Interview

Dance Chanel - Interview with the choreographers of the show about Coco Chanel

LBD - a little black dress - this is the name of a fragment from the performance about Coco Chanel, which is created by young choreographers Veronika Kasperova and Kirill Baltrukov.

The author of the idea for the play is Veronika Kasperova. Choreographers-directors - Veronika Kasperova and Kirill Baltrukov. A group of dancers (12 people) - students and graduates of the Belarusian State University of Culture and Arts.

A performance about fashion, created with the help of choreographic means. The goal is to create an elegant and stylish piece, just like the creativity of Coco Chanel itself. The means are creativity and enthusiasm. So, can creativity exist today for the sake of creativity and is it possible to assemble a theater troupe and make a good and high-quality product from scratch?

Performance about Coco Chanel - interview with choreographers

How did the idea for the play come about?

Veronica: I have some interesting musical material. Then there were fabrics, mannequins. I started working on a choreographic number. From music, mannequin, fabrics, that is, design, fashion, dance. This is how the idea of LBD came about - a little black dress. I love Chanel, I love black, white. Then I started to study biography of Coco Chanel, her work, her style of work. And I realized that my number is Chanel.
(smiles)

Are you the choreographers-directors of the play, Veronica, and Kirill? How did you start working with Kirill?

Veronica: Initially, I worked alone on this idea. I invited the students - choreographers of BSUKI. And Kirill and I have been friends for a long time and have worked on other projects, created duet dances.

Kirill: We worked in parallel. She (Veronica) is on Chanel, the dance part, I worked on other projects. That is, they existed in parallel.

Kirill: At some point, Veronica offered to help, to participate in the project. And I agreed (smiles)

Veronica: We have united our dancers. There are 12 of them. There are difficulties with people - someone leaves, someone comes. But the main thing is desire - and we are doing our own performance.

What difficulties did you face while working?

Veronica: The main difficulty is Personnel, (smiles) the presence of a permanent troupe of dancers.

Kirill: There are few people who are ready to work on enthusiasm, there are few responsible ones.

What results do you expect from your project in the near future?

Veronica: The first step is to shoot a video. The video was filmed by Dmitry Levkovsky and Maria Monakova. The video was supposed to show the reaction of people to what we do - like / dislike, relevant or not. In general, those who watched the video on social networks were interested in them - interest arose.

In general, the goal is to make something that will be beautiful, elegant, “tasty”.

Veronica: In modern choreography, the tendencies of foreign dance art are now used, where the plot is not clear, and the viewer is left with only an emotional perception of what he saw.

Kirill: Aesthetics and style from Veronica. Veronica does everything in style. She always dresses stylishly, her choreography is stylish. We have to make a good synthesis. And from me a little surrealism (laughs)

Kirill: Our audience can be a different audience, one that has seen enough of modern choreography and wants something understandable.

Veronica: It's more of a classic, like Chanel itself. But with notes of Cyril.
(laughs)

Is the plot of the play based on the biography of Coco Chanel?

Veronica: yes biography, a certain stage of her work and personal life.

What dance styles do you use in the show?

Veronica: Modern choreography with elements of tango, jazz, Classic plot, but at the same time in a modern presentation.

Kirill: When we met, we danced tango.

Kirill: Tango elements will be used as decoration for the performance. We want to convey the emotional atmosphere, to show the personal experiences of Coco Chanel, which were directed towards creativity.

Your joint photo session with Kirill based on the performance? Tell us about her.

Veronica: She was creative. Everyone who participated in it liked it. But it is not based on the play. Perhaps we will consider this idea and use it in the play (laughs)

Kirill: Veronica's idea.

Veronica: Professional photographer Valeria Kasperova worked with us and helped to create the image. In Vitebsk, he is considered the best photographer.

How do you find the right people to work with you?

Veronica: We are looking, and the right people are found. We do something ourselves. For the shooting of the video, the costumes were sewn by myself and Cyril.

And who sews the costumes for the show itself?

Veronica: There is a person who sews costumes for us - Alesya Stasevich.

Are all financial expenses your expenses?

Veronica and Kirill: Yes, only your investments.

Is it possible to find sponsors for such a project in Belarus today?

Kirill: Perhaps they are, but we have not encountered this. So far, we are doing creativity, for the sake of creativity.

Veronica: But I see our project as commercial. Not the whole performance, but separate fragments. Some moments from the performance can be made commercial. There were offers to speak with certain fragments.

The name of your creative group V.V & K.gr - what does it mean?

Veronica: I wanted to take part with a number from this performance in the IFMC festival. I wanted to see the reaction of the audience to this project. It was necessary to come up with an application and a name. I never took part in the festival and it was good, because after watching it, I realized that I would not fit into it at all, my number is not the format of the festival.

Kirill: I suggested VK (Veronika Kasperova), VKdance.

Veronica: Sounds like Vkontakte - no. Although it would be funny (laughs)

Veronica: In the end, I played with the letters, I liked this combination of V.V and K. Then, when Kirill appeared, "& K" can be associated with "and Kirill". In general, I just gave a name, I thought, then I will redo it, but it remained so.