1.Hi Sasha, thanks so much for participating - we hope you’re enjoying the coffee! Can you give us an introduction to your practice, interests and experiences?

I’m in

# Dance
# Body politics
# Policy of bodies
# Collectivity

2. Can you tell us a little about when and how your interest in dance originated, and how it progressed?

Dance in use

Rhythmic, gymnastic (3-6 years old) → classical ballet( 6-14 years old) → ballroom dance (14-16 years old) → Karate (15-18 years old) → Chemistry(MTech)(16-22 years old) → Qigong → Contemporary dance (since 2006) → phycology (retraining)

3. Can you tell us about your experience at The Vaganova Ballet Academy?

There were three persons in Vagakova Ballet Academy, who were happy to see our course there: 2 curators, one manager. We’ve known about that after enrolment but we enjoyed, check photos.

4. Can you tell us about the Isadorino Gore dance co-operative?

Isadorino Gore dance cooperative is my lifetime project. Cooperation with the most contradictory and inspiring partner in my life in order to change the world in irrational way.

5. Talk us through some of your research methods, how do you go about developing and choreographing your work? What are you working on at the moment?

My work in ?? taught me to stay clear in artistic research too

∨ Keep interest and initial intention
∨ Do not judge temporal results
∨ Disorientate yourself in terms of trending methods
∨ Rely on the intuition
∨ Keep in mind that you and a project aren’t immortal
∨ Hopefully, you are but this value doesn’t belong to you

6. Are there contemporary performers or particular performances that you find yourself coming back to again and again? If so, who or what and why?

Artists

Meg Stuart, Jen Rosenblit, Alexandra Konnikova, Elena Demyanenko

I feel that all of them work with the utopia of the body. With the body as the utopia.
With the idea of the utopia to comprehend what the body is.
With the desire to strive to that. Facing with our strange desires.

7. We enjoyed looking into your work, Laminar Flow. Can you tell us a little about it and discuss the process, results and public reaction? We came across the term social choreography, could you elaborate on that?

The project Laminar Flows. Because from my personal experience of observing (as well as being inside) the enormous crowds in Moscow subway and other transport hubs that are strictly regulated by the architecture of the space I remember myself inside those narrow pipes, seeing nothing besides the backs of the strangers and feeling tightness with the people I’ve never seen before and will never see again. Thinking about achieving the destination and escaping this crowd as soon as I can.

Meanwhile, I became curious could we be more playful with these circumstances? Could we create situations that will bring other regime of mindfulness, or even mood, or even thoughts to the people inside these crowds?

The aim of the project was to create a counterpoint to the ordinary behaviour and observe the reaction. Reaction of the audience:

Moscow → this is a political protest
Berlin → this is an art meditation
New York → ‘I wanna join you!’

Social Choreography*

Could be considered as situations created by the artists in order to change the ordinary movement patterns of the audience, reveal the choices that they do make unconsciously and bring awareness to their movement, body and conventions.

8. If you had unlimited access to resources and funding, is there a piece or project that you would like to realise?

If I’d have unlimited access to resources and funding, I’d try to practice ‘Babylon Tower’ situation, bringing in the group people who don’t speak the same language, besides aimed to create piece of art together.

* Hewitt A. Social Choreography: Ideology as Performance in Dance and Everyday Movement.

Image references

Zhaledino, Moscow, 2014
Home neighbourhood of Sasha
Check: I Diggidy: Golyanavo isn't Brooklyn
#Moscow outskirts

Moscow 2014
Bolotnaya Embankment
Isadorino Gore dance co-op
Photo: Sochilina K.

Vaganova Ballet Academy Spring, 2013
SUFA in contemporary dance Agripina Lab
Photograph: Maria Pavlova
St. Petersburg, RUSSIA

Agripina Lab, 2012
Piece of Xenia Belenkova
Not sure more or equal to 3
St Petersburg, Russia

Isadorino Gore dance cooperative in Yaroslavl(check Russia map) – one of the oldest city in Russia home town of Dasha – half of Isadorino Gore.
So, we are Sasha and Dasha from Russia.

Sasha Portyanikova on the Red Square, Moscow, Russia. Performance ‘Snail on the Slope’. Scheduled 3 times, showed once because of ‘the technical issues’
To read: Strugatsky Brothers The Snail on the Slope

Isadorino Gore, St Petersburg, Russia, 2013.
Photo: Sharia Pavlova

28th of April, 2012 – pre – Birthday of isadorino Gore, Moscow, Novodevichy Monastery
Photo: K Sochilina

Sasha Portyannikova is a dancer and choreographer based in Moscow. She co-founded dance cooperative Isadorino Gore with ally Dasha Plokhova. You can find her on isadorino-gore.com, current news on fb and videos at youtube.