- According to the results of the IFMC'2023 competition (Svetlana Gutkovskaya);
- Time to collect stones (review of IFMC'2022-2023), Tatyana Ratobylskaya;
- "Ballet" magazine № 2 (243), Elena Zachinskaya.

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According to the results of the IFMC'2023 competition.
By Svetlana Gutkovskaya (Belarus) - Chairman of the Expert Council, Honored Artist of The Republic of Belarus, Candidate of Philology, Head of the department of choreography, Professor of the Educational Institution "Belarusian State University of Culture and Arts".

The main prize at the republican contest - the 1st IFMC prize was received by the Nadezhda Kashkan Center for Modern Choreography from Minsk, which presented to the contest the original work of the head of the group called “Loksar” to the music of a prominent representative of the authentic performance movement popular in the 20th-21st centuries, the Spanish gambo player Jordi Savall ( Jordi Savall). This work, chosen as the best by the jury and unconditionally highlighted by all members of the expert council, belongs to the category of works that can be watched many times with undiminished interest. And each time, discover new plastic discoveries in the choreographic text, identify previously unnoticed successful directorial techniques in constructing mise-en-scène, and notice subtle nuances in performance and acting. The performance of Nadezhda Kashkan herself in the role of a girl in whom, like many of us, coexist diametrically opposed images, often invented by us, originated in childhood, formed by life experience and reflecting a person’s character, is beyond any praise. In the work, all its components form an amazing harmony: the vocabulary is inventive and convincingly characterizes the stated images, the costumes are thought out, and the spatial, sound and lighting solutions are filled with meaning.
The 2nd prize was awarded to the contest work entitled “After” of the joint project of Yulia Kasabutskaya and Maria Izmer, representing the city of Minsk, in which Olga Labovkina was a choreographer. In a short work on the music of foreign composers, the author managed to reveal the idea stated in the title in her characteristic original style with a predominance of cantilena plastic language, which shows her professional maturity. Today, Olga, who for the first time especially clearly declared herself as an extraordinary creative personality as a choreographer in 2006 (1st place at the international contest IFMC for the duet “Two steps away from...”, co-authored with Zhanna Maglysh), deservedly is considered today the most sought-after Belarusian choreographer in the field of modern dance, which is confirmed by her invitation to productions in famous troupes in Russia and other countrie Noteworthy is the fact that O. Labovkina’s creative activity has been directly connected with the International Festival of Modern Choreography in Vitebsk since 1999, when she participated in the contest as part of the modern choreography group “TAD” under the direction of Dmitry Kurakulov of the Grodno Regional Philharmonic. There is a continuity that cannot but please all apologists of modern dance in our country.
The 3rd prize was awarded to the solo contest work “Voyager 1” by Pavel Luntsevich - Project of Pavel Luntsevich, Minsk. To realize his idea, the author (who is also the performer) chose the work of a German sound artist working in the style of experimental electronic music, Alva Noto. The most impressive aspect of the choreographic work was the visual-illustrative moment: thanks to the music, original movements of the soloist and lighting effects, the audience immediately “falls” into interstellar space, recreated on stage, where “Voyager” spacecraft found itself sent on a research mission many years ago and deprived of the energy of the Sun.
Referring to a specific image, the author plastically presented us with an event that symbolically marks the end of a long journey and the beginning of the next creative stage in order to explore new strange worlds. The performer type, the unique capabilities of his body and his penchant for improvisation made it possible to create a beautiful visual picture. At the same time, in my opinion, the work clearly lacked dramatic development.
Special educational institutions in the field of choreographic art with their creative teams and individual performers began to participate in the IFMC program since 1999, i.e. even before the start of training in 2014 at the Belarusian State University of Culture and Arts for specialists in the direction of “modern dance” within the framework of the specialty “Choreographic Art”. The first “swallow” was the Ensemble of the Department of Choreography of the Belarusian University of Culture. In 2000, the Vitebsk School of Arts became involved. These educational institutions present contest works at the festival with enviable regularity, offering to evaluate the creative endeavors of not just one group, but several projects of different choreographers, who prepare works specifically for showing at IFMC, which is very important, in my opinion. And not only at the republican contest, but also at the international one. So this year, seven projects with nine contest works were selected from the Department of Choreography of the BSUCA. These are works of both department teachers and students, performed in the discipline “The Art of Choreographer” leading by the artistic directors of the course, four of which were shown in the public round of the contest. The results speak for themselves.
For the work “Conjugation” to the music of composers E. Bosso, J. S. Bach, D. Cage (Erio Bosso, J. S. Bach, John Cage) performed by the Modern Dance Workshop of the Department of Choreography of the BSUCA, Dmitry Bezzubenko received a special prize named after Evgeniy Panfilov as the best choreographer. The intelligent combination in this work of action and state, conscious and emotional, concrete meaning and abstract action, combined with the impeccable execution of technically complex movements, partnering techniques and contact improvisation, as well as coordinated work in the group, distinguished this contest work.
