the_Marusya

The «factory line» stand-up by the Dialog Dance PR-manager was an unexpected event of the national contemporary dance. The performance reminded some of the Swiss Jérôme Bel’s performances, where non-professionals were free to make a performative gesture. Maria Sokolnikova delivers the monologue choreographed by Alexander Andriyashkin, in which word and dance are equivalent; she speaks from the position of a dance promoter in the market of modern art. Without Maria, or Marusya, the art venue «Station» – the residence of the company Dialog Dance – is unthinkable today; she exposes her frustrations and achievements related to contemporary dance in Russia, presenting in a relaxed manner her expressive body in this expressive, clever and funny narrative. The performance marks the border between dance and non-dance and allows us to quickly and cheerfully assimilate professional secrets of great complexity. The PR-manager Marusya governs over the audience, busily commanding and demanding that they should all read the press release before the performance starts. Then she disappears and reappears, not as an iron lady of PR, but as a clumsy, plumpish workaholic dancer wearing a red track suit; her story acquires a completely different physicality. Little by little her body, infected by the dance, becomes a medium for the embarrassed and «bodiless» audience which masters, together with Marusya, the mysteries of «the body as it is being made».