How to watch strictly come dancing in the usa
How to Watch ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ in US Online Free 2022: Stream
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If you’re a fan of Dancing With the Stars, you may have wondered how to watch Strictly Come Dancing in the US to see the original show DWTS is based on.
Strictly Come Dancing—also known as Strictly—is a reality TV dance competition, which partners celebrities with professional dancers and sees the pairs perform predetermined ballroom and Latin dances each week and compete against each other for judges’ points and audience votes. The couple with the lowest combined total of judges’ points and audience votes is eliminated each week until only one pair remains. That pair is declared the winner. The name Strictly Come Dancing is a combination of the BBC dance competition show Come Dancing, which ran from 1949 to 1998, and the 1992 movie, Strictly Ballroom.
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Since its premiere in May 2004, Strictly Come Dancing has run for more than 19 seasons and holds a Guinness World Record. The show has also been spun off in more than 60 countries, including the United States, under the title, Dancing With the Stars. At a press conference in 2021, Strictly Come Dancing‘s executive producer Sarah James explained the show’s decision to expand to same-sex pairs. “It’s definitely something that we’ve always wanted to do and I’m really excited about John [Whaite] doing it. I think he’s already proven that he’s an amazing spokesperson for it and obviously, he’s a household name and he is just a brilliant guy so I’m really looking forward to it being John,” she said at the time.
She continued, “I think Nicola [Adams] and Katya [Jones] were amazing last year and I think everybody really, really enjoyed that partnership. It was obviously a shame that it was cut short because of what happened but they’ve 100 per cent paved the way.
The research that we’ve done since has prove that everybody really, really appreciated that partnership so I’m looking forward to John doing that.”
So where can Americans stream Strictly Come Dancing? Read on for how to watch Strictly Come Dancing in the US to see which British star wins this season.
Image: Courtesy of BBC.
When does
Strictly Come Dancing air?Strictly Come Dancing season 20 airs on Saturdays at 6:30 p.m. GMT (1:30 p.m. ET / 10:30 a.m. PT) on BBC One.
How to watch
Strictly Come Dancing in the USHow can one watch Strictly Come Dancing in the US? Strictly Come Dancing is available to stream for free on BBC One’s website, which has new episodes from the current season—season 20—as well as past seasons. However, to watch the show in the US, Americans will need a VPN, a service that allows users to set their computer’s location to another country and access websites that would otherwise be restricted by location.
The most popular VPNs out there are ExpressVPN, NordVPN and PureVPN—all of which offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. Read on for how to sign up for them to watch Strictly Come Dancing in the US.
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ExpressVPN is one of the most popular VPN services, and the one we recommend above all others for a simple reason. The service—which allows users to set their location to more than 160 locations in 90 countries with unlimited bandwidth—offers a 30-day free trial and a money-back guarantee. After the free trial ends, Express VPN costs $8.32 per month for a 12-month plan ($99.95 in total), $9.99 per month for a six-month plan ($59.95 in total) or $12.95 per month for a monthly plan. Along with access to more than 160 locations, Express VPN—which takes about five minutes to set up—also promises lightning-quick connectivity, 24-hour live-chat support and allows users to connect to any device, from computers to phones to tablets.
Of course, users can do more than watch Strictly Come Dancing in the US with a VPN. Along with Strictly Come Dancing, VPNs also allow users to access international versions of Netflix, Disney Plus and HBO Max (which have different content than in the US) as well as stream international services like Hayu, which has access to programs like the Real Housewives, Below Deck, The Bachelor and hundreds of other reality TV shows.
Read on for step-by-step instructions on how to watch Strictly Come Dancing in the US with ExpressVPN’s free trial.
- Sign up for ExpressVPN and create an account
- Log into your ExpressVPN account and click “Download” on the “Dashboard” or in “Set Up Your Devices”
- Once you’ve installed Express VPN, enter the “Activation Code” from the “Dashboard” or in “Set Up Your Devices”
- Once ExpressVPN is set up, change your location to “UK” by clicking the connect icon to read “Connected” and selecting the country in the “Smart Location” menu
- Visit the Strictly Come Dancing page on BBC One’s website
- Sign in or create an account
- Watch Strictly Come Dancing in the US!
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Nord VPN is another popular VPN service recommended by YouTubers like PewDiePie, Casey Neistat and Philip DeFranco.
The service—which offers a 30-day free trial and a money-back guarantee—costs $3.29 per month for two-year plan ($78.96 in total), $4.99 per month for a one-year plan ($59.88 in total) or $11.99 per month for a monthly plan. Along with access to more than 59 countries, NordVPN also allows users to connect to multiple devices (from computers to phones to tablets) and offers a 24-hour live-chat support. Read on for step-by-step instructions for how to watch Strictly Come Dancing in the US with NordVPN’s free trial.
- Sign up for NordVPN and create an account
- Log into your NordVPN account and click “Downloads” on the left-side menu
- Once you’ve installed NordVPN, log into your account
- Once NordVPN is set up, change your location to the “UK” by clicking “Quick Connect” or searching the country in the menu
- Visit the Strictly Come Dancing page on BBC One’s website
- Sign in or create an account
- Watch Strictly Come Dancing in the US!
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Another popular VPN service is Pure VPN, which offers a 31-day free trial and a money-back guarantee.
After the free trial ends, users can sign up for Pure VPN for $1.99 per month for a two-year plan ($53.95 in total), $3.24 per month for a one-year plan or $10.95 per month for a monthly plan. Pure VPN offers more than 6,5000 servers in over 78 countries across the world, as well as 24-hour live-chat support. Read on for step-by-step instructions for how to watch Strictly Come Dancing in the US with PureVPN’s free trial.
- Sign up for PureVPN and create an account
- Once you’ve created your account, scroll to the bottom of PureVPN‘s homepage and select the VPN that fits your device: Windows, MAC, IOS, etc.
- Click “Download the app”
- Once you’ve installed PureVPN, log into your account
- Once PureVPN is set up, change your location to the “UK” by searching for the country in the right bar
- Visit the Strictly Come Dancing page on BBC One’s website
- Sign in or create an account
- Watch Strictly Come Dancing in the US!
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Who’s in the
Strictly Come Dancing 2022 cast?The Strictly Come Dancing season 20 cast includes 15 celebrity contestants across sports, TV, movies and music. See the full Strictly Come Dancing 2020 cast below.
- Ellie Simmonds – Paralympic swimmer
- Ellie Taylor – comedian, actress & television presenter
- Fleur East – singer-songwriter & radio presenter
- Hamza Yassin – Wildlife presenter & cameraman
- Helen Skelton – Television presenter
- James Bye – EastEnders actor
- Jayde Adams – Comedian & actress
- Kaye Adams – Loose Women panelist & journalist
- Matt Goss – Singer-songwriter
- Molly Rainford – Nova Jones actress & singer
- Richie Anderson – Television & radio presenter
- Tony Adams – Former England footballer & manager
- Tyler West – Kiss FM presenter
- Will Mellor – Stage & screen actor
Who are the
Strictly Come Dancing professional dancers?There are 15 professional dancers for Strictly Come Dancing season 20.
See the full list of the Strictly Come Dancing 2022 professional dancers and who they’re partnered with.