Sabina Mozgovaya with the choreographic miniature “Yakavasts” (Quality) was awarded a special prize from the directorate of the International Festival of Modern Choreography “For the poeticization of national art by means of modern dance.” The work stood out from the general background. Firstly, by turning to your roots in the topic. Secondly, the choice of musical material is based on the work of the famous Belarusian composer Valery Ivanov (arranged by Igor Melnikov) “Speў dubraў” (The Oak Forests Song) written as a piece for a dulcimer orchestra and distinguished by a bright, wide melody with a pronounced national origin: the author tried to preserve and convey all the color and originality of Belarusian nature. At the beginning and end of the choreographic work, the musical material itself is organically combined with a very sincere folklore text that reveals the semantic field of the entire production - a spell that serves as a magical means of achieving what is desired in a protective ritual (protecting a son going on a long journey called “life”) and beginning with the words: “As the nests poured out, I walked far away.” Here the Belarusians’ belief in the magical power of the word is updated. Thirdly, an original selection of basic and additional means of expression for the embodiment of the artistic concept. A significant role in revealing the idea was played by an attribute (a shield made of wooden planks, surrounded by a rope), which during the stage action was associated either with a dear home, or with the threshold of this house, having crossed which one, you find yourself in the happy or tragic moments of life destined for a person by fate, or with a raft on which you can escape in the seething stream of life. Fourthly, a surprisingly heartfelt emotional performance, which, combined with the beautiful “talking” lines of the performer’s entire body, made a very strong impression. This contest work was noted by members of the expert council as one of the most striking in semantic and emotional contexts.
The project of Yulia Sulyak of the Minsk State College of Arts was awarded a special prize in the category “Postscript” for the work “Rethinking”, created on a musical mix of works by Kirill Richter, the Piano Interrupted project and other contemporary authors. The acoustic capabilities of the piano with the overlay of a computer exoskeleton in the form of electronic rhythms and various sound effects were very organically combined with choreographic vocabulary and a multifaceted solution of the stage space. If we turn to the synonyms of the word “rethinking”, stated in the title and reflecting the main idea of the work by Yulia Sulyak, we will understand that young people are revising, rebuilding, revaluing, redefining their values and, finally, inventing a new living space according to the realities of today and based on their communication experience, and also are rethinking their goals and ethical guidelines, thinking over their behavior in society. All this content is embodied in a choreographic text using various modern dance techniques and with the unexpected inclusion at the end of the composition of a game with words, familiar to everyone from childhood, and live reaction of performers. There is an obvious presence of philosophy in the contest work, suggesting a multidimensional comprehension of it.
The winner of the special prize of the contest “For the semantic content of dance” was the project of Maria Isakova “Hands” from Gomel for the choreographic miniature “Nagori”, inspired by the work of the Japanese writer living in France Ryoko Sekiguchi. Following the meaning of the Japanese word “nagori”, which means the end of the season, everything that is late, belated, passing from reality into memories, the author of the contest work poetically embodies the mysterious and magical world, which is “the border space between human and nature, personal experience and the movement of history, life and death."
The regulations of the festival make it possible for choreographic groups and dance projects, individual performers, “whose creativity is correlated with the concept of “modern choreography,” to take part in it. The inclusion in the contest program of several works that can be defined as non-format seemed very controversial. This can only be explained by the natural desire of the contest organizers to create a diverse artistic palette.
A whole generation of choreographers grew up at the International Festival of Modern Choreography in Vitebsk. Many have gone from performing as part of one or another dance groups or projects to choreographers and at the same time managers (artistic directors) of original choreographic groups. Indicative in this sense is the participation this year in the contest program of the choreographic group “ORIGAMI” from Minsk, whose artistic director, Ekaterina Pavlova, began as a participant in the Dance Theater “D.O.S.Z.K.I.”, one of the pioneers in the field of modern dance in Belarus.
It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the diverse guest and broad educational program prepared by the festival organizers for its participants. The material of the master classes, many of which were held by members of the international jury from Serbia, Macedonia and Croatia, was designed for both professionally trained performers and those who have recently begun to master modern dance techniques. Meetings with members of the expert council are always of unconditional interest, where a theoretical understanding of the artistic processes in the field of modern dance takes place and the main trends are identified. This year the program also included a lecture with a video presentation on the topic “Modern choreography in borderline forms of experiment: digital projects, performance in simultaneous space, dance in the context of subculture and sports” by candidate of art history, researcher in the field of modern dance Tatyana Ratobylskaya from Germany.
To summarize, several important points can be identified. First of all, this is the high technical level of the festival participants, which allows choreographers to realize the most daring artistic ideas. The choice of musical material for the contest works is interesting from an artistic point of view. Most often, choreographers focused on one instrumental piece (by classical composers and our contemporaries), and only in rare cases several musical tracks were arranged in a continuous sequence, combined in one production. At the same time, some choreographers allow themselves to ignore the main intonations of musical works, taking into account only their metro-rhythmic characteristics, which violates the obligatory relationship between musical and plastic intonations.
The festival clearly highlighted the directors' interest in the philosophical and social problems of our time, and in ancient Greek mythology. I would like to see more works in which domestic choreographers turn to national themes, Belarusian mythology and folklore.
The multi-layered content and multi-faceted interpretation of artistic images distinguished the contest works that received festival awards. However, not all choreographers are able to express their idea clearly yet and convey it to the spectator.
In most of the contest works, a reasonable balance was maintained between narrative techniques, which does not give the viewer the opportunity to fantasize and interpret the works, they see, in their own way, and between references to allusions, symbols and metaphors, making the images recognizable.
Taking into account the obvious success of Belarusian choreographers and performers in the field of modern dance, one can once again be convinced of the wisdom of the decision to hold a separate republican contest within the framework of the International Festival of Modern Choreography in Vitebsk.

