- Residency period: Winter 2021
Nata Holava was born in 1977 in Barysaw, Belarus. She is an independent filmmaker and cultural activist. Since 2017, as a creative researcher, Nata Holava has been exploring the ties between vernacular dance and realizing of identity. She considers the body and self-representation through the folk dance as an object of “cultural dictate” in the soviet and post-soviet time.
At the NAC residence, Nata Holava created a draft of the autoethnographic text “Dance Gesture of Silence”, where comparison on her family unspoken Jewish past and the current repressions in Belarus provided her a new look at the lost practice of Yiddish gesture dancing. This work was the source material for series workshops about the influence of the cultural and historical background on communication with the body.
Online workshops “Dance as a marker of identity” (Belarusian, no subtitles), 2022:
The cinematic and dance experience of Nata Holava is here: YouTube Ms.AnneNittelnacht
About her cultural projects you can learn on the website https://myza.by/
Jewish bulgar at the courtyard’s folkdance party, arranged by Nata Holava
2017, Barysaw (Belarus)
Photo by Maxim Cherkashin
The episode of Magic Scissors movie ‘Jewish wedding, the Sher dance’ (filmed by Nata Holava)
2017, Barysaw (Belarus)
Photo by Valentina Tsvirko
Final party after Yiddish dance workshops with Walter Zev Feldman (the trip was supported by mobility grant of MOST program, Goethe Institute)
2019, Weimar (Germany)
Photo by https://yiddishsummer.eu/
Recording the workshop of Jewish and Belarusian dances
2021, Minsk (Belarus)
Photo by Belarussian-Jewish Cultural Heritage Center
Zhydovachka, (non)klezmer ladies band plays something Jewish
2021, Barysaw (Belarus)
Photo by Valentina Tsvirko
Solo dance with sea music, screenshot of the experimental video (Nata Holava performed)
2021, Nida Art Colony (Lithuania)
Courtesy of Nata Holava