ODD DANCE theatre

foto: Qwach The collective appellation Odd-dance theatre came into existence in 2002, when three professional choreographs, Natalia Zhestovskaya, Grigoriy Glazunov, and Anna Semenova, aiming their creative efforts to contemplation of stage progression in the language of Butoh and dance theatre, before having taken part in the bunch “Akademia Tishiny”, decided to create their own project.

For Butoh the movement and form – are the result of understanding the nature through dance by the actor. It is the consequence of discovery the inner places, of coming back to the roots. The action is inseverable to inner substance. “We research and develop the dance trying to explain everything we thinking and feeling. We don’t negate a word, it is really important for us like the pause between words. Our dance is to be titled “The Art of Stopped Pause” (Natalia Zhestovskaya).

Having wide ability to improvisations Odd-dance theatre often appears in live performances together with Russian and Foreign musicians (Igor Stalker, Sergey Borov (Moscow), Gosha Solntsev, Dmitriy Gusev (USA), Vera Dorn (Germany), Timo Seppala, Salla Seppo, Aki Hietala (Finland), and visual art artists Anne Pekhonen, Meriya Malki, Heli Myakinen (Finland), Oniya Aivers, Patrick Vard (Ireland) in different spaces: exposition halls, music clubs, parks, tofts, at lakes and rocks…

From the time of the bunch genesis performances “Petersburg… Where is it?”, “Games”, “Window. Shadow”, “Wind. The Birth of a Black Butterfly”, and the solo performances “Grain”, “On the Bank of Styx”, “Dreams”, “Coat” were created and shown at International Festivals Oudot Kuviot (Finland), Festival of Marginal Art (Finland), Yksin Sateessa (Finland), Solo-dance (Russia, Saint-Petersburg), SKIF (Russia, Saint-Petersburg), Verstars (Finland), Taidepappila Night Happening (Finland), “Moscow Action” (Moscow), and at actions in CVZ “Manezh”, stages of the Interior Theatre, “Osobnyack” Theatre, museum of F.M.Dostoevsky’s name.

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foto: Qwach

BUTOH AS BUTOH

Anybody having seen the real Butoh won’t mix it up with something different. And that is not only because the unique set of movements typical especially for Butoh school – embryonic torsion of a body, twisted limbs, convulsively curled up fingers, active and some times scaring facial gesture of dancers, and the special meditative mood on a stage seeping out to the spectators. Butoh – is a mood dance, is self-knowledge dance, and is breaking out of the life’s rush dance. A spectator carefully watching the Butoh dancer begins to take a part in sinking into the reality. And after that the esthetic is not the most important thing because the dancer and his spectator take along with the new reality.

So should be in an ideal, the Japanese vangardist Tatsumi Hijikato, the Butoh founder, who impressed the world in the end 60, reached after that. In that many followers of the originator of shadow dance still believe, among them are world famous Min Tanaka, Masaki Ivana, Moyo Yamomoto. Anyhow, this principle of deep dipping is realized in performances of A.Adasinskiy’s dancers (who earned the status of Russian Butoh theatre). And without reference to modern dance having a lot of profanation of Butoh, the shadow dance keeps maturating and conquering new spaces.

Today the theatre “Odd-dance” consists of 5 people: beside the originators of School there are their students – Maria Iliyasova, Anna Semenova, Aleksey Cherkashin.

Performances of the theatre “Odd-dance” are really various – here are solo-performances of dancers, collective improvisations, and performances with more or less written scripts and casted parts. Butoh, having been the connecting link of all the performances, doesn’t enforce to the dancers any special way of playing. Butoh limits, if they are exist, are maximally wide and mobile. At the basis of dance – is emotional spontaneity and concentration on the present moment, everything else – is secondary. In the theatre “Odd-dance” dances aren’t rehearsed in the traditional meaning of this word, but rather are built of blocks. The dancer knows the dance meaning, knows how it starts in how it’s supposed to be finished. But inside of the dance structure exists the improvisation dynamic transforming the performance into kind of alive organism, which depends on its present not less than on its past. Behaving of the spectators, occasional sounds, and even slight a cold of dancer are to be the cause to change the performance.

Tatiana Koroleva
Internet magazine ZAART