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Time to collect stones (review of IFMC'2022-2023)
By Tatyana Ratobylskaya - candidate of art history, musician, journalist, researcher in the field of modern dance and theater, Germany.

IFMC’2022
I haven't been to Vitebsk for 4 years. During this time, the world has changed a lot. There was a rupture, tectonic shifts in the souls of people, a rethinking of values and history. This was especially felt at the 2022 festival, which came together under such great difficulties after a break of several years. It would seem, what is a couple of years of life? The people are the same. But no, during these years of pandemic and military upheavals, everything has turned upside down. And it is no longer possible to watch performances with previous points of view. And what changed souls or seemed touching and sweet before, now does not touch or causes bewilderment. The past aesthetic and ethical criteria are dead. No new ones have been found yet.
For the 2022 festival, I wrote notes more of a diary nature than journalistic or aesthetic reflections. Meetings with people, their mood, whether rejecting or sympathetic, the web of mistrust that fetters freedom of thought and expression, all these new barriers to communication were learned again, by touch.
IFMC’2022 was assembled and held under special conditions. First, a forced pause due to the coronavirus pandemic. And in February 2022, an armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine began, while Belarus was in an ambiguous position. At the end of August 2022, the Dance Mess resumed in Düsseldorf, and that time the forum turned out to have powerful potential; there was something to recommend for participation in Vitebsk. The Ruhr Triennale has revived with renewed vigor, where the genre of modern dance is also being cultivated. All the European groups that I met and talked about the festival recommending Vitebsk, expressed their readiness to take part in the contest or in the evening program and come to Belarus. And there were the Swiss group Jeremiah Nadd with South African dancers, the Brussels youth group - a branch of the Alan Platel Theater, and the German “Theater of Sounds”, making ballet performances in the footsteps of the choreographies of the twentieth by Oscar Schlemmer at the Bauhaus. No group, however, was able to travel due to sanctions imposed on Belarus, primarily due to the lack of air service. Thus, it was clear that the European branch of the international contest and the evening program would not take place.
Understanding the difficulties with the program, I went to the festival with internal tension. Not only was the European branch cut off, Ukraine was also missing. But in Vitebsk the Kiev Modern Ballet, Radu Poklitaru’s one, was so loved. For so many years it was the highlight of evening programs, and its dancers were active participants in contests. Who will be able to come to the festival in our difficult times, except companies from Russia and Belarus? Really few could. The geography of the dance theater has narrowed and moved towards the East. In addition to the dominant Russian-Belarusian bloc, dancers came from Almaty (Kazakhstan) and Kazan (Tatarstan).
This uncertainty in the aesthetic space, the dead end of the usual stylistic directions, was most strongly expressed on stage, in my opinion, by the performance “Stand-up. Standard. Practices” by St. Petersburg dancer and choreographer Anastasia Rebkalo. The girl goes on stage and, using youth slang, with pauses and irony, tries to reflect and understand what she, as a modern choreographer, does and who needs it. It evoked open emotions in the hall and a most interesting discussion among specialists, and was highly praised by experts.
In the International Contest, the most interesting performance from Russia, in my opinion, was shown by Denis Chernyshov (Chelyabinsk). It is made on the principle of musical conducting. Very dramatic, with moments of silence and expression. Musical instruments, cybot and drums, were right on the stage. They were played with, they were played on, literally and figuratively.
The first prize was received by a young choreographer from Tyumen, “Prospekt” Dance Theater. They showed a performance inspired by Darwin's theory of the development of mankind, only they presented this “development” in the opposite direction: not from monkey to man, but from man to monkey. She came to my workshop on Triadic ballet, asked interesting questions, and talked about examples of Suprematist ballet in Russia. The Evgeniy Panfilov Prize was awarded to Belarusian choreographer Valentin Isakov for his variations on the theme of Tarkovsky’s “Stalker”. I watched his performance twice. I think this is a very worthy job. It is all sound and semantically based on quotes from the master’s famous films, and this selection is deep, dramatic, in the nerve of time. It's amazing how relevant quotes from “Stalker” sound today. An interesting metaphor with a “target” was invented: target circles roll out onto the stage, they are intercepted by dancers, turning into human targets. The targets are also associated with a fallen halo, as a symbolic sign of the loss of Christian values. The choreographic performance is done with complete dramaturgy. The finale sounds remarkably accurate: “I can speak.” Yes, the work lacks the complexity of the choreographic vocabulary, but there is integrity, there is a unifying principle that dictates the abundance of circular mise-en-scenes. Choreographically, Isakov’s performance is sincere and open to time.
The Alma-Ata group “Samruk” showed the most spectacular choreographic compositions, among them “DNA Phantoms” and “Pulp Fiction”, which received the highest rating at the discussion of the Expert Council. The “Samruk” group was nominated by the expert council and jury for a special award “For stylistic diversity of searches.” The performance “Pulp Fiction” was remembered by everyone for its plastic culture, humor, and ability to work with elements of dance, pantomime and circus. “DNA Phantoms” was made in a different style, it was distinguished by harmony and depth of penetration into the primordial folk epic.
In the evening program, the audience was again able to see the favorite productions of the Evgeni Panfilov Theater (for example, “Surrender”) and new productions by Alexei Rastorguev in the spirit of the theater founder. Today, Panfilov’s ballets, famous in their time, no longer look as sharp as they did 20 years ago. These are the same problems as the Pina Bausch troupe. On the one hand, I want to preserve the master’s choreography. On the other hand, it is necessary to go further. As long as Rastorguev stages there and there are dancers from legendary decades, the theater is saved. After brilliant productions based on classic literary works that were seen even before the pandemic (“The Shadow”, for example), Alexey Rastorguev focused on the biographies of famous artistic figures: Frida Kahlo, Rachmaninoff. But this path does not always lead to high artistic results. Sometimes you look and don’t understand how the action fits into our time.
Music in productions began to be used in an interesting and meaningful way. There was almost no visible song, except for the folklore performance “Utitsa” (“Duck”) from Yekaterinburg. The musical and noise design created a general atmosphere of tense time, hammering nonsense, a circular barrel organ.
The main result of 2022 was the fact that the festival took place; the realization that both ordinary spectators and professionals who miss spiritual communication need it, that the festival has support. It's time to collect the stones.

