DancEUA Artist-in-Residence is organized as a part of DancEUA (Contemporary Resilience: Reinventing Dance in Ukraine), a Creative Europe project (2025-2027) created by Studio Contemporary Dance Company – SSP (Croatia), Central Europe Dance Theatre – CEDT (Hungary), M Studio (Romania), Vitlycke – CPA (Sweden) and UA Contemporary Dance Platform (Ukraine) to empower Ukrainian contemporary dance through creativity, connection and resilience. The DancEUA residency program is designed to foster artistic dialogue, support the development of individual projects, and encourage collaboration between artists from Ukraine and the partner countries.

“Pelyustka” by Sofiia Karanfilova (UA)
Our fears are like petals. Fear is often deeply rooted in our experiences and consciousness. It can become a part of the way we perceive ourselves and the world around us. Yet our relationship with fear can determine what it becomes within us. When we accept our fears as a part of ourselves, we may find the strength to transform them into an experience of learning and growth. But when we try to ignore or suppress them, fear can only become stronger. Through living through fear, we are given the opportunity to reflect on the unknown circumstances of life, to encounter what we cannot control, understand what frightens us, and slowly learn to coexist with uncertainty. Fears are not eternal, just as petals are not eternal. Can we let go of fear as easily as a petal falls away?

Perhaps sometimes we can. When we find inner calm, understanding, and acceptance, we may finally allow ourselves to release what we have been holding onto. Just as a petal can detach from a flower and be carried away by the wind, fear can disappear when we give ourselves permission to stop holding onto it and trust the process of letting go. Throughout the work, petals gradually fall and gather on the floor. They become traces of fears that have already been experienced, fears that once felt heavy, vivid, and overwhelming, but have now become part of the past. As the petals accumulate, a path begins to emerge through them. It is a passage through what we have lived through, a physical manifestation of moving forward and leaving behind the fears that no longer have the power to frighten us. Each fallen petal represents a fear that has been faced. Something that was once alive and intense, something that once held us in place, has finally fallen and become a part of our history.

About the artist
Sofia Karanfilova is a Ukrainian contemporary dancer and artist based in Germany, currently studying Contemporary Dance at HfMDK Frankfurt. Her training includes programmes in Berlin, Kyiv, Dresden, and Bari, alongside artistic experience across Europe. She has worked with choreographers including Iacopo Loliva, Máté Mészáros, Livia Massarelli, Shahar Binyamini, and Nunzia Picciallo, developing versatility and adaptability across different choreographic practices. Alongside performing, Sofia develops her own choreographic work, exploring personal experience, vulnerability, memory, transformation, and the relationship between inner states and the physical body. Supported by international scholarships and opportunities, she continues to develop her practice as both a dancer and choreographer, with a focus on performance, collaboration, and her own movement language.

Mentor of the DancEUA residencies – Gry Kipperberg (NO)
Gry Kipperberg is a dance artist educated at KHiO in Oslo and the Merce Cunningham Studio in New York, and is a certified BMC® Practitioner. She has worked and performed both nationally and internationally with numerous choreographers and in a wide range of artistic collaborations since 1990. In 1999 she co-founded the company Wee with Francesco Scavetta, where she also created two solo performances — Strangely Enough (2010) and Under the Nothing Night (2020).

She has been employed by the Norwegian Actors’ and Dancers’ Alliance (Skuespiller- og Danseralliansen) since 2013, and has extensive experience as a teacher, mentor, and outside eye, as well as from organizational work within the dance field. Gry was awarded the Rolf Gammleng Award in 2012 and received a ten-year Government Grant for Established Artists in 2024.