- Nikita Kuzmin
- Celebrity partner: Ellie Simmonds
- Johannes Rabede
- Celebrity partner: Ellie Taylor
- Vito Coppola
- Celebrity partner: Fleur East
- Jowita Przystal
- Celebrity partner: Hamza Yassin
- Gorka Marquez
- Celebrity partner: Helen Skelton
- Amy Dowden
- Celebrity partner: James Bye
- Karen Hauer
- Celebrity partner: Jayde Adams
- Kai Widdrington
- Celebrity partner: Kaye Adams
- Graziano Di Prima
- Celebrity partner: Kym Marsh
- Nadiya Bychkova
- Celebrity partner: Matt Goss
- Carlos Gu
- Celebrity partner: Molly Rainford
- Giovanni Pernice
- Celebrity partner: Richie anderson
- Katya Jones
- Celebrity partner: Tony Adams
- Dianne Buswell
- Celebrity partner: Tyler West
- Nancy Xu
- Celebrity partner: Will Mellor
Who are the
Strictly Come Dancing 2022 hosts?The Strictly Come Dancing season 20 hosts are Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman.
The Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two hosts are Rylan Clark and Janette Manrara.
Who are the
Strictly Come Dancing 2022 judges?The Strictly Come Dancing season 20 judges are Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse, Shirley Ballas and Anton Du Beke. Former judge Bruno Tonioli, who missed season 18 and 19 due to travel restrictions from COVID-19, announced he would permanently be leaving the show.
Strictly Come Dancing is available to stream on BBC One with a VPN. Here’s how to watch it for free.
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How to Watch Strictly Come Dancing Anywhere in the World
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Summary: How to Watch Strictly Come Dancing from Anywhere
There are a few places to watch Strictly Come Dancing online.
However, the best way to stream online is by using BBC iPlayer. It’s free to use, and with a VPN, you can watch BBC iPlayer without being blocked by geographical restrictions. Here’s how:
- Choose a VPN service. We recommend CyberGhost for the best streaming experience. They offer a 45-day money-back guarantee you can use as a free trial.
- Download the VPN client and install it on your device.
- Run the VPN client, then find a UK VPN server and connect to get a UK-based IP.
- Open the Strictly Come Dancing homepage on the BBC iPlayer website.
- Register for a BBC iPlayer account.
- Enjoy Strictly Come Dancing online!
Aside from BBC iPlayer, you can also watch Strictly Come Dancing:
- On Apple TV for a one-off fee per episode or per series
- On the Microsoft Store for a one-off fee per episode or per-series
If you’re curious to find out more about Strictly Come Dancing and how you can watch Strictly with a VPN, check out the full article below.
Strictly Come Dancing, or simply “Strictly,” as fans like to call it, has been capturing the attention of audiences across the UK and beyond for years. It was even nominated for and has won several BAFTAs! With international celebrities like Michelle Visage and Jason Bell having been invited on the show, and the online success of some of the professional dancers, like Dianne Buswell, it’s no surprise that fans from abroad are tuning in for this dance competition.
Chances are you’re reading this article because you want to know how to watch Strictly Come Dancing from anywhere in the world. Well, you’re in luck. Even if you’re located outside the UK, you can watch Strictly Come Dancing with a VPN (virtual private network).
Where is Strictly Come Dancing Available Online?
Strictly Come Dancing is produced by the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) and airs on BBC One every year.
This means you’ve got limited options when it comes to watching Strictly Come Dancing online. Like most regional TV programs, you won’t be able to stream Strictly on the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Hulu.
To watch Strictly Come Dancing online, you’ve got a few options:
- BBC iPlayer (for free, includes live coverage)
- Apple TV (for a one-off fee)
- Microsoft Store (for a one-off fee)
The show was also previously available on the Google Play store, but it has since been discontinued there. Currently, BBC iPlayer is the only place to watch Strictly Come Dancing for free online.
However, if you’re not located in the United Kingdom, you’re going to need to make it appear as if you’re in the UK in order to be able to able to stream Strictly. This is due to geographical restrictions (geo-blocks) that keep visitors outside of the country from watching Strictly.
Fortunately, it’s quick and easy to temporarily get a UK IP address.
When you use a VPN to change your IP, you’ll be able to unblock websites in other countries and watch this year’s celebrities impress the judges, no matter where you are in the world. We’ll explain exactly how this works for each of the streaming services mentioned.
How to watch past seasons of Strictly
Most streaming services will only allow you to stream the most recent seasons of this British dance competition. While this works for fans who like to watch live and never miss an episode, it can be a struggle when you want to rewatch a specific episode or season from a couple of years ago.
Would you like to watch actress Maisie Smith and her partner Gorka dance their amazing Jive again? Or do you want to experience Ann Widdecombe’s full journey with Anton du Beke back in 2010? While it’s hard to watch full past seasons of Strictly online, you can buy the DVDs on websites like Amazon.
Watching Strictly Come Dancing Live on BBC iPlayer
The BBC iPlayer is a central hub for most of the TV programs produced by the BBC in England.
You can watch BBC live via this stream. Once a show has been aired, you can even catch it on the media player for a short time afterward.
Bear in mind that you’ll normally only find the most recent seasons of a program, but that does mean you can watch the latest series of Strictly Come Dancing online. This includes the Launch Show, all dances, every performance during movie week and musicals week, the final, and the Christmas Special.
If you haven’t done so yet, and you want to watch Strictly Come Dancing on iPlayer anywhere in the world, just follow the steps below:
- Choose a VPN provider. To watch Strictly, we recommend using CyberGhost to get a UK IP address. Click the button at the bottom to be taken straight to CyberGhost’s website.
- Download and install the VPN client.
- Create an account, then sign in. You can just sign in directly if you already have an account on the website.
- Launch the VPN client.
- Find a VPN server in the UK and connect. This will change your IP address to a UK IP address.
- Go to the Strictly Come Dancing homepage on BBC iPlayer.
- Click on the “Sign in” button at the top of the page. Then, click on “Register now.”
- Create a BBC iPlayer account for free access to BBC shows.
You’re done! Now, you can either watch BBC One live or return to the list of episodes, and watch Strictly Come Dancing for free!
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Watching Strictly Come Dancing on Apple TV
Apple TV typically has the latest season of Strictly Come Dancing. Like with any Apple TV program, you can also stream it straight on your smart TV. Unfortunately, it’s not free. If you want to watch Strictly Come Dancing on Apple TV, you’ll have to pay:
- £2.49 for a single episode
- £12.
99 for a season pass that will let you watch the whole of the latest season (even if it’s still in progress)
If you want to watch Strictly on Apple TV, all you need to do is open the Strictly Come Dancing page and click on “Watch on Apple TV“. This will take you to the iTunes Store, where you’ll be able to buy a single episode or a season pass.
If iTunes isn’t available from your country, then you’ll need to change your iTunes location. While you can change your iTunes location in your settings app on any Apple device, you’ll lose access to your previous purchases until you change it back. Sometimes, it’s just easier to create a new Apple account, and you might need to do so to access the content from your country. Here’s how you can easily watch Strictly Come Dancing on Apple TV:
- Sign out of your Apple ID on the device you want to use to watch Strictly.
- Create a new Apple ID and select the United Kingdom as your location.
- Sign in to your new Apple ID and purchase a UK Apple iTunes gift card.
- Load the balance onto your temporary Apple ID account.
- Open the Strictly Come Dancing page on Apple TV.
- Now, you’ll be able to buy episodes of Strictly Come Dancing.
