Natalia V. KURYUMOVAHumanitarian University of Yekaterinburg
19, Studencheskaya st., Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk region, 620049, Russian Federation
Associate Professor of the Department of Choreography and Artistic Culture
PhD (Cultural Studies)
e-mail: currently63@yandex.ru
ORCID: 0000-0003-2951-9562
Artistic Strategy of Olga Pona: Go beyond the Traditional DanceAbstract: The article attempts to consider the creative method of Olga Pona, one of the key figures of Russian contemporary dance and dance-theater at the turn of the 20th–21st centuries. In the creative work of the choreographer, a unique artistic and historical situation of the emergence (as if from nowhere) of Russian contemporary dance was refracted. In a short time it assimilated the experience accumulated, almost for a century, in some other countries and striving to acquire its own identity. The article establishes a connection between the works of Pona and some of her historical predecessors – representatives of American postmodern dance, European dance minimalism and presents the results of the analysis of a number of dance performances from the repertoire of the Chelyabinsk Municipal Contemporary Dance Theater. To analyze Pona’s method, the author of the article turns to her performances «Watching at Infinity» (2003), «A Little Nostalgia» (2005), «That Side of the River» (2007), «Attractions» (2007), «Accidents» (2009), «Dashes» (2010); «Vertical Links» (2012), «Immersions and Surfacing» (2013), «Shelter» (2014), «Meetings» (2014), «Theoretical Model of Absolute Freedom» (2015), «Unsynchronous» (2018), «Runners» (2020).
An analysis based on a structural-formal approach, partly on theoretical developments in the body-oriented discourse, and also on some statements by Pona herself (from an interview with the author of the article) made it possible to come conclusions and formulate more clearly some features of her artistic method. The method, prevailing in a situation of transition from the postmodernism to metamodernism, transforming, in this context, some ideas of minimalist art, provides an opportunity for adequate in form and artistically relevant «grasping» and mastering the situation of a person in the era of dehumanized digital civilization. Being a tool for objectifying the inner world of a person and human relations in an abstract movement practice of the body/bodies; associated with the distribution of responsibility for the artistic result between the choreographer and the dancers, and thus, as it were, confirming the «death of the author» – at the same time, it has signs of a strong author’s individuality, the national mentality associated with it. Despite the deliberately formal, objectified style of the choreographer’s work, they quite clearly articulate concern about the situation of man and human relations in an increasingly complex world.
Key words: information, communication, control, entropy, minimalism, mechanicalness, movement combinatorics, phenomenal body, Russian contemporary dance, information society.
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For Citation: Kuryumova, N. (2022) Artistic Strategy of Olga Pona: Go beyond the Traditional Dance. International Journal of Cultural Research, 4 (49). 83–94. DOI: 10.52173/2079-1100_2022_4_83
DOI: 10.52173/2079-1100_2022_4_83
