solos and duets with a duration of 5 to 13 minutes. The main criteria for the selection of the finalists are originality of concept, work with the performers, musical interpretation, choreographic vocabulary, technical level of performance. The sixth edition of the international choreographic competition, which will take place on 26 and 27 October on the stage of the Stara Zagora Opera House, will present some of the best choreographic miniatures created in the last two years, and the audience will have the opportunity to vote for their favourite. After the preliminary selection of the jury composed of Angelina Gavrilova, Valeri Milenkov and Filip Milanov, 13 finalists were chosen from 200 submissions from all over the world, who will present live their original choreographies. Each choreographer will arrive with their performers for whom they have created their choreography. For the first time in the short history of the competition, there is a Bulgarian participant among the finalists - Stanislav Genadiev, who will present his solo "Platform". 1. Anna Pasetti - duet "Das Unheimliche", Italy 2. Heung Won Lee & Marine Fernandez - duet "Un Fil", South Korea/France 3. Iga Włodarczyk & Katarzyna Zakrzewska - duet "Ki", Poland 4. Louis Thuriot & Patricia George - duet "RAKKE", Belgium 5. Michal Vach / Michal Vach - solo "Fae", Czech Republic 6. Minsu Kim / Minsu Kim - duet "Tuning", South Korea 7. Nicolaos Doede / Nicolaos Doede - duet "The Passenger", USA 8. Oliviero Bifulco / Oliviero Bifulco - duet "DIOSCURI", Italy 9. Simone Wennerberg / Simone Wennerberg - duet "GRIND", Denmark / Norway 10. Stanislav Genadiev - solo "Platform", Bulgaria 11. Tomas Martino / Tomas Martino - solo "EIRA", Italy 12. Wang Yu / Wang Yu - duet "Let me out", China 13. Yingyu Lyu - solo "A heavy parting", China
The prizes to be awarded are as follows. Second place - BGN 3 000. Third place - BGN 2 000. 2,000 BGN, 2,000 Qing Song, 2,000 Qing Song and 2,000 Qing Song. Viewers will have the opportunity to vote and choose their favourite. Special prizes will be awarded at the discretion of the jury. The residency will take place in 2026 in the space of Derida Stage. - A creative residency in 2026 to work with the ballet artists of the State Opera - Stara Zagora. The selected choreographer will be invited to create a new original dance work to remain in the ballet's repertoire. - Creative Residency in 2026 by Ballet Arabesque. The selected choreographer will be invited to create a new original dance work to remain in the Ballet's repertoire. The jury that will judge the finalists of the competition is different from the pre-selection jury, so that its members do not have an already formed opinion and judge impartially from the first live viewing. The jury is chaired by prima ballerina and artistic director of the Stara Zagora State Opera Ballet - Sylvia Tomova, and the other three members are Angelina Gavrilova - artistic director of Arabesque Ballet, Zhivko Zhelyazkov - choreographer and artistic director of Derida Dance Company, and Vilislav Prager - choreographer and co-founder of Antistatic - a festival for contemporary dance and performance. The organizer of the competition is dance company "Stream Dance" with artistic director Philip Milanov in partnership with the State Opera - Stara Zagora. The project is supported by the Ministry of Culture. On the first night of the competition on 26 October at 19.00 on the stage of the Stara Zagora Opera the audience will be able to see the original choreographies of the nominated finalists and choose their favorite for the audience award. It is a curious fact that the Italian choreographer Tomazo Martino, whose solo with the title EIRA was selected for the final of the competition, will have his official premiere on the stage of the Stara Zagora Opera. The solo has never been performed in front of an audience before. Among the finalists are the names of Louis Thurio & Patricia Georges from Belgium /mother and son/, who with their duet "RAKKE" come to Stara Zagora as winners of the choreographic competition in Rotterdam. On 27 October at 19.00 the award ceremony and the closing dance gala evening will take place, where the awards will be announced and the performances of the winners as well as guest performers will be presented. Important! This year, the organizers are offering round-trip bus transportation for those from Sofia who wish to attend the finale of the competition with advance booking. The bus will leave Sofia on 26.10 and will depart back from Stara Zagora the same evening, immediately after the competition evening and the voting for the Audience Award. More here.
Tickets for the two competition evenings can be purchased online from the website and from the State Opera-Stara Zagora box office for 10 BGN. The idea for the competition appeared spontaneously during the pandemic in 2020. Its creators are Philip Milanov and Valery Milenkov, who are also the founders of the Stream Dance Company, and Philip is its artistic director. Supported by the Ministry of Culture, the International Choreographic Competition "Linkage" has become one of the largest and most significant projects of Stream Dance. The first two editions are carried out online as well as with a live screening - the videos of the selected choreographers are screened at the Derrida Stage in the city. Sofia, and the events are open to a small number of spectators, against the mandatory restrictions due to the pandemic. The third, fourth and fifth editions take place on the stage of the Stara Zagora Opera House, which is welcoming in 2022 9 out of 11 selected choreographers from the USA, Italy, Ukraine, Hungary, the Netherlands, Spain, who arrive together with their performers to present their productions, in the fourth edition a total of 10 finalists have been selected from Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Brazil, Argentina and China, and in the fifth edition a total of 12 finalists have been selected from Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, Portugal, Israel, China, Japan, Canada, USA. Since the inception of the idea for the competition, the goal of Stream Dance Company has been to turn it into a major international event. The International Choreographic Competition "Linkage" is the only forum of its kind within the borders of our country. The international interest is increasing with each edition. The competition attracts choreographers of high professional level, and many of them are already winners of other prestigious international awards for contemporary dance. "Linkage" develops the dance scene in Bulgaria by attracting a large number of professionals in the field of contemporary dance and performance, and also contributes by presenting to the audience world-famous names within one competition evening.