IFMC’2023
I went to the 2023 festival with more optimistic expectations and sincere interest, since the competition was a republican one. Now we were supposed to talk about the future of Belarusian modern dance. What are Belarusian groups doing now, have they managed to survive in the difficult conditions of the pandemic, in what direction are they looking for themselves, how do they hear the times? My expectations were justified - the festival has a future. And this is what temporary distance means. The festival was organized as in the good old days, which, it seemed, could never be returned. But in 2023, the festival seemed to almost all participants, both those who remember and love it for decades, and new invited guests, to be an almost forgotten paradise, an island of love, true mutual understanding, where communication takes place in the language of culture, internationalism, and humanity.
The core of the Vitebsk festival was the contest. The preparation of the contest program has already shown a real youth boom. There were an unusually large number of people wishing to express themselves through modern dance - 200 applications. Only a quarter of them entered the contest. The format of the festival allowed the audience to show and see a very wide range of modern choreography. The festival methodically continues its mission of developing a new stage genre. It is worth saying once again that modern dance is included today as an independent genre specialization in the most prestigious world festivals, dozens of innovative teaching methods have been developed, and new subgenres and directions have emerged.
Almost all teams showed a high cultural level of preparation and the ability to master technology. Dancers' costumes are increasingly becoming a stage figurative device, and not just a sports and dance uniform; almost every time a dancer's costume helped create a holistic image, carrying a semantic and aesthetic load. Apart from two or three negative examples, the music of the performances was well thought out and was included in the action as an artistic element. Some projects used the word on stage, mostly it was a sound track. This technique seemed unconvincing to me; the phonogram was purely informative in nature and generally introduced a student-like tone in most cases. For example, the story of Sarah Bernhardt in the “Comprehensive” performance by Anna Lepo, Minsk, the Department of Choreography of the Belarusian University of Culture and Arts or the story about Pina Bausch (project “Praunuki” = “Great-Grandchildren”). Such an educational program can be printed in the program for the performance or in the annotation, but not read on stage. The only performance where the word, in this case, poems about loneliness, love and breakup, had a very strong impact and structured the choreography is “Silence” by the Gomel group, staged by Varvara Timofeeva. Afterwards I wanted to find these poems and read other works by the author.
Another example of an effective word on stage is “Yakavasts” (Quality) by Sabina Mozgovaya (Minsk, Department of Choreography BSUCA), where I was delighted to hear the Belarusian speech. The performance is based on the outline of the folk song “Speu dubrau” (Oak Forests Song). Its open emotionality, bursts of drama, and at the same time the precision of the choreography, caused a response from the audience, who watched the actress in one breath, their throats closing in compassion. The fate of the mother with lamentations at the beginning and end of the work, like a prayer for a child, is played by the actress with powerful passionate force. The raft in her hands suddenly came to life and became a child, grew up, lay down the road, and served as a burial place for her son, who probably died in the abyss of temporary vicissitudes.
An interesting choreographic composition, subordinate to music, was shown by the Altana Dance Theater, Minsk, “If we never go we will never know” - where the rhythmic structure of the performance was clearly developed with stop staging, with rise and fall, passage into the hall in complete silence.
I would like to note another Belarusian performance, where the dancers intelligently worked with the props. Vitebsk is the city of UNOVIS, Chagall, Suprematism, the birth of abstract forms of painting and sculpture. I saw this historical memory in “Hypnagogia” by Eva Akimova, Vitebsk College of Culture and Arts. The props here are four boards, but the mise-en-scène of the movements is dictated by the lines of the wooden beams and folded into abstract Lego shapes.
The most interesting thing is how a choreographer works today: Dmitry Bezzubenko. Two of his works (“Life as Long as a Frame”, “Not a Woman”) became the discovering of the festival, a breakthrough into the nerve of time, its aesthetic comprehension. “A Life as Long as a Frame” is based on a mosaic sound installation by John Cage, where snippets of French or German songs, Russian colloquial speech and much more are heard as if on an interrupted radio broadcast. There is one dancer on stage. Her body folds and unfolds like the parts of a puppet. It moves now to the right, now to the left, torn apart by the musical and noise echoes of the West and the East. Two spotlight beams symbolize these poles, between which the actress’s stumbling body and soul rush. She has impeccable dance technique. Before the viewer's eyes, she literally creates a personal plastic space. Another solo performance, “Not a Woman,” choreographed by D. Bezzubenko, also stood out for its high technique of performance, non-standard dance thinking, and depth of penetration into the theme of human destiny. Dmitry Bezzubenko received the highest choreographic award of the festival - the E. Panfilov Prize.
