Baltic Dance Network workshop: Tools for K

Baltic Dance Network Program 2025
On November 5–6, 2025, Baltic Dance Network will host two open dance workshops in STL, featuring artists from Latvia and Lithuania. The workshop program aims to provide a collaborative space for the Baltic dance community to explore its shared identity, amplify the presence of Baltic dance in Europe, and deepen understanding of each country’s unique cultural context.

“Tools for K” is Vilma Pitrinaite’s training system combining krump, contemporary dance and somatic practices. Krump is a staged dance battle, putting the body into a situation of invisible combat — a battle that includes moments of attack, defense and also moments where nothing seems to happen at first glance.  That moment of nothingness is about resistance, a state where tensions and energies are barely perceptible.

•  K- as Krump or Kinetic or Krazy (slang spelling of “crazy”) or Klimax or Kombat…
  Other Keywords: danced rebellion, powerlessness and empowerment, the resisting body, individual experience within the collective, the body in polyphony and polyrhythm.
• How? (tools). Using dance practices for cognition, perception and the transformation of the body and environment.

This oscillation between the concrete (narrative) and the abstract (texture), between the sensitive and the absurd, is something Vilma practices in her movement creation, as well as in the workshops she leads. Sometimes telling a story helps you focus and engage. Other times, it’s important to learn the art of abstraction in dance. The same goes for physicality. It can be externalized and spectacular, or internalized, where the audience only senses the intention behind a gesture or movement. Likewise, training sparks the body’s imagination. Organic movement situations — like throwing, throwing oneself, catching, being caught, catching another — immediately engage the body. This draws participants into a strong energy, which can then be dialed down, allowing focus on more internal energies. This process helps dancers learn how to modulate their physicality — both in performance and in life. 

The aim of the workshop is to incorporate krump into the language of contemporary dance — to search for a new form that bridges these two styles and philosophies of movement. It is not about blindly appropriating the form of krump, but rather about experiencing its roots, its origin, its universal starting point, as a source of resistance and spirituality. It’s a dance that demonstrates the invincible joy of life and strength in any circumstances, allowing to channel anger and rage. It raises demands to society in a more positive form. When you dance krump, you learn to make the battle partner or the spectator understand the meaning of your dance – where your emotion came from, what it is directed at, what you want to say or prove with it. Krump can be a form of resistance by becoming its rhythm and energy, a form of resistance to fight the sensation of powerlessness, weakness, dance of the future that can empower people, reunite, reduce the feeling of isolation, and motivate us to move forward.

Structure:

1) Bases and warm up : Arm movements resembling combat or a gestural language directed at an audience; Groundedness and exaggerated footwork; Stomps, which draw energy from the ground; Chest pops, where the chest is thrown forward explosively, like popcorn; 

2) principles of theater methods, which brings people’s imagination alive. For example, when you use your arms to throw something, the body of a dancer responds to this image you are having of yourself throwing a ball, a stone to the sea, or catching it. It includes arm movements that are similar to combat, the positions of fight or defense, or trying to scare somebody; Hand language could be such as a language addressed to the public. It also uses the notion of character. Facial expressions, which can both express and deconstruct emotion. 

3) abstract movement notions as in contemporary dance, such as body points – we can understand our body’s skeleton and points where articulation joins together; 

4) principles of improvisation and choreography construction in the present tense, which is a useful tool for any choreographical composition;

Vilma Pitrinaite is a Lithuanian choreographer and a dancer residing currently in Belgium who creates performances and also gives workshops for the youth. Having started her career in Aura dance theatre, she studied choreography at CDC de Toulouse and Ex.e.r.ce, CCN de Montpellier in France as well as theatre directing in the School of National Theatre of Strasbourg. Her solo “Miss Lithuania”, premiered in New Baltic Dance Festival’14, was presented in Aerowaves Spring Forward festival, nominated as the best act of the season in Confluences theatre, Paris. In 2016 she returned to “Aura” as a choreographer of a dance piece “Pandora”. Vilma’s ”Somaholidays” won the “Fortunos” award and was nominated for the highest Lithuanian Golden Cross Award in the section “Best Dancers”. She has collaborated as a dancer and actor with many international companies including  Diphtong/ Hubert Colas, Cie Mossoux-Bonté, Mitia Fedotenko/cie Autremina, Karim Bel Kacem and Karine Ponties/cie Dame de Pic.

Website: vilmapitrinaite.com

Baltic Dance Network is a new joint initiative led by partners from Lithuania, Latvia & Estonia. It aims to create a safe space for Baltic contemporary dance artists to connect and analyse their shared past, explore Baltic dance identity, as well as understand each Baltic country’s context and uniqueness. Together we aim to recognize and express historical legacies, enhancing confidence in the international dance field, and empowering artists to reflect current political or other challenges through their art.

The network consists of six partners: Lithuanian Dance Information Centre (the leader of the project), Contemporary Dance Association (Lithuania), Latvian Dance Information Centre, The Association of Choreographers (Latvia), Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava (Estonia), Estonian Dance Art and Dance Education Union. The Network has received Long-term Network funding from the Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture to establish the project “Baltic Dance Network: Navigating Identity in the Face of Changes”.