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The Space Between Us Is Not Empty

Event artwork: The Space Between Us Is Not Empty

In short

A dance piece by Rūta Ronja Pakalne that begins with the difficulty of coming together and follows bodies moving through trust, risk, and failure. It treats simple gestures, hesitation, and collapse as part of the material, and extends rehearsal into performance. The work holds the tension of collective pause without resolving it, inviting audiences into an unfinished attempt to connect.

Summary by Eventeeka from the organizer’s announcement. The original text follows below.

19 November 2026, Thursday · 19:00–20:20 · From €14 · EN

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Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava (STL), Telliskivi 60a/9, 10412 Tallinn, Harjumaa ↗

This piece begins with the radical difficulty of coming together.

Each body follows its own path, its own subjective trip, facing knots it may not want to face. In this process, even the simplest gesture can become a radical act. A single step across the space can feel like cutting through matter, impossible distances crossed. For those inside the process, these moments are miracles. For the outside eye, perhaps “just a walk.” The gap between inner necessity and outer appearance is where the work lives.

You are you, but you are also each other. Without mimicry, without sarcasm. Ultimate trust in observing the other becoming you. Even when you don’t want to see it. Even when it’s too much.

The paradox is that trust is also the greatest risk. To show yourself fully is the condition for the work — and also its greatest challenge. What happens when you don’t? The piece does not hide these failures: they are part of the material.

The time of this work is the suspension of escalation.

We live inside a collective pause that feels like waiting for something to explode. The piece does not resolve this tension — it holds it, as bodies hold it in rehearsal. Escalation is not elsewhere. It is already here.

Failure, in this process, is redefined.

We don’t fucking care anymore if we fail. Failure means half-assing. Failure means not bringing ourselves fully. It’s about fire, not polish.

The demand is not for harmony or perfection, but for fullness, presence, risk.

This piece begins with difficulty, and continues with paradox. Trust that is a risk. Safety that collapses. Freedom that demands discipline. Darkness that creates care.

“I hope it’s not gonna be safe. I want it to be like when you shake someone, not violently, but so they wake up.”

THE SPACE BETWEEN US IS NOT EMPTY is not finished. It is becoming. It is rehearsal extended into performance. It invites audiences not into a polished answer, but into the fragile attempt to connect — where even the simplest act may turn radical.

Rūta Ronja Pakalne is a Latvian-Estonian freelance dance and film artist based in Estonia. Her interdisciplinary practice spans choreography, performance, filmmaking, and teaching, investigating body, presence, and everyday experience. She holds a BA in Choreography from the Latvian Academy of Culture, further training at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels, and an MA in Film Arts from TLU, BFM.

Since 2019 she has taught at TLU-BFM, Tallinn Ballet School, and ETA Tantsukool. Her recent projects include Body of Dreams (2023)—a collaboration with Laura Kvelstein exploring body archives, Freedom to Lose Control Together with the Many (2023), and dance films H61 and Centrifugal (2024). She also creates experimental dance films that explore movement and embodied storytelling.

Website: rutaronja.com

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