A Landscape in Motion

The Choreographic Platform Austria (CPA) held in Salzburg from 20–22 November 2025, has become a biennial focal point for contemporary dance in Austria. Conceived as both a carefully curated constellation of works and a networking hub, CPA positions Austrian choreography within a wider European context, offering visibility to artists while fostering dialogue between local and international audiences. Organised in collaboration with Szene Salzburg, brut, Tanzquartier Wien, Festspielhaus St. Pölten, ImPulsTanz, and Osterfestival Tirol, the platform disperses performances across the city.

Performance

Choreographic Platform Austria

Place

Salzburg, Austria, November 20-22, 2025

Words

Greta Pieropan

Claire Lefèvre’s “Loie (is a fire that cannot be extinguished).” Photograph by Raphael Mittendorfer

Playing with repetitions and syncopated movements, Rosana Ribeiro’s “Echoes of Resistance” is a solo exploring the stage through summoned gestures of resistance: structured in two sections, both ending and starting with the performer laying on the floor, the piece first builds up to an energetic and struggling dance of resistance, and then resumes the movements through wider gestures and some sense of humour (the performer in on the floor at the end, while Elton John’s “I’m Still Standing” plays loudly). A well-danced piece, that holds ideas for maybe more than one solo, and that has space for moving away from a very polished structure to a stronger impact on the audience.

Ulduz Ahmadzadeh/ATASH’s “ZĀĀR” drew on ritual forms to explore embodied memory that the change of politics tried to erase, for a all-female quintet in which echoes of tradition and contemporary structures layer constantly. In a sandy landscape, divided from the audience by drops of melting ice hanging from the ceiling, the piece builds up like a puzzle: from the melodic particles of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps resonating here and there, sometimes to twist the direction of the movement; to the quotes of ritual dances (mostly from forbidden Persian/Iranian indigenous dances) leading up to solos and - never perfect - unison.

On a more intimate scale, Sasha Portyannikova, a Russian-born Austria-based choreographer and researcher, investigates the concept of avant-garde and post-Soviet identity in “Parsley for garnish” (playing with the fact that Petrushka in Russian means parsley). Portyannikova seems to invite the audience into her studio, while she’s dancing (freely?) to pop music and through small talk introduces the background research of the piece, stopping here and there to explain the songs lyrics. Almost halfway through the piece, she invites people to interact with a set of cards they were given at the entrance whenever a projection tells them to do so, and to reply to the question they find on a card by crossing the space, while she’s dancing. Her movements soft and full of quotes and images from the Ballet Russes’ “Petrushka,” are crossed by people moving around the space, silently—but visibly—answering questions about invasion, human rights violation, migration and parenthood. A smart work on the topic of identity and cultural heritage, that choreographs the audience as well.

“And it Gets Better” by Helena Araújo. Photograph by Raphael Mittendorfer

As intimate as the previous one, but in a much less interactive space, “Chrysalis” by Yoh Morishita is a solo performed on a small platform, accompanied by the live electronic music of composer Marija Jociūtė. Diving into virtuosity without holding back from splits and contortions, the piece promises to investigate the topic of change and does so leaning on the wonderful skills of the performer rather than on the dramaturgy itself, but manages to keep the audience locked in the dark atmosphere it creates.

It works with music as well, “Make it Count” by violinist and performance artist Matteo Haitzmann: a piece that turns repetition into a quiet reckoning, where effort becomes both score and choreography. Haitzmann’s body reads like a taut instrument, negotiating strain with a kind of lucid vulnerability. The work circles its own limits, letting exhaustion sharpen rather than blur its intent. What remains is a distilled portrait of unadorned persistence.

From a danced concert to a multidisciplinary show: “The last feminist” by Myassa Kraitt unfolds like a rap‑filled event, where Kraitt dismantles the hierarchy of the lecture by pulling the audience into her pulse. Language becomes beat, argument, and invitation all at once, refusing the usual distance between speaker and listener. The piece turns theory into something lived and shared, a collective vibration rather than a monologue. What emerges is a fiercely present rethinking of feminist address — embodied, rhythmic, and insistently horizontal.

Claire Lefèvre’s “Loie (is a fire that cannot be extinguished).” Photograph by Raphael Mittendorfer

Intersectional feminism and stand-up comedy become a dance practice into two of the highlights of the platform: “And it Gets Better” by Helena Araújo and “Loie (is a fire that cannot be extinguished)” by Claire Lefèvre.

Araújo’s piece starts with a presentation of the piece itself and the artist in a telemarketer style, with a text full of riddles and jokes on the flaws and stereotypes of the dance world (from fashionable topics, to the need to adapt a piece for a smaller and cheaper scale). The piece unfolds as a high-paced negotiation with exhaustion, where repetition and accumulation of objects (or—as the performer calls it on stage—“adding layers”), becomes a strategy for staying afloat. Araújo lets gestures and poses accumulate into an emotional sediment, tracing how resilience forms in the body almost at the same time as stress. Shaped between confession and choreography, “And it Gets Better” is a funny, political display of the survival of an artist: fragile, agile, and deeply human.

Claire Lefèvre’s “Loie” rekindles Fuller’s legacy through queer intersectional lenses, treating history less as a monument, and more like a material to be bent, teased, and re‑lit. Moving between queer love letters and discoveries of the darker aspects of a personal dance icon, she lets camp, softness and comedic shimmer coexist without apologies. Supported by the light and layered artworks by textile artist Sophie Utikal, and by projections by video artist Maanila Santos De Moraes, the text and movement materials open space for a gently rebellious reimagining of dance heritage, through another version of a lecture performance that activates the empathy of the audience through its mix of personal and collective (her)story.

CPA 2025 has been a platform where ritual meets resistance, where feminist ghosts haunt queer futures, and where vulnerability becomes a ground for transformation. In Salzburg’s dispersed venues, Austrian choreography found itself both rooted and restless: a landscape in motion.

Greta Pieropan

GretaPieropan likes to define herself as ‘your friendly neighbourhood dramaturg.’ She works as a dance dramaturg with artists, collectives, and communities to build thought, structure, and narrative within creative processes. She’s also a professional shapeshifter: from dramaturgy in the rehearsal room, to project development, to moderating public conversations, to workshops, digital and traditional communication for live performance, she’s always backstage ready to support the dance scenes.

comments

Featured

REVIEWS | Valentina Bonelli

Numbers Game

Almost mirroring the geopolitical situation, contemporary dance in the West—already in the USA and soon in Europe—is showing signs of wear and tear, if not decline.

REVIEWS | Elsa Giovanna Simonetti

Romeo Revealed

Rudolf Nureyev’s “Romeo and Juliet” is built with a finely calibrated balance of choreographic structure, theatrical intelligence, and historical awareness.

REVIEWS | Sara Veale

Pretty as a Picaresque

“Too much sanity may be madness!” Carlos Acosta’s “Don Quixote” revival is proudly, fittingly quixotic—a confetti cannon of cheerful characterisations and vibrant visuals that culminate in an actual confetti cannon.

REVIEWS | Sophie Bress

Breaking Bread

As a journalist and critic, I am often privy to an artist’s process before viewing their work. This insight pays off as an audience member, offering new ways of allowing a piece to come to life before my eyes.