A Conversation with the Bulgarian Choreographer Ivo Dimchev

Guest article by Ori Josephine Lenkinski.

Date: August 13
Time: 10:41 PM
Location: outside of the Schauspielhaus in Vienna, after the performance of A Talk by Sudermann and Soderberg.

Ori: Your performance last night was amazing. (Performance of X-On, a quartet involving sculptures by Franz West).

Ivo (with slight disdain): Really? What was amazing about it?

Ori (caught off guard): Well… it was very committed. All four of you were very committed in your performance.

Ivo: I found these girls (Sudermann and Soderberg) much more committed.

Ori: Really? Well, it was also very well put together.

Ivo: Oh. I didn’t think so at all. (It was the premier performance of X-On). So, anything that is well organized you find amazing?

Ori (jeez!): No. But I did very much enjoy your piece.

Ivo: And did you not find it overly bourgeois?

Ori: I thought that the nod to bourgeois was intentional. Was it not?

Ivo: It was.

Ori: Is it not difficult to draw your own blood on stage?

Ivo: No.

Ori: Really?

Ivo: I do it all the time. In my solo, Lili Handel, I do it and I performed that piece over three hundred times. I sell the blood afterwards.

Ori: For how much?

Ivo: Well, it’s an auction.

Ori: And how much is the most you’ve gotten for it?

Ivo (pleased with himself): 50 Euros.

Ori (not sure if that’s a lot): That’s a lot.

Ivo: It’s a work of art.

Ori: And is it Lili Handel’s blood or Ivo Dimchev’s?

Ivo (obviously this is a ridiculous question): It’s Lili Handel’s.

An interruption distracts Ivo Dimchev. Ori tiptoes away towards a group of fellow danceWEBbers.

Dance In Israel