Watching Strictly Come Dancing on the Microsoft Store
The Microsoft Store usually has the biggest selection of Strictly Come Dancing episodes out of any website. You’ll normally find the latest three or four seasons available to stream here. However, much like with Apple TV, it’s not free to watch Strictly via Microsoft. Instead, you’ll have to pay a one-off fee for every season you want to watch. Pricing normally looks something like this:
- £9.99 for one-off SD (standard definition) access to a single season
- £12.99 for one-off HD (high definition) access to a single season
You can also buy a season pass (at a variable price) for a season that’s in progress.
That said, sometimes, the pricing can vary. Some of the seasons offered by Microsoft are being charged at around £20.99. When you compare this to the average cost of a single-month subscription to a premium VPN, you get much better value for money by using a VPN to watch BBC iPlayer. Still, it’s good to know all of the options available.
To watch Strictly Come Dancing online via the Microsoft Store, head over to the Strictly Come Dancing page and check out the purchase options. The good thing about this store is that it isn’t limited to the UK. We’ve tested access from outside of Europe, and the page is still available to non-UK visitors.
The Best VPN to Watch Strictly Come Dancing Online
With a VPN, you’ll be able to change your IP address and masquerade as a user from the country of your choice. No more pesky geo-blocks means no more blocked websites. However, you should be aware that some VPNs are better than others for streaming.
When you’re choosing a VPN, you should consider a few factors. Of course, first is you’ll want to avoid spending too much money. You’ll also want a VPN with high connection speeds and no data caps, so you can watch as many episodes as you want.
To watch Strictly Come Dancing online anywhere in the world, choose a VPN that offers:
- VPN servers in the UK, so that you can get a UK IP address
- A money-back guarantee, as you might be able to finish the show before you’re charged for the first month
- Dedicated streaming servers with fast and reliable connections
With all of the above in mind, we’re confident that the best VPN to watch Strictly Come Dancing online is CyberGhost.
CyberGhost: Watch Strictly Come Dancing for free
CyberGhost checks all of the boxes we’ve laid out above. You’ll easily be able to find a VPN server in the UK and change your IP address to a UK-based IP.
You’ll also have access to dedicated streaming servers that offer some excellent speeds. There’s no monthly data cap either, so you can stream Strictly Come Dancing to your heart’s content. We like to think that even Craig would give this VPN a 10.
CyberGhost also offers one of the longest money-back guarantees we’ve seen. You’ll have 45 days to change your mind and cancel before being charged. Although this won’t be enough to watch a full season of Strictly live, it can definitely help you watch the final of this exciting dance competition, no matter where you are in the world.
That said, we advise you to consider the other benefits of a VPN before thinking about canceling. Using a VPN online is much safer than surfing without one — and it’ll allow you to stream many of your favorite shows and streaming services, even when you’re abroad.
Can I stream Strictly with a free VPN?
Although some free VPNs might work with a streaming service like BBC iPlayer, we don’t recommend using them. For streaming, a free VPN usually won’t work well. Free VPNs often impose data and speed limits, which will hamstring you if you’re trying to watch or download more than one episode. Instead, getting a free trial with a premium provider will work much better.
Why You Need a VPN to Watch Strictly Come Dancing Online
The reason you can’t find Strictly Come Dancing on Netflix or other streaming services is the same reason you can’t watch it outside the UK on BBC iPlayer. If you try to watch iPlayer without a VPN, you’ll get an error message that says: “BBC iPlayer only works in the UK. Sorry, it’s due to rights issues.” This means that the BBC is using geographical restrictions to prevent you from watching due to broadcasting rights.
The good news is that it’s still possible to watch Strictly Come Dancing on BBC iPlayer from outside the UK. Geo-blocks are no match for the best VPN providers. With a VPN, you can unblock websites reliably and access blocked content.
Curious about how a VPN works? When you connect to a UK VPN server, your data traffic is routed through the VPN server. In turn, this changes your IP address and gives you a UK-based IP instead. When you then connect to the BBC’s website, the website thinks you’re browsing from inside the United Kingdom.
Strictly Come Dancing first aired in the UK in 2004. Since then, it has become a fan favorite. Originally, the show was presented by Tess Daly and Bruce Forsyth, a legend in British entertainment television.
The premise of the show involves pitting dance couples against each other and having their efforts graded by a panel of judges. The dance couples are created by matching UK celebrities with professional dancers, who will teach them popular dances like the Cha-Cha-Cha, Tango, and American Smooth every week. On Saturday, the stars take to the dance floor and attempt to impress the judges.
(Spoilers!) In 2021, actress Rose Ayling-Ellis won Strictly with her dance partner Giovanni Pernice. She was also the first deaf contestant to appear on the dance show. Other celebrities participating that year were John Whaite, AJ Odudu, Rhys Stephenson, Dan Walker, Tilly Ramsay, Tom Fletcher, Sara Davies, Adam Peaty, Judi Love, Ugo Monye, Greg Wise, Robert Webb, Katie McGlynn, and Nina Wadia.
With the success of the show, the concept of Strictly has spread to more than 50 countries worldwide, with many variations of the program sparking up around the globe! Big-name musical acts like Taylor Swift and Little Mix regularly appear to support the program with music, too.
Strictly Come Dancing: Series 20 (2022)
It’s official: the line-up and couples for 2022’s Strictly competition are a fact! After two years of COVID-19 restrictions, the full live audience is finally back, ready to add a lot of excitement to the performances. But who will be gracing the dancefloor? Here are your 2022 Strictly contestants:
- Kym Marsh and Graziano Di Prima
- Tyler West and Dianne Buswell
- Jayde Adams and Karen Hauer
- Kaye Adams and Kai Widdrington
- James Bye and Amy Dowden
- Richie Anderson and Giovanni Pernice
- Helen Skelton and Gorka Marquez
- Molly Rainford and Charlos Gu
- Matt Goss and Nadiya Bychkova
- Ellie Simmonds and Nikita Kuzmin
- Tony Adams and Katya Jones
- Will Mellor and Nancy Xu
- Ellie Taylor and Johannes Radebe
- Hamza Yassin and Jowita Przystal
- Fleur East and Vito Coppola
The couples danced their first official dances during the live show on the 24th of September, and will keep dancing on BBC One every Saturday until the finale later this autumn. As usual, the results show will be airing on Sunday evening.
Curious what all the fuss is about? Check out the launch trailer for the 2022 season of Strictly Come Dancing below.
Stream Shows and Movies from Anywhere with a VPN
Strictly Come Dancing started as a primetime, Saturday night entertainment show in the UK more than a decade ago. Now, it’s a worldwide phenomenon!
If you want to watch Strictly Come Dancing online while abroad, you’ll need BBC iPlayer and a VPN. Fortunately, installing a VPN is safe, inexpensive, and very easy. We recommend CyberGhost for your streaming needs, but you can check out our VPN reviews to find the best choice for you.
Read about how to watch other shows abroad here:
- How to Watch Peaky Blinders Online From Anywhere
- How to Watch Yellowstone From Anywhere
- How to Watch The Many Saints of Newark Online
How to Watch Strictly Come Dancing from Anywhere: Frequently Asked Questions
Strictly Come Dancing is a worldwide success, and we hope that you’ve been able to catch the latest showdowns by using a VPN. If you’ve still got questions about Strictly, check out our frequently asked questions below!
