A little about the Festival history.
Taking into consideration the diversity of festival movement it’s obvious that DanceInversion International Contemporary Dance Festival is the most significant event in the sphere of contemporary dance in Russia.
It started in 1997 when the festival of American contemporary dance (American Dance Festival – ADF/Russia) was organized. Paul Taylor Dance Company became the central event of the festival then.
Two years later, in 1999, the organizers of the Festival of contemporary dance, in the first place the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre, presented the performance of Angelin Preljoсaj Ballet “Romeo and Juliette”. The show was a part of the program “A New Look at Classics”. The performance became a real revelation for the audience. This tour made Preljocaj the most popular figure for Russian admirers of contemporary choreography.
The First Festival of European contemporary dance (EDF I) was organized in 1999. Compagnie Montalvo-Hervieu from France which is still one of the most interesting in Europe became the leader of the European program though other companies from Belgium, Great Britain and Germany were also presented.
EDF I played a key role in the further destiny of the project. The fact that Russian companies took part in the festival along with the foreign ones allowed to speak confidently that contemporary dance was not only a European or American phenomenon. Russia also had something to present there. A new “Contemporary Dance” nomination was announced in the National Theatre Award “Golden Mask” in 2000. EDF and ADF’s merit is doubtless here.
The theatre Provincial Dances under the direction of Tatiana Baganova from Ekaterinburg became a sensation for Moscow audience at EDF. The festival of 1999 was summed up by an open rehearsal of amazing Jiri Kylian with NDT III Company from the Netherlands. It was a royal gift both for the organizers and all the participants of the festival.
In 2000 Moscow hosted the festival of American contemporary dance (ADF/Russia). Trisha Brown Dance Company became the key figure of it.
That year “The Days of French Dance in Moscow” program was held. It brought a sensation both for experts and public again – the performance “Night Owls” of the National Choreographic Center of Orleans. It was the first acquaintance with Josef Nadj’s creation for Russian audience. “The Sleeping Beauty” performance created by famous Karine Saporta in cooperation with Oleg Petrov was presented at that festival as well. It was performed by the artists of the National Choreographic ballet theatre of Cannes and Lower Normandy and Ekaterinburg Municipal ballet theatre.
The Second Festival of European contemporary dance (EDF II) and CanDoCo Dance Company from Great Britain attracted much attention in 200l. And again a number of joint projects of Russian and European choreographers and companies were held in the frames of the festival. It’s remarkable that the territory of EDF II covered Nizhniy Novgorod and Volgograd that year. The geography of the festival was expanded not only by the presentation of the performances in other Russian cities but also by the festival participants. The show of Jo Stromgren Kompani from a “non-ballet” Norway became a significant event of EDF II. They competed to usual leaders of contemporary dance from France (Compagnie Kafig hip-hop group), Belgium (Ultima Vez), and the Netherlands (Galili Dance).
In 2003 it was decided to unify EDF and ADF festivals into one great celebration of contemporary dance. That new art space got the name DANCEINVERSION, International Contemporary Dance Festival. The famous La La La Human Steps from Canada, Galili Dance from the Netherlands, Chunky Move from Australia, the National Choreographic Center of Nantes, Provincial Dances from Ekaterinburg, the Theatre of Eugeny Panfilov - a pioneer of Russian contemporary dance, and many other companies that had taken part in the project the previous years met those who participated in DanceInversion for the first time.
The next edition of the DanceInversion International Contemporary Dance festival was held in 2007. It continued the tradition of art discovering but invited the companies only trying themselves in the sphere of contemporary dance. So the academic company from the Czech Republic and the National ballet of Portugal took part in the festival that year. Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Company that presented the choreography of Nacho Duato, Ohad Naharin, Alejandro Cerrudo, and Jim Vincent became the key event of DanceInversion. Praising the greatness and beauty of movement, its endless expressiveness, they summed up all shown before. The author of one review to the events of the festival declared that nobody could dance “modern performances” in Russia and no one would dance so as to master the choreography of Nacho Duato. It’s symbolical that the artists of the Stanislavsky Music Theatre were the first in Russia to master the choreography of Duato, are dancing his “Na Floresta” with great success now and are getting ready for a new work with him in the future.
Now the repertoire of Russian theatres includes the works of the choreographers of the second half of the 20th century and those who revealed themselves in the 21st century. The Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre, the organizer of the DanceInversion festival, is in avant-guard of the festival movement and this fact is natural. The essence of DanceInversion is not only to show “different” choreography but also to realize things that seem to be the most interesting in the world of contemporary dance. All the guests of the festival became the participants of a big “choreographic blood change”.
The Stanislavsky Music Theatre organized The Festival of German Contemporary Dance in autumn of 2008. As in DanceInversion 2007, the companies of different choreographic styles met there. Purely contemporary Sasha Waltz and Guests Company was shaded by Deutsche Oper am Rhein ballet company with its ballets by Yuri Vamos that were not alien to classical dance. The ballet of John Neumeier “The Seagull” which had been staged at the Stanislavsky Music Theatre in 2007 was shown in the frames of the festival. The main parts were performed by the soloists of Hamburg ballet Helene Bouchet, Anna Polikarpova, Ivan Urban, and Dario Franconi. Soon the soloists of the Stanislavsky Music Theatre paid a reciprocal visit to Hamburg taking part in John Neumeier’s performance.
It’s obvious that the result of any informal live festival is mutual understanding and interpenetration. The project started in 1997 when the best contemporary dance performances were shown in Russia. Now DanceInversion International Contemporary Dance Festival offers Russian experts and public to get acquainted with all the best and significant that has been created in the sphere of contemporary dance in Europe and the USA. Besides that its result now is not only the presentation of contemporary dance performances but also the revelation of a new image of Russian theatres, even “academic” ones. And this is the very image of live contemporary theatre now.
All festivals were organized by the Direction of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre with the support of
Our long-term partners:
the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Government of Moscow, the Theatre Union of the Russian Federation, the Embassies of: the United States, Belgium, Australia, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Canada, France, EU – Delegation of the European Union to Russia, Goethe Institut Moskau
The French Cultural Center in Moscow, the British Council in Russia
Trust for Mutual Understanding (the USA)
“Culture” TV Channel
Cultural programs Siemens, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants
