Startup Forum Awards 2025
17 June 2025The fourth edition of Startup Forum took place at this year’s Spring Forward in Gorizia (23 – 26 April). Vár Bech Árting, Mariia Kondratieva and Joaquín Collado have been awarded €10K each to realise the projects they proposed.
A group of 8 emerging presenters was selected to be guided through the festival by Aerowaves Partners, addressing current programming issues in a series of intensive sessions. Following the festival, participants were invited to propose a curatorial project involving Aerowaves 2025 artists.
The three supported projects are: In the Currents by Vár Bech Árting (Faroe Islands) featuring Waterkind by Land Before Time; Honouring Death – One Piece Festival 1.0 by Mariia Kondratieva (Ukraine) centered on Solène Weinachter’s AFTER ALL; and Porous Bodies: A Cross-Border Symphony by Joaquín Collado (Spain), which pivots around Charlie Khalil Prince’s the body symphonic.
In the Currents – a project by Vár Bech Árting
Dance, in a performance context, is relatively new to the Faroe Islands. Therefore, a key question always is: how to introduce quality dance works to the local community in a way that builds an interest in the art form?
With an eye on this question, Vár Bech Árting will present Waterkind by Land Before Time as part of a new festival, VERK Nordic Stage Days, organised by Nordic House and taking place in Tórshavn in autumn 2025. By placing the work within a broader theatre and performing arts context, Árting and her partners hope to reach an audience not yet familiar with dance in a performative setting.
Although she has collaborated with Nordic House in the past, this is the first time Árting will do so purely as a curator and producer.
Árting will present Waterkind as a site-specific performance by the sea, echoing the theme of the piece, itself inspired by water. Thus, Waterkind resonates thematically with the local community (the islander) and its movement language, a fusion of popping and fluidity, has the possibility to connect both with a younger and older audience.
The duo Land Before Time (Joanna Holewa Chrona and Yared Tilahun Cederlunde) will also participate in the festival’s professional strand, interacting with other invited artists and leading a workshop related to their piece.
Honouring Death – One Piece Festival 1.0 – a project by Mariia Kondratieva
Due to the current situation of war in Ukraine, organising a festival is almost an impossible task. However, Mariia Kondratieva has witnessed how performing arts events are contributing to people’s sense of wellbeing and feeling of support. Forced to think outside the box, Mariia proposes a new festival format, the One-Piece Festival, a two to three-day festival built around a single dance performance.
This first edition of the festival will take place in Lviv, a city far from the frontline and close to the Polish border. Having chosen the theme “Honouring Death”, the featured work is Solène Weinachter’s AFTER ALL, which tackles the topic of death and funeral rites through dance, storytelling and comedy. Perhaps provocative and challenging in the Ukrainian context, Kondratieva believes in its healing energy and thought-provoking nature, which sheds light on the value of life and life’s values. In addition to the performance, the festival will hold a special event, led by Solène, inspired by and following in the tradition of the Death Cafe movement, a movement workshop for professionals, and an excursion to the well-known open-air museum Lychakiv Cemetery.
The One-Piece Festival also plans to invite guests to join them for a nationwide moment of silence at 9 a.m. in remembrance of those who have died because of the war.
This first edition of the One-Piece Festival is planned to take place in Autumn 2025 or Winter 2026. In the long term, the team involved in the festival’s production wants to establish the tradition of holding regular Death Café events in Lviv, as well as continuing the One-Piece Festival in the coming years.
Porous Bodies: A Cross-Border Symphony – a project by Joaquín Collado
What is a dance piece? Where does a work begin and where does it end? And a body? What is a body? Where does it start and where does it end? Triggered by these questions, Joaquín Collado proposes a reflection on the notion of the artwork and the body as a poetic and political subject. Collado’s curatorial project revolves around the work of Charlie Khalil Prince and his piece the body symphonic, an exploration of the relationship between dance, music, memory, and migrant identity, which he will place in dialogue with the unique setting of the village of Villamalea (Albacete, Spain), its community, and its traditions.
The project will take place in Spring 2026. Prince and his collaborator, percussionist Joss Turnbull, will perform the body symphonic in a non-traditonal venue – a winery in Villamalea. Alongside will be a series of activities designed to expand the idea of the porosity/permeability of the dance work. Activities include a workshop with the local music school, an intercultural community meal, a sound installation, an audience club gathering prior to the performance and an aftertalk with Charlie Khalil Prince.
Joaquín Collado directs the Paisaje dance festival, which he founded in his hometown Villamalea (Castilla La-Mancha, Spain) in 2021.
