Sveta Grigorjeva is an Estonian choreographer, dancer and poet.
Her latest staged performances FAKERZ (2021), „TEKHNE” (2020), Dances to Dream, res(is)t and Sleep to” (2023) were mainly circling around the question „what is there left to dance in a neo-liberal and quickly rising neo-fascist era“? She has danced in her own choreographies / staged piece ́s and collaborated with others in Estonia and from Europe and US (for example with Doris Ulrich, Cid Pearlman, Kenneth Flak Johanne Schröder, Johhan Rosenberg etc).
She has finished her Master’s degree at Tallinn University, Estonia and Justus-Liebig-Universität in Giessen, Germany and started PhD this year at EMTA in Tallinn
Her main research and interest have always been investigating relations between different mediums such as movement, spoken word, performance-art and music. In earlier stagework she often took „identity“ as the starting point of work-making. Lately the interest has shifted to a broader and more abstract understanding of corporeal performative qualities in dance. Her aim is to always develop forms of performances which are expressive, political and provocative – which often challenge conventional assumptions about what a dance performance is, should be and look like.
In her own words: „I approach working – as in learning and making performances – with an interest of fostering a creative environment(s) which are transformed into laboratories, where new strategies and concepts about making dance are developed, questioned and tested. Opposite to considering choreography only as a highly skilled craftsmanship enacted by people whose education is strongly embedded in didactic traditions of established modern and contemporary dance styles I see it as a way of embodying a different kind of being in the world – a stranger, wilder, more considering and politically active one.
