We have spent the past 3 days in Mostar working with 14 dancers, men  and women in their early twenties with various dance training.  We were excited to have such a large group interested in helping us with our project.  Everyone was very enthusiastic throughout the workshop and filming process.  We spent one full day creating movement with the dancers and the two following days filming dance at the Stari Most “Old Bridge”, Partisan Memorial, Neretva River and various destroyed buildings and walls around town.

Mostar is full of tall mosque towers, cathedrals, old Ottoman stonework, bridges spanning the Neretva River and many many destroyed buildings that have been invaded by fig trees and other plants.  It is beautiful, but there is still much evidence of the war.  The town is divided into the Eastern Muslim section and the Western “Croatian” (Christian) side.  Most of our dancers were very young during the war and in general prefered to express their optomism and love of dance in our film, rather than make a commentary on war or reference bad times of the past.  In our first day of workshop, the dancers were asked to find one word which they felt most described Mostar. They chose “beautiful, contrast, childhood, stone, sun, wind, food, coffee, party, damage, kindness, love”