An interview with participants of the Creative Workshop of Young Choreographers

Ilya Petrov’s biography

Ilya Petrov

We will be seeing your debut work at the festival. Did you start working on it long ago?
I’ve worked on productions for just over a year, but the Creative Workshop is the first major project in which I have been involved as a choreographer. I have been working on the miniature Chess Move Е2. Hardly particularly for the festival.

Is working as a choreographer most important for you at present?
My calling is as a ballet dancer. But creating my own productions is a new level for me, and I plan to continue this in the future. The workshop is important for me, first and foremost in terms of gaining experience.

How did the idea come about of using extracts from a recording of Jupiter’s magnetic field together with music by Dvořák?
For one part of the production I needed some background noise – it wasn’t important if it was the sound of a busy street or an empty garden. The recording of cosmic sounds itself is somewhat simple, but it attracted me because they are totally abstract sounds.

Do you normally prefer classical music?
It all depends on the situation. Sometimes the idea is born from the music, sometimes it’s the other way round. With this production it was the idea that came first. I had to listen to an unbelievable number of compositions before I came across Dvořák.

Nikita Dmitrievsky’s biography

Nikita Dmitrievsky

Normally you devote a great deal of attention to lighting...
Yes, I am creating the lighting design for my miniature Euphoria myself. I can’t say that I consider it especially important, but nevertheless there is an accent on this side of the work.

What kind of music do you prefer to work with?
In this case, I opted for Franz Schubert – the string quartet Der Tod und das Mädchen. Basically I use different music for my productions; it could be classical, it could be minimalist, it could be avant-garde – anything at all, really.

Is there a plot in your piece? What is more important today – ballets with or without plots?
In a way, you could say that my ballet has a plot, and in another way it’s structured on associations. Plot-less works are more than important today – America and Europe are utterly teeming with such ballets.

Anton Pimonov’s biography

Anton Pimonov

Is taking part in this workshop just an experiment?
Of course, first and foremost it is an experiment, but I would like to develop this area of activity in the future. There are thoughts, there are ideas and there is the desire to bring them to life.

When did you first appear in this new role?
I first worked as a choreographer late last season when I staged a work for Yekaterina Kondaurova and Islom Baimuradov. Yekaterina also agreed to take part in my project for the workshop. But there are no clear soloists here – the six dancers will all be the soloists of the piece.

What music material are you using?
When I was looking for music, I listened to various compositions until I came across a work by Johann Peter Pixis, and that’s how the idea came about. I distanced myself from the music itself, and immediately I could see a scene in my mind, it was clear what the production would look like.

Your work is called Choreographic Game 3x3 – will it be dedicated to relationships between men and women?
Yes, the relations between a man and a woman in a somewhat playful, even curiously humorous form. Again, this mood is dictated by the music.

Kristina Belousova, Anastasia Trushina