Sasha Portyannikova

Petrushka, Russian for parsley, is also a traditional Russian puppetry figure turned into a ballet in 1911 by the Ballets Russes, which balanced between Westernised and peripheralized, modern and nostalgic Russian-ness. Sasha Portyannikova reactivates Petrushka to explore the positionality of a post-Soviet dance-maker in Western Europe amidst the deterioration of political space in Russia and the war against Ukraine. Traveling through different movement languages, she challenges Eurocentric categorizations of ‘avant-garde’ and ‘classical’ choreography, asking what canonical dance modernity might look like from its periphery. Throughout, the audience is invited to a question-card game navigating forced dilemmas of migration, foreignness, and conflict.

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concept, dance: Sasha Portyannikova

outside eye: Anna Leon
sound design: Maxim Kolomiiets

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Production in the framework of the program "Laughing Gecko" by OFFTANZ Tirol
Premiered at BRUX Freies Theater, Innsbruck
2024