How can I watch Strictly Come Dancing online?
Your best option for watching Strictly Come Dancing online is to use the BBC iPlayer. On BBC iPlayer, you can watch back the latest series of Strictly Come Dancing entirely for free.
- Choose a VPN provider like CyberGhost.
- Download and install the VPN client.
- Launch the VPN client, then connect to a UK VPN server.
- Search for Strictly Come Dancing on iPlayer.
- Register for an iPlayer account.
Now, you’ll be browsing with a UK IP address, which means you can use the BBC iPlayer! Need a little more help? Check out our full article on watching Strictly online.
Who won Strictly Come Dancing?
Below, we’ve listed some of the most recent winners of Strictly. WARNING: there are spoilers ahead!
- Season 19 (2021): Rose Ayling-Ellis & Giovanni Pernice
- Season 18 (2020): Bill Bailey & Oti Mabuse
- Season 17 (2019): Kelvin Fletcher & Oti Mabuse
- Season 16 (2018): Stacey Dooley & Kevin Clifton
- Season 15 (2017): Joseph McFadden & Katya Jones
Is Strictly Come Dancing the same as Dancing with the Stars?
Sort of! Dancing with the Stars is the name of a collection of international television programs that are based on the same format as Strictly Come Dancing.
Stricly has been running since 2004, and the success of the show has inspired spin-offs around the globe. Chances are that if you enjoy Strictly Come Dancing, you’ll enjoy Dancing with the Stars, too! That should keep you busy for a few weeks or months. Just remember, you can watch programs in other countries by using a VPN.
Chris Bluvshtein Author
Cybersecurity journalist
Chris is a tech journalist with many years' experience covering the latest news in online privacy and cybersecurity. He's also a published author and works as a Product Manager for some of the most innovative software development companies.
Theatre. • American dance of the 20th century: why Terpsichore wore sneakers
Merce Cunningham, 1940
In the American dance of the 20th century, there were two phenomena that transformed the world's choreography - modern dance and postmodern dance. Theatre. I decided to carefully understand how they differ from each other, and postmodern, in turn, from postmodernism in other types of art.
First of all, do not confuse the concepts of modern dance and modern dance. The problem is that in Russian both concepts - modern and contemporary - mean "modern", so often the works of Martha Graham are mistakenly called productions of modern dance, and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui is a master of modern dance.
Modern dance is a specific technique formed by the so-called "great four" (Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, Hanya Holm) and spread among the next generations of choreographers. Although each of these techniques is based on different aspects of the perception of the body in space, they are all a kind of ABC of modern dance. If classical dance has only one such alphabet, then modern dance has several of them: Martha Graham worked with the center of the body, which concentrated energy, and used the terminology "compression-relaxation"; Doris Humphrey was interested in questions of gravity, so her technique is based on "fall-recovery" and so on. Jose Limon, Lester Horton, Alvin Nikolai also had their own technique.
Usually an American dancer comprehends all these techniques, and then chooses the one in which he is more comfortable to exist. You can talk about modern dance only when the production is either performed in the technique of one of the above-mentioned choreographers, or staged by him
Modern dance is any kind of non-classical dance that exists in a certain period of time, usually in the last 20-30 years. That is, for us now modern dance is everything that appeared after 1985. The choice of technique for modern dance is not important. It can be breakdance, and modern, and eider technique - anything.
What is postmodern dance?
In the 1980 book Terpsichore in Sneakers, postmodern dance principal Sally Baines claims that the term was coined by Yvonne Reiner to somehow separate the new concept of dance from modern dance that monopolized all of New York. With the same success, a new kind of choreography could be called anti-modern dance, it would be even closer to the point.
One can accurately name the birth date of postmodern dance. He was born in New York, in the building of the Judson Church on July 6, 1962. It was then that the famous "Concert # 1" was held there. the second generation of postmodern dance, which some researchers will call postmodern dance, and others post-postmodern dance.
Although the technique was different, postmodern dance directors were united by a radical approach to choreography.
Sally Baines talks about what she considers ten of the most important choreographers of this period who remained true to the principles of the new dance: Simone Forti, Yvonne Reiner, Trisha Brown, David Gordon, Steve Paxton, Meredith Monk, Douglas Dunn, Deborah Hay, Kenneth King , Lucinda Childs, The Grand Union. Now, perhaps, this list can be reduced, but it is possible to add to it some whom Baines does not mention.
Any person is a dancer. Any movement is a dance
Many people think that modern dance is something in the style of fluttering barefoot Isadora Duncan.
But if initially modernity was born as an antipode to strict classical dance, then later it itself turned into the same hierarchical system as ballet. Instead of liberating the body and making dance accessible to all, rallying different social strata, creating equality in dance halls and in the ranks of spectators, modern dance became a closed art form accessible to the elite. If you read the history of modern dance in its heyday (30s-40s), you can find the same surnames repeating from year to year. Were there other choreographers in the Martha Graham company? Yes, there was Merce Cunningham. But in the end, he ran away from her. In general, the entire history of American dance is a story of escapes: Martha Graham is fleeing from the orientalism of the main lady of American dance Ruth St. Denis, Cunningham and Paul Taylor are fleeing from Martha Graham's narrative, and postmodernists are already fleeing from everything that existed in American dance in the early 1960s, and start from scratch.
The first generation of postmodernists abandoned the heroes, myths, and psychology of modern dance. If Martha Graham replayed the whole of ancient Greek mythology, and José Limón was interested in Shakespearean and Biblical villains, then the choreographers of postmodern dance were not interested in anything but the body, which from now on became both the plot and the object of the dance. If modern dance or ballet were guided by the taste of the viewer, then postmodern dance did not care about him. One of the pioneers of postmodern dance, David Gordon, said that out of 200 spectators at his performances, sometimes about 20 remained until the end, but he filled their lives with something new.
From the point of view of postmodernists, dance is any movement: walking, running, waving the conductor's hands, the gesture of the interlocutor during an argument. Combing hair is also a dance. Postmodernists took dance out of the closed space in which we are accustomed to seeing it: they mastered parks, forests, streets, rooftops, galleries, lofts, churches, and so on.
There should not be a specific time for the performance, since there is no performance. There is a performance - it is performed when needed. And the audience is not important - sometimes performances go where no one sees them. Trisha Brown often worked on rooftops, coming up with huge performances that no one except the artists suspected: she in a red suit (this way you can see it better) shows some kind of string, after her this string is repeated by a person on a neighboring roof, then a person on another roof and so on. Meanwhile, below, New Yorkers are running about their business.
Thus, light, music, costumes, props disappear from the new dance: light is the sun, music is the rhythmic beat of a construction site, the horns of New York taxis or the rustling of leaves in Central Park, costumes are everyday comfortable clothes, and props are that is around the artist.
The answer to the question of who should perform these performances - professionals or not, choreographers do not immediately find.
Therefore, they often combine artists from different schools with people "from the street" or make the same production for different dancers (Yvonne Rainer embodied her famous "Trio A" about 40 times with different artists and dreamed that Cunningham or a classical dancer would appear in this production Jacques d'Amboise). However, they all came to the conclusion that a natural (that is, non-professional) body is much more interesting for a choreographer. The body, brought up in the technique of Graham or Cunningham, will give out this technique in any setting. On the other hand, an untrained body cannot perform this or that movement, and a trained body can adapt. But in any case, technique has never been important for the postmodern, virtuosity even more so. So, the following unofficial slogans of postmodern dance can be considered: “Any person is a dancer”, “Any movement is a dance”. And also: "Less is more" (in the original: "Any person is a dancer, any movement is a dance; Less is more").
