Dance + City

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Palace of Marriage, Vilnius, Lithuania

4 min

Available until 05/05/2026

Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, France and Ukraine: Across five European countries, Dance plus City builds a bridge between contemporary dance and architecture. A unique way of looking at the interaction between the fluidity of the body and physical structures which, despite their omnipresence, are too often ignored in everyday life.

In this episode, we head to Lithuania and the Vilnius Wedding Palace.

The Ukrainian dancer Mariia Yakobchuk, who lives in Berlin, and the Ukrainian director Kateryna Gornostai, who is based in Kyiv, deliberately chose the location for this Dance Plus City episode. The Wedding Palace in Vilnius, which was inaugurated in 1974, is a striking example of modernist architecture from the Soviet era, similar buildings can be found in Ukraine. Mariia's dance symbolises the awakening of her feminine spirit in a place traditionally reserved for the ritual of marriage between two people.

With its sculptural forms and dynamic, volumetric composition, the building blends harmoniously into the surrounding nature. The vertical structure of the façade dialogues with the trees in the neighbouring park, while the striking staircase on the façade serves as a symbolic bridge linking people's lives.

 

Inside the palace are magnificent rooms designed for weddings. The dancer moves alone through these rooms with their clearly defined functions: Rooms where couples prepare, the antechamber where guests wait, and others where the "big decisions" are made. The chandelier designed by Konstantinas Šatūnas, which is composed of 2,000 crystal tubes, is undoubtedly the centrepiece of the State Hall.

Filmed in July 2024 at the Wedding Palace in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Country

  • Lithuania

  • Lithuania

Year

2023

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