Is ’Home’ something that can be taken with you? Is it a building, a body, a piece of land or is it a collection of emotions and memories that can be  projected on any place?

Casa/ДOM/Home is a project about stories, memories, feelings, dreams and reflections on what home means for them. Benno Voorham created a dance performance with a group of 6 dancers from Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus together with a group of teenagers from a children’s home in each of these countries. The performance was toured extensively in Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus.

The project started in 2012 with a pilot project in Chisinau/Moldova in which the team of the project, together with Madeléne Beckman from ArkDes (the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design), Margareta Sjöberg, a psychotherapist from Stockholm, and Sybrig Dokter of LAVA-Dansproduktion, worked with a large group of children and young teenagers. From this group a smaller group was invited to participate in an extended workshop period of one week after which we started working on creating the performance with a group of 6 or 7 youngsters.

The performance in Moldova functioned as the frame for the Ukrainian and Belarusian edition of the project in 2013 in Bilhorod-‐Dnistrovkyi (Ukraine) and Lida (Belarus).

The transformation of the children was felt throughout the whole project, from the first acquaintance during the pilot project to the final tour. The changes manifested themselves in the children’s behaviour and their verbal reflection.

Choreographer: Benno Voorham

Music: Ion Coroi

Scenography and costumes: Maline Casta

Costume assistant: Veronika Sapiga

Lights: Svetlana Belorybkina

Dancers: Alexandra Soshnicova, Daniil Belkin, Denys Pronin, Dima Vizir, Inna Aslamova, Mariia Kondratieva, Serghei Golovnea

Children from children’s home no.3 in Chisinau: Anna Cebotari, Igor Malocenco, Ivanca Lelencov, Katya Pihova, Marina Cozintjev, Tanja Ovcinicov, Xsusha Bondarev

Children from the Children’s Home in Bilgorod-­‐ Dnistrovsky: Alexandr Shpak, Anastasiya Melnichenko, Inna Bilous, Ivan Abramov, Ludmila Pavlovska, Yulia Terzi

Children from the Children’s Home in Lida: Kiriil Mogdanov, Lenya Baranovsky, Polina Vershylo, Tania Vazilevskaya, Vadim Skrendo, Veronica Kozeeva

The project produced by LAVA-Dansproduktion in collaboration with ADDM/Moldova, NGO Art Travel/Ukraine and Gallery/Belarus

Producers: Sybrig Dokter (Sweden), Vitalie Ermicioi (Moldova), Kateryna Radchenko (Ukraine), Alexander Tebenkov and Alexandra Grigorovich (Belarus)

Project supported by the Swedish Postcode Foundation, the Swedish Institute, Open Society Foundation Moldova and ArkDes.

Casa/ДOM/Home Moldova 2012. Photos: Valerii Kiriak

ДIM/Home Ukraine 2013. Photos: Kateryna Radchenko

ДOM/Home Balarus 2013. Photos: Nadja Voorham

Photos from workshops and rehearsals

Short video of the pilot project by Tinus Kramer (Krater Productions)