#olgapona

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In today's Independent: Byron Woods' thoughts on "outsider" modern dance—and Olga Pona's latest works. Read on (and comment at the end)......

In a 2007 review, Byron Woods comments on Chelyabinsk Contemporary Dance Theater’s performances of Waiting and Nostalgia at American Dance Festival. He questions Pona’s use of the term “outsider” and her categorization of herself against everyone else:

“Outsider art and its sometime synonyms, naïve and primitive art, represent attempts during the last century of visual art criticism to categorize works whose origins lay beyond the culture of those doing the criticizing.”

He continues to critically look at her work and history as described in the ADF playbill which highlights her “deficits in education, training and fundamental experience with an art form.” Woods does not see an issue with this lack of formal training and exposure to the art form but calls into question why she feels the need to so clearly state it. 

“Clearly, the words are part apologia. Too easily they can be interpreted as a preemptive injunction against heightened—or any—critical assessment.They are also part boast. Their implicit claim: Since Pona’s accomplishments occurred under conditions more extreme, they count for even more.”

Here are excerpts from performances of each of these pieces stated above:

[worldcontemporarydance-blog]

Russian Contemporary Dance

In the biography of Olga Pona on the company website, it states how she had little contact with dance growing up in communist Russia and no association with contemporary dance. She clearly defines contemporary dance in a western perspective in regards to its long standing history: 

“Russian contemporary dance doesn’t have this history, but Russia is no longer a country which is shut off from the West: Russian artists use elements of Western tradition, but they often don’t use the Western “rules”.

When the company was initially established, they performed a type of visual theater with included combinations of short entertainment sketches. As the biography describes, Pona was aware of the detachment from western contemporary aesthetic but also knew she was pioneering the way for Russian contemporary dance.

Here is a video of the company’s piece Three Girls by the Window from 1999. This piece includes many theater elements including a clear set, spoken dialogue, and smoking onstage.