Derida Dance Center is the first center for contemporary dance and education in Bulgaria, founded in 2010, and functioning through Art Link Foundation. The main areas of focus at Derida Dance Center include independent dance productions, educational and training programs for contemporary dance, international partnerships, residency programs, and presentation and curatorial activities. The center offers a wide range of activities aimed at fulfilling the organization’s goals:
Our goal is to contribute through our work to the progressive development of contemporary dance in Bulgaria and worldwide, providing more opportunities for creative interactions and audience development. We achieve this through local and international partnerships, while maintaining the independent operating model of Derida Dance Center.
The Art Link Foundation maintains its own performance venue – Derida Stage.
It is located at 32 Tsar Samuil Street, Sofia, 1000.
Derida Stage is an independent space for contemporary art and culture with focus on contemporary dance, existing since April 19, 2019.
Atanas Maev is an economist by education and has been actively involved in cultural management since 2002. He is a co-founder of the first center for contemporary dance in Bulgaria, Derida Dance Center, as well as the only independent theater focused on contemporary art, “Derida Stage.” As a result of his work, Derida Dance Center is a partner in numerous international projects, runs a year-round training program in the field of contemporary dance, Dance PORT Derida, and works with various social groups. From 2013 to 2020, Derida Dance Center supported the production of over 100 dance and theater performances by freelance artists. In January 2014, the residency program at Derida Dance Center was recognized by experts from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Culture and Education as a good practice for the exchange of artistic experience in Europe, alongside four other such programs. In 2016, the management model of Derida Dance Center was selected from more than 240 cases worldwide and included as an example of successful cultural entrepreneurship in the post-graduate textbook “International Entrepreneurship in the Arts” by Prof. Lidia Varbanova, published by the global publisher Routledge.
Between 2016 and 2018, Maev was part of the board of directors of the established European platform for contemporary performing arts, “Aerowaves – Dance Across Europe.” In April 2018, he served as the executive producer and organizer of the Spring Forward showcase festival in Sofia, presenting a selection of the 20 best performances in Europe by emerging choreographers. From 2015 to 2022, Atanas Maev worked on various projects with the world-renowned Bulgarian opera diva Sonya Yoncheva, including managing her company SY11. He was the producer of the contemporary dance festival Spring Forward in 2018, organized by the Aerowaves platform, as well as the concert “Gala in Sofia with Sonya Yoncheva and Plácido Domingo,” which took place in front of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in 2021. Since June 28, 2022, Atanas Maev has been a member of the board of directors of the European Dancehouse Network, a network that includes 45 partners, most of which are venues focused on contemporary dance.
Zhivko Zhelyazkov specializes in contemporary choreography at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia. He is the co-founder of the first center for contemporary dance in Bulgaria, Derida Dance Center, Vice-Chairman and co-founder of the Art Link Foundation, and Artistic Director of Derida Stage and Derida Company. In 2018, he was selected as one of the Top 20 choreographers in Europe by the largest platform for contemporary dance in Europe, Aerowaves – Dance Across Europe. His performances have been featured in Canada, Israel, China, Malta, and other countries. In 2017, he won the IKAR Award for the contemporary dance performance “S INNER”. Together with Atanas Maev, he develops the year-long training program Dance PORT Derida, an alternative to state dance education, as well as an international residency program. He has choreographed and directed over 40 productions in the field of contemporary dance and theater and is the artistic director of numerous European projects.
Zhivko is a jury member for several major national and international festivals and competitions, including the Spring Forward platform Aerowaves (for selecting the Top 20 young choreographers in Europe for 2024), Moving Balkans Top 10 for 2025, ACT – Festival for Free Theater, the International Choreographic Competition Linkage, Aerowaves in Sofia Festival (2022, 2023, and 2024 editions), Korea Dance Festival, Reedans in Romania, and others.
Currently, he is working on creating four new dance productions for Derida Company for 2024, and in 2025, he is set to create five more new performances.
Mira Georgieva is the Project and Operations Manager at Derida Stage, Derida Dance Center, and the Art Link Foundation. She graduated in Cultural Studies from Sofia University. She has worked at the Euro-Bulgarian Cultural Center and spent nearly 15 years as a Project and Program Coordinator at the Lale Foundation, one of the largest funding organizations in the social sphere in Bulgaria.
She has coordinated projects with European funding under the Erasmus+ Program of the European Commission and the Creative Europe Program. Mira has extensive experience as an external evaluator of projects for various major funding organizations and institutions. In the fall of 2022, she joined the team at Derida.
Maria Minkova is a visual artist who lives and works in Sofia, Bulgaria. Her education passed through an art high school with a specialty in textiles and the National Academy of Arts with a specialty in mural painting. Maria is a master of the national cooperative of crafts with profile weaving. She has considerable experience in advertising, where she worked as an art director in some of the largest international agencies for more than 10 years.
Maria mainly performs in the field of installations that take place in an urban environment. It is their interaction with people and the impact they have on their feelings that excites her. The main techniques she applies are assemblage and weaving. Taking advantage of the materials’ plasticity, beauty, and unadulterated warmth, she manages to express herself in a unique way. Maria is a participant in several exhibitions in Bulgaria and abroad. One of her latest works – collaboration between human and AI, have been selected by CRITICS’ PICKS ARTFORUM (https://www.artforum.com/picks/maria-minkova-88444).
You can review her work at: www.pinkyellowme.com
The main areas of focus at Derida Dance Center include independent dance productions, educational and training programs for contemporary dance, international partnerships, residency programs, and presentation and curatorial activities.
© 2023 Art Link Foundation (Derida Stage, Derida Dance Center). This site was created within the framework of the project “Sustainable development of Derida Stage”, financed by the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the program “Recovery and development of private cultural organizations ’22”.
In the period 2020-2023, the activities of Art Link Foundation (Derida Stage, Derida Dance Center) became possible thanks to the financial support under the structural anti-COVID-19 programs of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria: One-year program to support private professional organizations in Arts / Pilot Session 2020, One-Year Grant Program 21, One-Year Grant Program 22, and Recovery and Development of Private Cultural Organizations Program ’22. We thank the National Culture Fund for the support and trust!