From California to New York
The history of postmodernism began in California, where Ann Halprin, who followed her husband as an architect, left, because she believed that modern dance should obey nature. She creates the San Francisco Dancer's workshop, where we see Trisha Brown, Yvonne Reiner, Simone Forti and John Cage among others. Later, almost all of them would be members of Robert Dunn's class in New York, at Cunningham's studio, and would become the first generation of postmodern dance.
Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rob Besserer, 1990 Among the main tasks of Halprin: the liberation of the body from the systems of modern dance, unity with nature, the possibility of improvisation. She was interested in movement for the sake of movement, the possibilities of the body, and not the plot. In her classes, students studied gravity, their weight, the effect of weight on the range of motion, etc. After the 51-year-old Halprin managed to defeat cancer, her choreography began to have a therapeutic effect.
Ann literally danced the disease out of herself and drew it, ugly and terrible, on pieces of paper. After recovering, she began to conduct mass therapeutic choreography classes, helping ordinary people to discover their capabilities. Already at an advanced age (now she is 94 and she continues to work actively), Halprin staged performances in prison with serving prisoners, in which she told the story of the fading of an old man.
Halprin more than anyone else influenced the birth of postmodern dance: she was the first to come to the conclusion that the search for oneself in movement is much more important than the final result. That is why she was interested in working with people who had never done choreography. Following her, Trisha Brown, Yvonne Reiner, Steve Paxton and others will often put on performances with non-professionals whose bodies are receptive to the new.
Merce Cunningham: general class
What Merce Cunningham has done is invaluable primarily from an organizational point of view.
Cunningham's path ran between modern dance, from which he consciously left, and postmodern dance, which left him. Almost everyone in the first postmodern generation was a student of Cunningham, and almost everyone was not satisfied with his concept of choreography: he seemed to get rid of the narrative and Graham technique, but the style of his productions was too complex to understand. He cared for pure technique, for technique for the sake of technique, but in his productions he used John Cage's randomness principle. Cunningham's productions never went the same way: each link he invented had a serial number, and it happened that before the performance, the artist, like an exam ticket, would draw a certain number - this meant that he would be the one who would perform this link. The order of the links could be any. Music - or something from John Cage, or silence, or news read aloud. The boundaries of the stage were also conditional: at the very moment when the dance was performed on the stage, backstage or in the repertory, the artists performed their piece to the fullest.
There were no soloists, there was no plot. The viewer himself chose who to pay attention to - the hierarchy of classical dance and modern dance was completely destroyed. However, for Cunningham, crystal clear technique remained important: a non-dancer could not participate in his production. And even Graham, who learned in the studio, could not.
Cunningham's group of students (Simon Forti, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Reiner, Judith Dunn and later Trisha Brown, David Gordon, Helen Summers , Deborah and Alex Hay) wondered about musicality in choreography, so Cunningham invited them to the choreographic composition class of Robert Dunn, a student of John Cage. At first they had conversations about modern music, then Cunningham invited them to compose choreography and discuss it together. He taught them not to think about the literary nature of the dance, since at that time, in his opinion, the dance was super-literary.
Gradually, artists began to join the circle. They tried to remove all prohibitions from dancing: let there be any dancer, any room, any music, any clothes, any form. So over the past two years, a certain number of productions have accumulated that the choreographers already wanted to show to the public.
Cunningham's studio was in the Living Theatre, which was too small for his students' vision. They found their stage in a building not meant for dancing at all: the Judson Baptist Church. Concert #1 participants included Yvonne Reiner, David Gordon, Steve Paxton, Fred Herko, Alex and Deborah Hay, Helen Summers, William Davis and Ruth Emerson. The concert, or rather the performance, which was attended by about three hundred people, went on for more than three hours and was free for the audience. At 19In 63, this association of choreographers took the name Judson Dance Theater (“Judson Dance Theatre”). A little later, Lucinda Childs and Meredith Monk joined the group, artists joined: participation in the projects of Robert Rauschenberg greatly influenced the popularity of Judson Dance Theater in artistic circles.
Initially, the Judson Dance Theater was a community where everyone is equal - everyone puts on what they want and performs what they want. Such an idyll, of course, could not continue for a long time: someone turned out to be more talented than others and received more attention. Gradually, the idea of equality came to naught. The troupe broke up, but the backbone remained, which Yvonne Rainer tacitly chose as its leader. At 19In the 1970s, this troupe took on the name The Grand Union. The "Great Union" lasted until 1976, and made improvisation its main task. In addition to Yvonne Reiner, the Soyuz included Tricia Brown, Barbara Dilley, Douglas Dunn, David Gordon, Steve Paxton and Nancy Lewis.
Simone Forti: lessons for children
Italian-American Simone Forti (born 1935) was one of the first to address issues of the "natural body". Like many postmodern choreographers, she studied with Graham and Cunningham, but her main teacher was Ann Halprin. She was inspired by the movements of those who think about them the least: children and animals.
While working as a nanny, Forti observed how simple the plasticity of children can be: they do not think what muscles should be involved in a somersault, but at the same time their movements are much more concise than those performed by professional dancers. Animals have inspired dancers at all times: a cat's jump is always more graceful than that of the best artist, so Forti spent her time exploring the plasticity of animals.
Forti took part in the class of Robert Dunn, but was not a full-fledged member of the Judson Dance Theater. After marrying the artist Robert Whitman, she spent several years without dancing, helping her husband with his projects. Among her famous works were Rollers (“Rollers”), where two wooden boxes on wheels stood on the stage, and on top of each sat an artist who performed songs (one of the performers was Yvonne Rainer). Spectators were harnessed to these "rollers" with the help of three ropes, who dragged the boxes on themselves.
In another work, Huddle, six or seven performers stood too close to each other, and one of them began to climb onto protruding objects on stage. This was a living, changing sculpture, and one of the most important principles of postmodern dance arose: the duration of the scenes depends only on the general impulse of the artists. Project Huddle could last three minutes or three hours.
Yvonne Reiner: A Postmodern Manifesto
Forti's colleague Yvonne Reiner (born 1934) is one of the few who has not changed the scope of her research throughout her career. She is recognized as a master of minimalist art. From childhood, she studied ballet, which she did not understand and did not accept, and, as she herself writes, which did not accept her: “I was the worst in the class, very slow in trying to study my body, very unmusical, all the time outside the music, so I had to repeat after those in front” (Sally Banes). In her early works, Reiner liked to contrast sounds and movements, actively using Cage's principle of randomness, trying to combine classical ballet movements and everyday gestures.
In one of her early works, We shall run, seven performers simply ran around the stage for 12 minutes to the music of Berlioz.
Reiner believed that the dance does not need any motives: neither psychological nor social. Soloists are not needed. All these “nots” eventually led to the creation of a postmodern dance manifesto, “No Manifesto”:
“No spectacle, no virtuosity, no transformations and magic and fantasies, no glamor and superiority of the star image, no heroics, no anti-heroics, no stupid images, no participation of the performer and viewer no style no camp no seduction of the viewer by the tricks of the performer no eccentricity no active and passive movement.
