Belarussian roulette: a choreography competition in Vitebsk ignites careers outside the U.S.

COMPETITIONS IN CHOREOGRAPHY, while not wildly popular in the United States, can really make a difference to budding choreographers outside the U.S. A young choreographer in Europe or Russia who wants to make her mark must first attract attention at a competition like the Bagnolet platform near Paris, the International Choreographic Festival in Hanover, Germany, or the Golden Mask in Moscow. The Bagnolet platform alone brought major dance artists like Philippe Decoufle, Maguy Marin, and Angelin Preljocaj into the public eye, and Hanover gave us Marco Goecke.

One of the oldest choreography competitions is the International Festival of Modern Choreography held in Vitebsk, Belarus, homeland of painter Marc Chagall. Established in 1987 by the pioneering Marina Romanovskaya, it showcased modern, postmodern, multimedia, and hip hop well before the collapse of the Soviet Union opened the doors to cultural information from the West. It nurtured the talents of three highly original and utterly contemporary choreographers: Olga Pona, based in Chelyabinsk; Sasha Pepelyaev from Moscow, and Tatiana Baganova, director of the world traveled Provincial Dances Theatre. (All three appeared at American Dance Festival this summer, and one reviewer noted the influence of Chagall on Baganova.) In addition, it made a star of the late Evgeny Panfilov, one of the first modern choreographers in Russia (see "Transitions", April 2003, page 85). Because Panfilov, a native of Perm--Diaghilev's hometown--was beloved by the festival, it now bestows a prize in his name to a promising choreographer.

Last November, when more than twenty-five companies gathered at the festival, there were two signs that dance is more accepted here than in tire United States. First, the local media came out to cover the event, and second, there was no dearth of male dancers or choreographers. In fact, one of the strongest entries was from TAD, a group of three men and one woman from nearby Grodno. In The Smoke of Buenos Aires, choreographed by Dmitry. Kurakulov, the men wore trench coats and dragged on cigarettes while they spun, flipped, and generally plagued a feisty woman in a slinky green dress. The dance had a self-mocking wit and daring that would have delighted audiences anywhere.

The opening (non-competing) performances of the festival featured MovesPerMinute, an inventive Swedish hip hop group; Chelyabinsk Theater of Contemporary Dance's dream-like Waiting by Olga Pona; and Panfilov's suite of brazenly showbiz vignettes inspired by Phantom of the Opera. The festival included master classes in modern, jazz, and choreography.

Prizes went to groups from Estonia, Poland, Russia, Germany, and China. The Panfilov prize went to Sergei Smirnov for a beautifully crafted ballet depicting inmates in a mental ward. The Critics' Section prize was awarded to the Moscow Chamber Ballet, which had shown a powerful version of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring by French choreographer Rezhis Obadia. A special mention went to dancer Lika Shevehenko, riveting as the "Chosen One," and also a choreographer in her own right.

Top dance professionals from Poland, Lithuania, Germany, Finland, Russia, China, and Ireland constituted the jury, and an adjunct panel of critics met to confer an additional prize. There is no obvious yardstick by which to evaluate choreography, so the task of judging it is more subjective than judging technique. Heated discussions, sometimes carried on in several languages, enlivened the proceedings.

Larisa Barykina, coordinator of the Critics' Section, when introducing the event, compared the 16-year-old festival to an adolescent with growing pains. For a region searching for its (post-Soviet) cultural identity, there was some concern that the level of choreography would not be as high as in previous years. But the excerpts shown in the gala concert (edited down by Romanovskaya) demonstrated that there was no shortage of passion, craft, and expressiveness.

In a choreography competition, individual performers are generally not recognized But al least three dancers left ah indelible impression. Sergei Raynik, lead dancer with Yvgeny Panfilov Ballet, with a gothic androgynous look, was both grotesque and beautiful. A masterful performer of great flexibility and nuance, he danced with a voluptuous despair and barely contained rage. Tiina Ollesk, the Estonian dancer in Fine Five Dance Theatre whose collaborative duet won a prize, moved her lean and generous body with exquisite control, giving ordinary gestures an elegant grandeur. And in Olga Pona's company, Vladimir Golubov, with his distinctive long neck, pensive face, and fly-away legs, had a haunting quality. He brought an existential stillness to the prize-winning Yellow Pages, a collage-type piece choreographed by Alexander Gurvich, also of Chelyabinsk Theater of Contemporary Dance.

Competing in choreography is not everyone's cup of tea. There is always the danger that choreographers will second-guess what the judges want and veer away from their true path as dance-makers (not that that path is always perfectly clear). But the cultural diversity of both the jury and the participants can counteract this tendency. And in Vitebsk the range of styles and choreographic approaches was exhilarating.

Wendy Perron, DM's Editor in Chief, taught workshops and served on the panel for the IFMC Critics' Section. Her participation was funded by Dance Theater Workshop's Suitcase Fund.