Ein Brief aus Moskau

To get a grasp of what´s going on in contemporary dance in Russia, a visit to Moscow´s annual TSEH festival is highly recommended. Founded a couple of years ago as one of the platforms for Les Rencontres Chorégraphiques de Seine-Saint-Denis, TSEH fulfills a key function in Russian dance, as a presenter and network focus on a national and international level.
Contemporary dance in Russia finds itself in a pioneering position. Subsidies are rare; the money is still divided up among the long-existing institutes.

The press is also very skeptical about developments in dance and rarely publishes anything about young and upcoming choreographers in the daily newspapers.
This may sound all rather depressing, but the contrary is found to be true when I visit Moscow, breathe in the enthusiasm and talk to the driving forces in the field. Without any solid structure to work from, many efforts are made to create dance, to improve the level of technique and to foster goodwill for this relatively new art form. And what´s even more hopeful, the audience cannot get enough of it. At every performance during TSEH, the theatre was filled to capacity with many people on extra seating and even on the ...