Reiner was always looking for different ways of expressing herself: from performances during anti-war demonstrations or revision of classical works (Balanchine's Agon or Nijinsky's The Rite of Spring) to a temporary departure from choreography to cinema. Her most famous and revolutionary work, Trio A, is part of the Mind is a Muscle project.
Reiner's solo consists of illogical, not following one from the other (as it was in classical ballet or modern dance) movements: each subsequent movement, as it were, breaks the previous one. Despite the complete failure of the production at the first show, it is one of the most interpreted in the choreography of the twentieth century.
Steve Paxton: Contact Improvisation
Of the entire generation of postmodernists in Russia, Steve Paxton (born 1939) is the most well-known for creating a new trend in modern dance. He, like many others, studied the technique of Martha Graham, studied and worked with Cunningham, in the troupe of José Limon. Paxton criticized Cunningham for not allowing artists to develop, turning them into zombies who could only perform his choreography. He called Cunningham's system "a ballet format, just with a different twist." He himself studied everyday movements and at first became interested in slow motion performances. Staged Satisfying Lover 1967 years was the apotheosis of walking: from 30 to 84 dancers walked around the stage, stopping and sitting down.
In 1970, Paxton wanted to show a version of this production with 42 naked red-haired dancers, but it was banned at the last minute because of the nudity. It was too late to cancel the show, so Paxton replaced Satisfying Lover with an Intravenous Lecture ("Intravenous Lecture"): he told the audience about censorship while his doctor friend came on stage and inserted a saline dropper into Paxton's hand. The audience watched as Paxton's blood mixed with a clear liquid, but the artist, ignoring this, continued to talk about his experience with censorship. His goal was to convey to the viewer that censorship is more obscene than nudity, and more cruel and tangible than medical intervention.
Studying the movements of animals, Paxton took rabbits, dogs or chickens in his productions (sometimes without even showing them, but simply carrying them in a closed suitcase) . He considered the theater to be the most powerful machine that runs on the energy of all those involved in the performance: not only the artists, but also the audience.
Paxton co-founded The Grand Union in the 1970s and has since focused on using improvisation in solo, duet and group work. I began to study the force of attraction of bodies: what will happen if we direct the force of inertia of two bodies against each other? And if the body dodges the blow at the last moment? All these studies led to the emergence of contact improvisation, a direction that is now so popular all over the world. If earlier improvisation was used only in the work process, then Paxton's process of creating movement is dance.
Trisha Brown: dancing on the wall
The most spectacular examples of postmodern dance were the experiments of Trisha Brown (born 1939): she made her artists walk on walls, dance on rooftops, using projectors attached to her body. Many of these works have been captured on film: ten years ago, Artpix released a double DVD of Brown's early work (Trisha Brown: Early Works: 1966-1979). What is especially expensive: most of the compositions are performed by Trisha Brown herself.
Having finished with some experiments, Brown immediately became interested in others - her work is easily divided into cycles. Almost at the very beginning of her journey, she was fascinated by the idea of the so-called "violent improvisation" (violent improvisation): logically, it is similar to contact, but the contact in it is harder - it can be an accidental blow or a collision after running. Brown began to be interested in ethical issues in dance: can a performer do something in dance that he would not do in real life? In one of her early works, "Coward" (Yellowbelly), she asked the audience to shout "coward" at her with all their might, but the audience was too well-mannered and was silent at first. Then she stopped and said that she would not continue the performance until they started yelling at her. Brown says that he does not remember how the performance ended, but is clearly on some common wave with the audience. After this work, she wondered if the dancer could not pay attention to what would offend him in real life, if he could dance without changing his manner of performance.
And can the audience accept a condition that it is embarrassing to fulfill, but without which the performance will not take place.
In 1968, Brown began her famous "Equipment pieces" series, so named because she used a range of auxiliary materials in these works - ropes, cables, rollers - for experiments with gravity. In Walking on the Wall, a dancer, suspended from cables, had to walk along the wall of New York's Whitney Museum. In Spiral, dancers walked along tree trunks. Sometimes she hung the artists parallel to the floor, and they walked along the wall, performing a simple choreography. At the same time, the load on the artist's body was incredible, but it was imperceptible to the viewer. For Trisha Brown, these works have become not only an experiment on the body, but also a study of the viewer's perception.
Her next famous cycle was "Accumulations", which grew from solo works into "Group Accumulations" with a large number of artists.
First, Brown made a small movement, for example, with a finger, and repeated it seven to eight times. Then she added another movement, then another one, and then she could return to the first one and “accumulate” the subsequent ones. "Basic accumulations", work of 1972, was built according to principle 1; 1.2; 1,2,3; 1,2,3,4, and so on, where all movements were performed lying on the floor.
Brown has done a huge amount of work, including You can see us (1996), which she performed with Mikhail Baryshnikov. If initially she refused music for productions and performed them in non-theatrical spaces, then later she set them for a standard stage, and since the 1990s she began to use classical music or jazz. In the 1990s, Trisha Brown also became interested in opera (Orfeo, 1998, Pygmalion, 2010) and painting. Brown's last work dates back to 2011, but her troupe continues to actively tour and give master classes around the world.
And those who joined them
Meredith Monk (born 1942) belongs to the second generation of postmodern dance and is now better known as a musician and multimedia artist.
From an early age, she studied singing at her grandfather's school, eurythmy according to the Jacques-Dalcroze system, then ballet. She arrived in New York after the first concerts at the Judson Church. She was called "Artaud's child, not Cage's" as Monk was more of a visionary in dance than an explorer. She improvised with the audience: she could go out into the audience in the middle of the performance and look at the stage with her, or take the audience out of the room to look at the performance through the windows outside. In her most famous work, Juice, she moved the public through the spirals of the Guggenheim Museum. At first, spectators entered from the street, where Monk herself, with a projector on her back, rode a horse from 5th Avenue. Then the spiral aisles of the museum were filled with 85 artists who performed various scenes: from singing and sawing a huge tree with a saw to playing fake tantrums between an alleged visitor and an alleged security guard. The carefully crafted and visually multifaceted performance was an immediate success and was repeated three weeks later in another space.
Sometimes Monk divided performances into several parts, and the second or third part could be shown months later and often in a different space.
Twyla Tharp (born 1941) is the least associated with postmodern dance in her videotaped work. But these works date back to the period when Tharp went to television and Broadway, where postmodern principles would hardly have made a box office. For this betrayal, Sally Baines even excluded her from the list of the most important postmodern choreographers in the book Terpsichore in Sneakers. Many researchers agree with her, especially since Tharp was not a member of the Judson Dance Theater. Others regret that she left choreographic searches for making money so early, but agree that initially her choreography was close to what the Judsonians did. Tharp, like almost all postmodern choreographers, studied with Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham, and at 22 she began working in the Paul Taylor troupe, but three years later she created her own Twyla Tharp Dance troupe.