The Grand Prix of the festival was awarded to Nadezhda Kashkan’s performance “Loksar”, Minsk, center of modern choreography. It is made as a kind of requiem with black and white symbolism of struggle, with alternation of solo parts and multi-figure compositions. They reveal the personality of each character and their general interdependence, a tangle of dramatic, not a straightforward relationship. The choreographic language of the Pina Bausch Dance Theater is appropriately used in the performance.
A number of works observed at the Vitebsk festival were made in a different aesthetics and with a different dramaturgy of making a choreographic performance. I would call it an energetic diffuse composition. In such productions there is practically no verbally expressed plot or development of action. The choreographer and dancers create a kind of playful environment where everyone moves along their own trajectory, but in a general pattern. A kind of chaotic lump is created that breathes, lives its own special life, swells, shrinks, moves. It’s as if nothing is happening there, but it’s interesting to follow this diffuse mass, to observe, to highlight certain fragments of relationships. This is how the contest performances “Turbulence” by Igor Shuvalov (Mogilev, Ensemble “Alesya”) or “Rethinking” by Yulia Sulyak (Minsk, State College of Arts) were made. This is how one of the evening performances “All Roads Lead North” was made by the Moscow theater “Ballet Moscow”, staged by Karin Pontjes.
Some of the aesthetic discoveries of young choreographers were also imprinted in my memory. In “Nagori” by Maria Isakova, one of the dancers floats onto the stage from behind the scenes in a golden stretching web, like sea foam. From this foam three graces are born, like ancient goddesses. Antique symbolism is also superbly used by the dancers of the company "About 30", Minsk, in the choreography "In the Garden of the Fugitives" (directed by Victoria Razuvanova and Pavel Luntsevich), where unusual acoustic and historically associative effects are used, for example - a crumbling polyethylene egg (egg - a recurring symbol in Bosch's painting "The Garden of Delights"). The performance is made in the style of profile mise-en-scenes, when the dancers seem to have stepped out of ancient bas-reliefs and move like animated antique statues.
For many years in a row, I gave theoretical master classes as part of the Vitebsk festival with the story and display of many works by Pina Bausch, whose work I observed and analyzed during the last 10 years of her life. To my delight, at this festival I saw several works directly related to the Wuppertal Dance Theater. This is “Dedication to Pina Bausch” and “Polyphony Lessons”, Department of Directing, Belarusian University of Culture and Arts, by Alexander Vavilov and Karina Dyachenko. Despite the overabundance of videos in the project, which obscured what was happening on stage, I cannot help but welcome these studies among Belarusian youth. Pina Bausch encourages freedom of personal improvisation, penetration into the world of childhood dreams and memories, into the world of the subconscious. This freedom of self-expression will come over time to the choreography of Belarusians, who learn in practice the style of the famous German dancer and choreographer.
In the evening program it was possible to watch a number of choreographic productions by Alexey Rastorguev, Evgeny Panfilov Theater, Perm. It’s amazing how in tune with the times his “Romeo and Juliet” looks today. Several productions were brought by the St. Petersburg Dance Theater “Cannon Dance”. Here I would especially like to note the interesting choreography of one of the festival jury members, Igor Kirov (Macedonia), “The Ineffable Cube.” Dancers spin a tangle of solo, paired and multi-figure compositions behind a transparent wall separating the auditorium and the stage. From time to time one of the dancers writes something on the glass and by the end of the performance we can read a whole story of short diary revelations.
IFMC exists for me in several coordinates of cultural and human communication. I am preparing for my arrival in Vitebsk, each time I comprehend the context of modern dance in which I find myself and live, prepare master classes of a theoretical or historical nature, thus expanding the context of the Vitebsk festival.
The theme of the 2022 International Festival was Bauhaus: “One Hundred Years Later: Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadic Ballet in a Contemporary Context.”
The theme of the master class 2023 is “Modern choreography in borderline forms of experiment: digital projects, performance in simultaneous space, dance in the context of subculture and sports (John Robens, Ben Riepe, Jeremy Nadd, Mette Ingvartsen and others).
Dusseldorf - Vitebsk, 2023

