Underground

The premiere of a dance performance at the GES-2’s Parking, where folk music meets contemporary choreography.

Project team 

In her new work, choreographer and director Olga Tsvetkova turns to the theme of deep inner transformation. A parking garage is quite literally a place of passage, a transit space. The eight dancers remain suspended between anticipation and action, with neither state bringing resolution. The performers seem to be trying to shift the low concrete ceiling above their heads—both literally and metaphorically.

Photo: Masha Demianova

The central image in this work is the underground space—a shelter and at the same time an illusory realm where Platonic shadows run wild. A place where vague silhouettes intertwine with the long roots of trees. This immersion in a sensuous world becomes a way of bringing something deeply valuable and long forgotten to the surface of consciousness. I draw on elements of ritual dance for a trance-like release from everyday space, and combine them with virtuosic technical elements of contemporary dance. This heightens emotional intensity, juxtaposing seemingly opposite states—joy, anger, sorrow, and inner stillness. I’m interested in the state of transition, of being suspended in “nowhere.” I want the audience to feel that a limit has been reached, as if time itself has come to an end.

— Olga Tsvetkova, choreographer

When we speak of Russian folklore, we usually imagine a feminine image. But in reality, traditional Russian music is deeply imbued with manifestations of masculinity. For this performance, we have gathered unique examples of such works: a wedding song of a young man preparing for his vows, a lullaby sung by a man, songs about leaving for the army, and a song of longing for a beloved girl. Most importantly, of course, the Russian tradition of playing musical instruments has always been associated with men.

— Lizaveta Anshina, musical director of the Toloka ensemble

Artist Ruslan Rychagov conveys this sense of disorientation and temporal dislocation through anachronistic costume details, intricate layers of clothing, and a fusion of deliberate energy with extreme vulnerability in the performers’ appearances. The Toloka ensemble and musical dramatist Vladimir Gorlinsky have created a sonic landscape from authentic folk songs, where voices and instruments provide their own emotional narrative: prayers, lullabies, wedding songs, and songs for fighting. Performed at the Parking, this music places the performance within a specific context of reflection on time and collective experience. Why have we found ourselves underground? What are we seeking here—or what are we hiding from?

Project team

Choreographer

Olga Tsvetkova is a choreographer and director, and the artistic director of the Academy of New Dance project. She studied choreography at the School for New Dance Development (SNDO, Netherlands) and holds a master’s degree in directing from DAS Theatre at the Amsterdam University of the Arts. She has participated in the Spring Forward Festival (2014, Sweden) and received a scholarship from the danceWEB programme (2017, Austria). Her works include Moments (2014, with Vladimir Gorlinsky and Mikhail Durnenkov, Meyerhold Centre), the contemporary ballet Cry for Silence. Tao Te Ching (2019, with composer Anton Svetlichny), Human After All (2019, for the Norrdans dance company, Sweden), the dance performance Soulwhirl to music by Vangelino Currentzis (2022, House of Radio, St. Petersburg), and the ballet Requiem. Solo to music by Iannis Xenakis and Pyotr Glavatskikh (2022, New Stage of the Alexandrinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg), and other works. Curator of the contemporary dance programme at GES-2 (2018–2022).

Performers
Timur Ganeev, Evgeny Kalachev, Artur Kardanov, Bogdan Kochurov, Alexander Kozin, Kamil Mustafaev, Andrei Petrushenkov, Andrei Sychev

Toloka ensemble

A group of young folk performers and researchers of authentic Russian music, the Toloka ensemble studies intangible heritage, transcribing rare and unknown songs that they gather themselves on expeditions to Russian villages. The artists also work in experimental genres, and have collaborated with ballerina Diana Vishneva, the Context festival, the musicAeterna orchestra, composer and artist Alexey Retinsky, singer Suzanna Varnina, and composer Nikita Kamensky.

Artistic director
Ekaterina Rostovtseva

Musical director
Lizaveta Anshina

Performers
Vera Bazilevskikh, Zhanna Gefling, Sofia Ivanishkina, Prokhor Nesterov, Yaroslav Paradovsky, Antonina Sergeeva

Musical dramatist

Vladimir Gorlinsky is a composer and improviser. A graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, he has received numerous accolades, including prizes at the Schnittke Interregional Competition for Composition (Moscow, 2002), the Jurgenson International Competition for Young Composers (Moscow, 2007), the Pythian Games (St. Petersburg, 2008), Rostrum (Dublin, 2008), the YouTube Online Composers Competition (2010), the impuls Festival Competition (Graz, 2011), and Open Space (Moscow, 2015). As both composer and performer, he collaborates with the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre and the Theatre on Malaya Bronnaya. His recent works include After (Post) (commissioned and produced by V–A–C Foundation), Follow the Light: A Journey Through the Ensemble for the anniversary of the New Music Studio ensemble, the prologue and epilogue La Voix for Francis Poulenc’s opera La Voix humaine at the Perm Opera Theatre, and the ballet Graphite, a co-production between GES-2 and the Ural Opera Ballet Theatre.

Costume designer

Ruslan Rychagov works in the fields of contemporary art, theatre, dance, film, and photography. Since 2010, he has taken part in various interdisciplinary projects as a performer and choreographer. Since 2014, he has worked as a costume designer in cinema. He graduated from the Art and Graphic Faculty of Bashkir State University and holds a master’s degree from the Scientific and Creative Laboratory of Contemporary Dance Composition at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet (Saint Petersburg).

Lighting designer

Oleg Strashkin is the head of stage lighting at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre. He has worked at festivals such as Dancehelpfest and Tantssoyuz, and with contemporary dance companies including Kannon Dance, Libertatem, Vsem Telom, the Innovative Ballet Theatre (Kaluga), DEREVO Theatre, and others.

Curator

Anastasia Proshutinskaya, curator of dance programmes at GES-2

Producers
Kira Berman, Ksenia Makshantseva, Yana Romashkina, Mikhail Yatskov

Technical team
Alexander Dolmatov, Olga Dudina, Artem Kanifatov

Sound engineers
Sergei Kochetkov, Yulia Kozlova

Director’s assistant
Anna Sinelnikova

Costume assistant
Elena Zharikova​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​