From 19For 88 years, she has often collaborated with major theaters such as ABT, Paris Opera, New York City Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Martha Graham Dance Company, The Royal Ballet. Americans adore her because it was she who made Baryshnikov an American dancer. After the production of Push Comes to Shove (in which he explains the letters of the alphabet in ballet terms) was released on cassettes, Baryshnikov finally ceased to be that Russian classical ballet dancer who escaped from the USSR, and became Misha, America's darling. For him, in the film "White Nights" Tharp staged a dance under Vysotsky's "Fussy Horses". Their tandem turned out to be useful to both: Baryshnikov expanded his performing limits, Tarp got the opportunity to work with an artist who could embody absolutely any of her ideas. But even in the films of Milos Forman, with whom she collaborated on Hair, Ragtime and Amadeus, postmodern ideas slipped through her works: a dance that seemed like an improvisation in the opening credits of Hair, as well as the famous dance with horses repeating hippie movements can easily be imagined as a performance somewhere in New York's Central Park.
There are no books on postmodern dance, and especially on the work of its choreographers, in Russian. True, one Kiev publishing house translated Tharp's wonderful book, The Habit of Creativity, into Russian. But it was presented as a business manual - in it, Tharp says that to be successful, you need to force yourself to be creative every day. Creating things is not a gift, but an effort that can be nurtured in oneself. Although the book is written in a bit of an American you can do it style, you can get acquainted with the Tharp method and generally understand how the modern dance market in America works.
Postmodern and the world
Initially, postmodern dance ideas were realized in spontaneous happenings or in slightly more carefully prepared performances. The idea of a performance, and even more so of creating your own troupe, was alien to the pioneers of postmodernism. And yet, in the 1970s, almost every member of the first generation of postmodern dance created his own troupe, moving further and further from spontaneity to academicism.
Everyone tried to find their own choreographic language, their own unique technique. Some went to Broadway or television.
The 1980s and 90s were a test for American choreographers: artists who by that time already had their own troupes (Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs, Alvin Ailey, Alvin Nikolai and others) experienced serious financial difficulties. Only long tours around Europe helped to stay afloat, many, unable to stand it, disbanded the troupe. The Reagan era became a crisis for choreography. Street dance developed - hip-hop, break - and he quickly got out of the black and Puerto Rican ghettos. The so-called "next wave" of American choreographers has emerged, moving away from abstraction and toward praising a mixed culture.
Almost all the main postmodern choreographers are still working, but in many ways their companies have become museums named after themselves: they carefully preserve their heritage, travel around the country with programs of new and old productions, conduct master classes and give lectures.
Any work by Martha Graham, José Limon or Anna Sokolova is fixed. Moreover, for a fee, you can get it into your repertoire, where it will be restored by an artist who earns his living by doing this.
Paradoxically, a lot of what happened in America in the 20th century did not immediately take root there, and sometimes did not take root at all, but instead inspired Europe. Duncan freed the body of a woman and swept like a whirlwind through European cities, and in America her dance at first went unnoticed. There is a similar story with Loy Fuller, who, like Duncan, is considered to be a forerunner of modern dance: today on the Seine embankment you can see many posters with Fuller, who at one time admired Stéphane Mallarmé and even Marie Curie (from whom Fuller long and vainly begged for radium for her theatrical experiments). Fuller can be called the first performer in non-classical dance: her experiments with color playing on long silk sheets attached to sticks on her hands still inspire many "tribute to Loy Fuller" productions.
Modern dance, on the contrary, gained a foothold in America, without spilling over into Europe, but postmodern completely conquered it, especially France. If you look at the program of the Paris Autumn Festival 1970-80s, you can see that over these 20 years all the choreographers of American postmodernity visited it: showing their work, conducting master classes, staging performances with French artists, etc. No less books in French on postmodernity have been written than in America.
Postmodern dance did not appear in Russia, probably because it had nothing to build on. The entire non-classical dance of the 20th and 21st centuries in Russia is a chaotic collection and copying from the world one by one. Often the productions of Russian choreographers can be seen as examples of postmodern dance aesthetics, although the choreographers themselves are not aware of this. But a real postmodernity could not have arisen among us: if only because for this it was necessary to try dancing in a church.
Postmodern Books Good to Know
Banes, Sally, (1987)
Terpsichore in Sneakers:
Post-Modern Dance.
Wesleyan University Press.
Banes, Sally, (1993)
Greenwich Village 1963:
Avant-Garde Performanceand the Effervescent Body.
Duke University Press.
Banes, Sally, (2003)
Reinventing Dance in the1960s:
Everything Was Possible.
University of Wisconsin Press.
Bremser, Martha, (1999)
Fifty Contemporary Choreographers.
Routledge.
Reynolds, Nancy and McCormick, Malcolm. (2003)
No Fixed Points:
Dance in the Twentieth Century.
Yale University Press.
Banes, Sally (1993)
Democracy's Body:
Judson Dance Theatre, 1962-1964.
Duke University press.
Burt, Ramsay (2006)
Judson Dance Theater:
Performative traces.
Routledge.
Dancer and choreographer Oleg Stepanov - about modern dance, America and culture - Revda-info.ru
Oleg Stepanov, 27 years old. For 11 years he danced in the Elem sports dance club (Verkhnyaya Pyshma), together with which he repeatedly became the winner of the Style-UMMC competition, numerous All-Russian and international competitions. For 2 years he danced in a professional studio in St. Petersburg, in 2008 he was nominated as a soloist for the Golden Mask award. The company broke up, and Oleg could not take part in the festival. Now she works in the professional Yekaterinburg theater "Provincial Dances". In recent years, the Revda audience has been able to see the dancer Oleg Stepanov on stage only a few times: in dance performances by the famous Revda dancer and choreographer Ksenia Kaplun. He came to our city more often when he danced at the Elem sports dance club (Verkhnyaya Pyshma) and participated in the creative competition Style-UMMC.
By the way, there the team invariably won. Now Oleg, together with his wife Ksenia Stepanova (Kaplun), has been teaching for the second year at the Revda dance school for adults. They say about him that, despite his seeming gentleness and tact, he is strict with his students: if you do it, then so that you succeed. At the same time, Oleg always inspires those who come to classes: dancing is easy if the soul and body are in it. The main thing is to start.
- Oleg, we are used to the fact that in Revda dance is a female occupation. Leading choreographers are women, and ladies mostly shine… Is dancing a male or female activity for you?
— Dance cannot be differentiated by gender. If a person is dancing inside, it does not matter if he is a man or a woman. Sometimes people sing in the shower. And it happens that a person is constantly moving, inventing something. Let it not be called a dance, but he is constantly in motion, for him this is the meaning of life.
— Can dance be taught? Irish dancer Michael Flatley once admitted that most of his young students go to classes "under duress" at the hands of their parents... succeed. The dance was even before the word, at first people began to dance, and then they began to speak. Dancing is natural to man. Although, for example, no one forced me under pressure, I myself came - at the age of 12.
— Isn't it too late?
- Too late. To instill in a child all the skills, you need to bring him to the dance at 4-5 years old. Of course, they are easy to deal with: they teach where the right hand is, where the left hand is, how to move them ... The child develops coordination, and with age he does this automatically. When you come as a teenager, you need to quickly catch up with those who have been training since the age of 4. Not everyone is able to achieve high results.
— Why did you succeed?
— I am a passionate person.
I myself went everywhere - the ski section, the art school, the choir. When dances appeared in DK (Verkhnyaya Pyshma - author), I got stuck: I want to dance, that's all! It wasn't easy, of course. I came to a team that was already engaged. Therefore, the first year was "in the backyard", repeating after the dancers. Then they began to put me in numbers. When you really want and understand that this is your favorite pastime, then everything will work out.
— Do you have a dancing family?