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"Ballet" magazine №2(243)
By Elena Zachinskaya - a modern dance researcher, representative of the editorial staff of the “Ballet” magazine, Russia.
Contemporary dance in Vitebsk

In the Republic of Belarus, or more precisely in its northern city of Vitebsk, from November 22 to 26, 2023, the XXXIV International Festival of Modern Choreography IFMC took place.
The festival is a legend, which has approved a whole galaxy of choreographers and companies not only of Belarusian, but also of Russian modern dance.
IFMC is the first regular festival of modern choreography in the post-Soviet space, its history dates back to the end of the 20th century. For almost four decades, the festival has maintained its status as a biennale (the only exceptions were 2020 and 2021 due to Covid restrictions).
Today, the 34th IFMC preserves artistic and conceptual traditions thanks to its permanent ideologist, director Marina Romanovskaya and her team.
Every year, the Vitebsk festival becomes a serious start for young dancers and choreographers just starting their professional path, an open platform with the opportunity to express themselves for already experienced performers and choreographers, a center of attraction for recognized masters of dance, as well as critics, ballet specialist and modern dance researchers from all over peace. 2023 was  not exception.

The grand opening of the festival took place on the stage of the “Vitebsk” concert hall. In addition to the presentation of participants in the modern choreography contest, members of the international jury and the expert council, an exhibition of painting “Confession” by the Honored Artist of the BSSR Alexander Alexandrovich Solovyov was opened in the concert hall. The artist lived and worked most of his life in Vitebsk; he devoted 30 years to serving at the Yakub Kolas National Academic Drama Theater. As the founder of the post-war urban avant-garde, Solovyov made an invaluable contribution to the development of the artistic environment of Vitebsk and the entire Republic. The collection of paintings and abstract compositions “Confession,” open to guests and participants of the festival, is a tribute to the memory of the artist and his work.
Also in the concert hall there was a presentation of Igor Gusakov’s media project “Modern dance in Vitebsk 1992-2022. Favorites." On a large screen installed in the hall, photographs taken by the photographer during different years of the festival appear one after another in a slide show format. Here are shots of the play “Sepia” by Tatyana Baganova and Evgeny Panfilov in the role of the Nurse, and very young artists of the contest program from different years, many of whom are today recognized masters of modern dance. Igor Gusakov, a man inextricably linked with IFMC for many years of work and friendship, has become a kind of chronicler of the festival. Through the prism of the lens, he captures faces, images, emotions, gestures, the polyphony of personal and collective searches for self-identification - all this is a visual cross-section of each individual festival, and as a result - the history of modern dance in frames.
The evening program of the festival was rich both in the number of shown performances and in their stylistic contrast and diversity. In the second part of the first day of the festival, a very recent project was shown - “Laboratory of Modern Dance “Ballet Moscow. Angles”, which had premiered a few days before the opening of IFMC in Moscow. 8 works, 8 stories of choreographers, told through the smart, sensitive bodies of the troupe’s young dancers. Recognizable features of modern ballet in “Opposite Window” by Arseny Gordeev about the search for true happiness. Satirical, noisy, expressive, ready to “kill” each other in the inexorable dynamics of the choreographic text and the rearrangement of chairs, on one of which you still need to keep your place - the heroes of Maxim Isakov are still “Happy Together”. Slow, meditative plasticity of bodies in the atmospheric miniature “Two” by Maria Zaplechnaya. All these are perspectives of modern dance. Each miniature represents an individual statement in terms of style, storytelling principle and the choreographer’s view of modern dance as a whole. The main unifying condition is that all works draw the viewer’s attention to a person, his inner world, range of feelings, complex psychophysical structure, interaction with nature and society, personal and creative self-expression.

