Modern Dance Begins to Blossom in St. Petersburg
We walked arm in arm along the frozen river, heading for the Maryinsky Theatre shrouded in black netting as it undergoes its regular face-lift. Approaching the 212 year-old, lime-green architectural gem, home to so many ballet legends, we made a sharp right to cross the threshold of its unpretentious neighbor a "club of culture" community center which houses a modern dance school on its fourth floor, the Kannon Dance School and Company. "It's all so surreal," said Alla Kovgan, the young Moscow-born filmmaker who had brought me to St. Petersburg. "There you have the Maryinsky and next door is Kannon Dance." The ballet tradition and modern innovation sitting side by side not yet intimate friends.
Kannon Dance was born because Natasha Kasparov, a retired gymnast, took a modern dance workshop in Austria five years ago. Enraptured by the experience, she announced to her husband Vadim that modern dance was what she wanted to do. There seemingly was nowhere to study modern or jazz dance in St. Petersburg at the time. An obliging man with an old world sense of chivalry, Vadim Kasparov assumed the responsibility' to support her all the way. Defying all odds, they have created a school, regularly invited guest faculty, and honed a young company with a growing reputation. In February 2002, they produced a jazz dance and music festival, an international dance on camera workshop, and a young choreographers competition. This spring will mark their third Open Look Festival, the first of which included the Boston-based modern dance company headed by Paula Josa Jones, who in turn invited the above-mentioned Alla Kovgan to join them as their archivist. Vadim Kasparov a fledgling archivist himself, struck up a friendship with Alla, who offered to give a dance on camera workshop this past summer. I as director of Dance On Camera Festival and the executive director of Dance Films Association in New York City, couldn't resist the invitation to join Alla for the second follow-up workshop this February. Vadim Kasparov secured full scholarships from George Soros' Open Society Institute for the members of three modern dance companies plus various filmmakers to attend our workshop.
Alla and I had an eager reception from the students who came from Estonia (Fine 5 Dance Theatre plus two university student filmmakers), Poland (Theater of Open Creation), and from various corners of Russia. The workshop promotion promised an eight-day intensive offering a daily warm-up for filmmakers and dancers, exercises to improve archival performance records, camera-adaptations of stage works, and the creation of short dances for the camera. Clearly ambitious, the workshop largely stayed tree to its word. However the three companies opted for either an adaptation with or without something freshly created for the camera or choosing to focus solely on a new work for the camera. As another plus to being brought to St. Petersburg, the three companies all performed in the school's theatre. Four screenings were presented for the students and general public at the Saint Petersburg Foundation for Culture and Art (Pro Arte) Institute, a handsome multi-arts center set in the Peter and Paul Fortress which was built in 1703 and served as a prison until 1917.
The class had the feel of a one-room schoolhouse, with ages ranging from fifteen to fifty. A thirty-some cameraman from Siberia, Igor Davletshine, who is organizing an ethnic music festival, stood shoulder to shoulder with the spry teenage members of Kannon Dance Company. Everyone diligently took part in the camera exercises and the discussions on how to determine the cinematic potential of a dance. The heat rose though as we looked in-depth at the dances chosen for adaptation. "How do you see it?" We goaded the dancers. "What kind of affect do you want this section to have? What are you trying to say?"
Sometimes what they had to say was still invisible after the camera probed for the inside story. The Polish troupe, which had developed a group work around the theme of Eugenics, was ecstatic. Finally "we can say precisely what we want to say." They discovered by working with the camera that many of the details of their work had not been relayed to a live audience. "Fantasies on an Accordion Theme," choreographed by Natasha Kasparov as performed by her company, has characters, colors, tensions, and undercurrents. all of which made this lighthearted work a delight to adapt for camera.
The Estonian couple Tiina Ollesk and Rene Nemmik of Fine 5 Dance Theatre opted to jump straight into developing a dance for the camera. They braved the wet cold in bare costumes to explore juxtapositions between architecture and dance. The painter Magritte comes to mind when you see their footage shot among the fat fluted columns of the Kazan Cathedral. Tentatively titled "Two Trains," the piece also took the two cameramen and dancers to a train station where a policeman said in stilted English, "I'd be very' happy if you would leave now."
As one could imagine, St. Petersburg. known for its romantic elegance, is not used to site-specific choreography. The police described the train station as "a military' object" and therefore not available for film shoots. However, the Museum of Nonconformist Art, at the Cultural Center Pushinksaya 10, quickly responded to the needs of filmmakers. Also the young staff at Pro Arte cheerfully loaned their technical expertise in the editing process. The press demonstrated an astounding curiosity in the workshop. Seven television stations and one radio dance critic came to interview the workshop leaders and tape the classes. Even the tourist magazine WHERE in St. Petersburg heralded the workshop and screenings as a "hot tip." The television crew repeatedly asked, "Why are you here? Don't you like the way we film the Russian ballet'?" Oh yes, we reassured them, but we are challenging the dancers and filmmakers to collaborate. Collaborate seemed to be a word without a loud ring of familiarity.
David Siefkin, the balletomane press and cultural officer from U.S. Consulate, St. Petersburg came to our final screening at Pro Arte. "Amazing!" he said. "I see you get the camera to dance." Upon our return, he kindly wrote, "From all accounts, your program was a great success, and brought a whole new concept of dance to Russia's capital of dance."
Of course, part of the thrill of teaching in St. Petersburg came from knowing that we were contributing to the emotional, artistic. and spiritual thaw in Russia today. The young are particularly hungry for something to look forward to. Artists no longer cower from a government that supports only what is "state sanctioned," largely the ballet and sports which brought sizeable fame to the Soviet Union. Freedom of expression, something we as Americans should never take for granted, has returned to Russia. For more information, please contact us at: dfa5@juno.com or write kannon@peterlink.ru. •