— Not at all, although my parents are also creative people, they sing all their lives. Mom is painting. She is a teacher in a kindergarten, her father is a foreman in a steel company. Well, not dancers at all.
- You are 27, you have been dancing for 15 years. Is it a lot or a little?
- That's enough. I can not say that this is not enough, but I do not want to say that this is a lot. I know where I want to grow. I want to dance as long as possible.
All the more so since the type of dance in which I now work and with which I want to connect my future, I began to study quite recently. This is a modern and jazzy dance. And before that, I was engaged in ballroom dancing for more than 10 years.
Are these completely different types of dance?
- Ballroom dancing is what we see at competitions. Beautifully dressed people, in tan and stones. And modern dance is theater. It's loose plastic. I quit ballroom dancing because I started to feel boxed in. In ballroom dancing - only 10 dances, the same competitions. Got me a little. When I discovered modern dance for myself, I realized that this is a multifaceted world that suits my inner self, and one can endlessly develop in it.
- For me, the concept of "modern dance" is somehow vague. Is this all that is fashionable? Or, on the contrary, is it not mainstream? What is considered modern dance?
- In fact, vague for many. Modern dance was born at the beginning of the 20th century in America as a contrast to classical dance, where everything is very strict, only the legs dance, and the body is static.
Invented movements-parodies of the classics. It was a bit avant-garde. Now modern dance is a fusion of breakdance, gymnastics, jazz, ballroom and classical dance. It is a culture that is constantly changing.
— But does modern dance have its own canons? Or is it a chaotically developing system?
- There are directions - modern, release. These are different techniques that can be taught to people. But it cannot be said that if I am only engaged in the release, then nothing else is subject to me.
— Still, there are specializations. What did you choose?
- Release. This is an English word that translates as "release". Movement, the main principle of which is energy saving. Movements should be light, not spreading the body. But at the same time, there must be forms: you can’t just throw your hand into nowhere, it must necessarily complete its movement. This is work on the floor, many different rolls, level changes.
— Do you come to this gradually? Or is a child, after two or three years in dance, already ready for modern dance?
- It's better not to risk it.
You can’t explain to children that you need to relax here, to make a wave here. Children need to be specific. We have a Soviet system of children's education, and it's really good. When they gain experience and begin to understand what's what, they can be twisted and gradually introduced into modern dance.
- In Revda, Ksenia Kaplun is the only one who is trying to bring modern dance to the stage. After her first concerts, the opinions of the public were polar. Not everyone likes ...
- When it first started in America, it was the same there. People who are accustomed to standards, to classical ballet, to folk dances, seeing something “out of the ordinary”, get lost. In standard dances, everything is concrete: in folk dances - jolly, quadrille. In the classic - love, which is shown with gestures. Everything is very clear. And modern dance does not retell the story, it only leads the viewer to associations from their own experience. When I read a book or watch a movie, I remain in a certain mood.
Based on it, I will create a dance. This does not mean that Masha went there, Petya took that, they met, and they fell in love. It shouldn't be like that. When I compose a performance or number, I have an idea that I put into it. And the viewer does not have to understand it. The main thing is for the viewer to start thinking, to associate.
— Is it necessary to understand what you see and reflect on it?
— It all depends on the director's task. You can create a dance that will be like a painting: you like the light, the music, the beautiful lines. You watch and enjoy it. And it happens that thoughts come by themselves - for example, if actions between people come on stage.
— Is it necessary to be a professional to watch modern dances?
— No! Putting on tricky productions that only a “prepared” spectator should go to is complete bullshit! There are such ideological productions that are simply not interesting to watch.
— Did you install anything yourself?
— Two years ago I did a play in Yekaterinburg. On the small stage of the Youth Theater, we showed the production of "Room C". The idea is connected with me and my family. It is about a person who is looking for himself in this world.
— It's clear how a play is written for the theatre: lines, remarks. How do you write the basis for a dance performance? And do they write it at all, or does it remain in the head of the director?
— An idea is structured first in your head. Then you match the movements, the lights, the costumes and everything else to it. For me, music comes first. This is the first thing I look for when I have an idea. Then I can make a layout on paper, or in a program for the viewer to designate some moments ... But this is not at all necessary.
- Did you put something else?
— After this performance, only small things. Now I dance more - almost two years in the Yekaterinburg theater "Provincial Dances" by Tatyana Baganova.
For me, dancing today is more important than directing. "Provincial Dances" is a theater with a history, more than once won the highest Russian theater award, the "Golden Mask". He tours a lot and almost never performs in his hometown.
— Did you come there yourself?
Yes. Although it all started with me in St. Petersburg. After 11 years in the Elem sports dance club (Verkhnyaya Pyshma, - author), I ended up in a St. Petersburg professional dance company for two years. Then he came home and learned about the "Provincial Dances". I thought for a while. Even in Yekaterinburg there is a "2046 dance company" - a company of young choreographers, graduates of schools and universities. Together with them I made my performance "Room C". But for now, the work at Provincial Dances takes up all my time.
Is this really work? With a record in the labor?
— Yes, this is a job that pays money. In my work it is written "ballet dancer".
By the way, there are a lot of records in my work record - there you can see, for example, this: “quality manager”. I graduated from UPI, I worked in my specialty for a whole year. But I quickly realized that it was not mine. In parallel, by the way, he studied modern dance with the director of the Yekaterinburg Center for Contemporary Art Lev Shulman.
Is this the only school? Did you do everything else on your own?
— Well, yes. Rare master classes at your own expense. A lot of money is spent, but not in the same way as with ballroom dancing. Here I know what I'm crying for.
- You recently returned from the USA. Was there a master class there too?
— No, there was work there. Provincial Dances choreographer Tatyana Baganova periodically visits the USA for the American Dance Festival, the country's main dance festival. There she puts on her small performances with American students. This time she took me with her as an assistant.
We staged a performance based on the book by the Japanese writer Kobo Abe "Woman in the Sands". We had a lot of sand on the stage, it poured ... It was beautiful.
— Wow! Is it easier in America with funding to spend money on such an entourage?
— Everything is much simpler there. And with dances, and with culture. Modern dance is in demand there, it is understood and appreciated. In our country, modern dance is only in its third decade, and development is proceeding with a creak. Our government is very reluctant to support this direction of culture. Theaters survive on their own, but it's difficult to make a product that is not designed for the mass audience. Government help is always needed.
— In my opinion, this happens not only with dancing, but with our culture in general. Officials always have more important items of expenditure...
— But in Moscow and St. Petersburg, opera and ballet live very cool. There is a lot of money and you can do whatever you want.
But in the provinces everything is difficult.
Let's go back to America. Are the students you worked with very different from your Russian students?
- I don't want to offend anyone, but these dancers are ready for any difficulties and things they are not used to. They are not afraid of anything. But of course they are very young. Those with whom we work in Russia are burdened with experience - they are over 25 ... They have already calmed down. And American students are just crazy!
— Is 25 years of age a dancer?
— You could say that. Dancers leave the professional stage after 30. At 35-37, you are already considered a pensioner: 17-year-olds come, they have more flexible bodies and they absorb everything new more easily. Although ... for example, in Holland there is a dance theater "NDT", in one of the compositions of which people over 60 dance. Of course, they don't do super-technical stuff. But if a person was engaged in dancing, he would no longer be able to do without it.