As part of the festival's guest program, the male cast of the Ballet Moscow theater performed the play "All Roads Lead to the North" staged by the Belgian choreographer Karin Ponties. It is important to note that the performance is the result of collaboration between the choreographer and artists. As often happens, the performance, transferred to the new dancers of the troupe, did not lose anything from the point of view of composition and structure - the excellent young performers followed the choreographic text absolutely sincerely, however, the atmosphere with a palette of meanings, subtexts, accents and the fragility of each artist’s personal statement faded into the background, if not completely disappeared. Besides, such an impression can only be formed by a person who has seen and remembers the premiere version of the play with the original cast of performers. But the main part of the audience in the third evening of the festival saw the performance for the first time and, judging by the longstanding ovation, were greatly impressed.

The evening program of the second day of the festival was entirely dedicated to the “local producer”. Plastic performance “Contact. A little story about what’s inside... and that’s all” by Diana Yurchenko seems very simple, understandable, sometimes infantile, with the presence of lengths, redeems all these factors with its focus on a family audience, non-typical scenography and lack of pretentiousness. The narration immerses us in the inner world of a child, which is full of fears, doubts, hopes and dreams, where there is an invisible mentor (inner voice/Guardian Angel) who helps to cope up with all the difficulties and adversities encountered on the little person’s path. Children's audiences will find this a fascinating fairy tale; adults, willy-nilly, will project the subtexts laid down by the author onto their own life experiences, which in general makes the performance touching, warm and necessary in this difficult time.

The modern dance theater "Cannon Dance" from St. Petersburg brought two performances: "The Ineffable Cube" staged by Igor Kirov (North Macedonia) and "Heartlessness" by choreographer Lilit Hakobyan (Armenia/Germany).
Original vocabulary, fluid continuity of the choreographic text, contrasting with pauses and deliberate breakdowns. An “invisible” wall placed by the choreographer between the dancers and the audience. The words, phrases and fragments of phrases that the artists record on the wall each time divide the narrative line into “before” and “after”. Using the listed techniques, Igor Kirov and the dancers ask themselves and the audience questions: “Who are we? Where are we? Why are we here?
The play “Heartlessness” is inspired by the works of philosopher Hannah Arendt. Lilit Hakobyan’s special dance language was formed largely thanks to her acquaintance with Marco Goeke and work with him for many years at the Hannover Opera. The artists of the “Cannon Dance” troupe exist very confidently in the syncopated, isolated, heterogeneous choreographic canvas of Lilit Hakobyan, saturating their roles with grimaces, giving way to absolutely emotionless, detached faces. The technical preparation of the performers is amazing. Sometimes you begin to doubt that they are living people who are moving in front of you.

This year, the “Evgeni Panfilov Ballet Theater”, adored by the Vitebsk public, presented the premiere performance “About the Prince and the Pauper” - a production created by Alexei Rastorguev, based on the novel by Mark Twain. The author does not retell a literary plot, he reflects on the nature of human actions, endowing the main characters with metaphorical imagery of contradictory personal qualities that coexist perfectly well in one person. The main female role, the State Seal, was performed by the prima of the Panfilov Theater - Maria Tikhonova.
The gala concert of the festival was closed with one of the theatre’s most famous performances – “Romeo and Juliet”. The audience was presented with an abridged version of the ballet. For the Vitebsk audience it was especially valuable to see Alexey Rastorguev in the roles of the Nurse and Friar Lorenzo, which were once performed by Evgeny Panfilov himself. The audience gave a standing ovation in tribute to the choreographer and his work. Evgeny Panfilov has become a significant figure for IFMC; the festival’s organizing committee approved a special prize in his name.

Traditionally, in addition to the educational and festival programs, the organizing committee established a contest - the main event of the festival, based on the results of which the jury and members of the expert council identify the best works based on the totality of all its components. This year the contest was a republican one. From 200 received applications, based on the results of video selections, 35 works were included in the contest program of closed rounds. 14 works made the final public round.
The play “Loksar” directed by Nadezhda Kashkan was awarded the 1st prize at IFMC’23. For Nadezhda, this is her debut at the Vitebsk festival, and she immediately received such a high rating! A serious, important theme is explored by four dancers who tell the story of a girl named Loksar with dissociative disorder. Subtle musicality in the vocabulary, well-structured dramaturgy, sensitive, expressive and no less technical bodies of the performers made the performance the undisputed leader of the contest in the opinion of the jury and expert council.
The second prize was awarded to the joint project of Yulia Kasabutskaya and Maria Izmer. “After” – the job that the girls showed up with raises a number of questions: “What happened before? What happens after? Will we stay after? Or just me?” Vocabulary based on interaction in a couple through periodically interrupted and renewed emotional and physical contact of the characters, supported by technical, non-trivial partnering. All this is revealed by the handwriting of the author, Olga Labovkina. It is noteworthy that Olga began her career in the modern choreography group “TAD” - the first modern dance troupe in the history of Belarusian choreography. It was at IFMC that she announced herself as a unique performer and talented choreographer. According to Olga herself, most of her creative growing up is connected with the Vitebsk festival.
Taking the image of a space probe as a basis, the choreographer Pavel Luntsevich (who is also a dancer) draws a metaphor to a person who is in search, overcoming obstacles, falling and rising again; to a person looking forward, exploring the world around him and himself in it. Spatiotemporal boundaries set the conditions for the artist’s actions to constantly overcome, and even the air begins to seem denser, more visible and tangible. Atmospheric, thought out to the smallest detail both in terms of lexical content and in terms of lighting design, the “Voyager 1” miniature brought its author the 3rd IFMC’23 Prize.

By the way, about the lighting design. On the face of it, this is a small nuance, but stage lighting is an integral component of the overall artistic solution of a choreographic performance or miniature. It plays a vital role in the process of perceiving a work and in the impression it makes of itself. It is clear that under the conditions of the contest there is no adequate amount of time to set up the lighting, not everyone has experience working with a full-time lighting designer, and even rare contact with a specialist of such a plan is an unattainable opportunity for a number of authors. But a person who thinks of himself as a choreographer must develop in this direction. Just as future teachers are taught to work with an accompanist, a choreographer must be able to work with a lighting designer. When preparing for a professional contest, you need to think carefully about what mood is important to convey with your work, how to decorate it with a light score - at what angle to present it. Having decided on all of the above, it is enough for the author of the work to define clearly the task of the lighting designer, especially since IFMC employs a team of professionals with extensive experience.

It is worth noting that most of the contest works were competently designed in terms of scenography. But among them there were exceptions, where the light conflicted with the general mood of the work and the action on stage.
For example, “Hypnagogia,” directed by Eva Akimova, is a completely successful work, with the presence of the author’s search in vocabulary, composition, work with the subject and the theme itself, taken as a basis. But the phantasmagoric and ephemeral quality that the title suggests (hypnagogia is an intermediate state between reality and dream) did not give the overall atmosphere of the work precisely the lighting solution, and specifically the brightly illuminated faces and bodies of the performers. In my opinion, any cold shade of “fill” of the scene would be enough to convey the mood of this work.
The miniature “Any.Way” also became an example of working with an unreasonably complicated lighting score. It was as if the choreographer had seized upon a rare opportunity by turning on everything at once: a strobe, shots, colored rays, backlight - visual noise, against the background of which quite interesting vocabulary, the technical bodies of the performers and, as a result, the overall expressiveness of the work were lost.
The format of student theater creative evenings, contemp battles and high heels championships does not fit very well with the rich history of the festival, the names of the masters of modern dance, inextricably linked with IFMC. A specific concept also imposes a certain responsibility on its participants. After watching some of the statements, I wanted to recommend the contestants to take a more serious approach to the selection of the theme of the work and its implementation, the same applies to the dancers’ costumes and musical accompaniment.
A special prize “named after Evgeniy Panfilov” as the best choreographer was awarded to Dmitry Bezzubenko, who represented the Modern Dance Workshop of the Department of Choreography of the Belarusian State University of Culture and Arts (Minsk). Dmitry distinguished himself by his productivity, presenting three works, two of which (the solo miniature “Not a Woman” and the performance for five dancers “Conjugation”) entered the final round of the contest.
By decision of the expert council, Maria Isakova’s project “Hands” from Gomel, which presented the aesthetic miniature “Nagori” at the contest, was awarded a special prize “For the semantic content of the dance.” Nagori is the Japanese designation for everything late, belated, passing from reality into memories. The girls managed to capture this intermediate state of human consciousness thanks to the interesting scenography, spatial, lexical and lighting design of the work.
The miniature “Yakavasts” by Sabina Mozgovaya stood out from the general background with its musical and plastic allegory and special emotionality of performance. Perhaps this is a rare case when movement is only a means in the context of the artist’s expressiveness. The work was awarded a special diploma from the IFMC directorate for the poeticization of national art through the means of modern dance.
By decision of the expert council, Yulia Sulyak’s project Minsk State College of Arts was awarded a special “Postscriptum” prize for the play “Rethinking”. For me personally, after watching it again in the public round of the contest, the work revealed itself in a new way, and I managed to rethink it. Young dancers in the emotional-kinetic flow, they set, stop only to rethink facts, processes, values, experiences, to establish new semantic connections between events and the inner world.
The general partner of the festival, the Belvest holding, awarded the dance company “About 30” with a special prize for their invaluable contribution to the development of modern choreography.
Among the main trends of the contest, I would like to note the strongest technical equipment of the performers, while the age gradation of the participants was wide. Over two days of closed tours, the audience saw both very young dancers, who could easily be called children, and already mature, experienced artists.
Despite the fact that the contest was a republican one, a gratifying observation was the lack of locality in the works, when the similarity of miniatures and performances ceases to hold attention, and they merge into a single mass. All works were different both in the manner of narration and in the artistic and aesthetic principles of its construction.
From this polyphony of diverse statements, a general picture of Belarusian modern dance emerges, which in turn captures the freedom of thinking of Belarusian choreographers, their openness to creative innovation, the search for original artistic forms, compositional and plastic solutions to reveal various themes-reflections.