Paper Bridge Dance Company & RV present ‘Raptures’
This year’s headline performance at The Judgement Hall Festival comes from the choreographic duo Paper Bridge (Eliana Stragapede and Borna Babić) as they join forces with visual artist RV to present Raptures, an immersive and site-specific performance conceived for The Judgement Hall Festival.
Raptures will take place in the crevices of space-time, where the inconstancy of bodies and souls is shaken by the cyclic movement of death and rebirth.
Blessed by holy waters, a symphony of alarms, murmurs, and far-away chants will vibrate around bodily rituals of ensoulment.
The alchemy between Paper Bridge and RV brings to life a work of intense cross-pollination, where the body acts as a central manifestation of the perpetual cycles of existence.
Italian Eliana Stragapede and Croatian Borna Babić are a duo of dancers and choreographers based in Brussels. Their furious dance piece AMAE won first prize at the renowned Copenhagen International Choreography Competition, opening the door to commissioned work with prestigious companies.
Brussels based artist RV has been active for over two decades under different pseudonyms, his production spans from painting to sculpture, videoart, installation, photography, performance, scenography and sound.
Eliana Stragapede
Eliana Stragapede is a Brussels-based freelance performer, choreographer and teacher. Trained in Italy with mentors including Silvia Humaila and Osnat Kelner, she later studied at Codarts (Rotterdam) with artists like Club Guy & Roni and Jiří Kylián. After graduating she worked with Marina Mascarell and Club Guy & Roni. In 2018 she joined Staatstheater Mainz, performing works by Roy Assaf, Victor Quijada, Pierre Rigal and others. Since 2020 she’s toured internationally with Peeping Tom (Triptych: The Missing Door / The Lost Room / The Hidden Floor), including the Paris Opera.
As co-creator of AMAE (with Borna Babić, 2022) she won first prize at the Copenhagen International Choreography Competition and production awards from Nederlands Dans Theater and Holstebro Dansekompagni; in 2023 AMAE earned partner awards from Codarts and Dansateliers at the Rotterdam competition. In 2025 she and Babić will create a piece for NDT2 (Up and Coming) and choreograph for Bayerisches Staatsballett Munich. She was named Performer 2024 by Danza & Danza.
Borna Babic
Based in Brussels, Borna Babić (Croatia, 1994) is a freelance performer, choreographer and teacher. After graduating from Codarts Rotterdam in 2018, he worked as a professional dancer with Marina Mascarell and Club Guy & Roni. He choreographed his first full-evening performance in 2021. The following year, AMAE – created together with choreographic partner Eliana Stragapede – won first prize in the Copenhagen International Choreography Competition, before going on to win several more awards.
Today, he is part of the Ultima Vez / Wim Vandekeybus company and works with Olivier de Sagazan. As a passionate teacher, Babić organizes workshops across Europe in contemporary dance, Countertechnique, partnering and improvisation, as well as the Ultima Vez repertory.
Extract from AMAE by Paper Bridge Dance Company
Curator’s Notes
I first saw Eliana Stragapede perform at the Opéra National de Paris in Peeping Tom’s Triptych in June 2023. It was an extraordinary performance. Through movement alone, she generated a sustained sense of awe that felt both rare and exacting.
Over the following years, several attempts to realise the work within a theatre context were unsuccessful. For a long time, it seemed unlikely that The Judgement Hall would be able to assemble the conditions necessary to bring this collaboration to London. Three years later, Paper Bridge co-founder Borna Babić reached out to arrange a meeting in London. There was no formal proposal. What emerged instead was a shared attentiveness to how work develops over time, through rehearsal and sustained engagement with space. From that conversation, collaboration felt less like a plan than an eventuality.
That evening in Paris marked the beginning of a process that has taken time to reach its form. Three years on, that initial encounter has developed into a site-specific collaboration between Eliana Stragapede and Borna Babić, working alongside visual artist RV to create a one-off performance conceived for The Judgement Hall Festival. Presented as a headline work, this collaboration represents a significant moment in the festival’s ten-year history.