Four minutes of a woman dancing in a Soviet wedding palace—sounds boring? It's devastating.
The Vilnius Palace of Marriage, opened in 1974, is highly reminiscent of Soviet-era modernist architecture in Ukraine. Mariia’s dance represents her emerging womanhood in a space traditionally meant for the initiation ritual of two people. An episode of the anthology project “Dance + City”, which bridges contemporary dance and architecture across Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, France, and Ukraine. The film was screened both as an episode within the anthology and through independent festival and award distribution.
Cinematography
Soviet concrete becomes a second dancer
Direction
Gornostai frames solitude as radical act
Production
Vilnius Palace location is non-negotiable character
Director
Kateryna Gornostai
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The 'Dance + City' anthology emerged from Baltic-Ukrainian collaboration post-2014, using Soviet-era spaces as contested ground for contemporary expression.
Gornostai's background in documentary journalism (Stop-Zemlia) informs her treatment of Mariia's body as ethnographic testimony, not performance.
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