The art of combating Russian isolation

The young Russ­ian dancers from one of the main fla­menco cen­tres in Moscow were in tears be­fore the re­hearsal. The tal­ented Barcelona dancer Su­sana Lar­riba, in charge of per­fect­ing the women’s move­ments, did not know why they were cry­ing and doubted it was be­cause of the emo­tional in­ten­sity of the work they had to per­form. In the end, they ex­plained to her that the Russ­ian pres­i­dent, Vladimir Putin, had de­creed a par­tial mo­bil­i­sa­tion and that meant a large part of the male pop­u­la­tion could be called up and sent to the bat­tle­front in Ukraine. It was a po­lit­i­cal de­ci­sion that cre­ated up­heaval in many Russ­ian fam­i­lies, anx­ious about whether a hus­band, son or friend would be forced to take up arms against their will. Lar­riba, putting her­self in the shoes of the anx­ious stu­dents, saw that fla­menco could be a tool to chan­nel their emo­tions and began to train and mould the young women with all the del­i­cacy of a pot­ter.

“One of the dancers told me that her hus­band had gone to Is­rael to avoid tak­ing part in the con­flict. I have con­tacts there and of­fered to help her. Emo­tions have been run­ning high,” she laments.

Dance is an artis­tic dis­ci­pline that is deeply rooted in Russ­ian so­ci­ety. Many young women at­tend classes for many years, and not a few go on to forge a solid ca­reer in dance with an in­ter­na­tional pro­file. The pas­sion for dance is not only re­flected in the fact that the main the­atres – con­sid­ered tem­ples of cul­ture in Rus­sia – never fail to sched­ule per­for­mances of the great clas­sics, such as Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake or The Nut­cracker, but also in the in­ter­est in Rus­sia to learn rhythms and move­ments from other parts of the world, such as fla­menco.

“The Fla­men­quería (the name of the cen­tre that pro­motes the tra­di­tional Span­ish dance) in Moscow called me be­cause they wanted to put on a per­for­mance, and I ac­cepted with­out hes­i­ta­tion, de­spite the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion. Thir­teen years ago, when the cen­tre opened, I con­ducted re­hearsals there, and now that they have re­mem­bered me, I de­cided to go back,” ex­plains Lar­riba, who is from Barcelona and who teaches fla­menco. She also di­rects shows per­formed in this artis­tic dance form that UN­ESCO de­clared a Mas­ter­piece of the Oral and In­tan­gi­ble Her­itage of Hu­man­ity in 2010.

The dancer’s work cul­mi­nated on No­vem­ber 17, when at the Moscow Art The­atre the Fla­men­quería per­formed the show, The House of Bernarda Alba, in­spired by the work of Span­ish drama­tist Fed­erico García Lorca and fea­tur­ing the chore­og­ra­phy of the award-win­ning Javier La­torre.

In The House of Bernarda Alba, Lorca told the tragic story of a fam­ily suf­fo­cated by the op­pres­sion of an ex­tremely tra­di­tional so­ci­ety that de­mands strict mourn­ing after the death of the pa­tri­arch. The work em­bod­ies val­ues, emo­tions and sit­u­a­tions that, de­spite the dis­tance in time and place, has links with the re­al­ity of today’s Rus­sia. It is a co­in­ci­dence that Lar­riba aimed to ex­plore on stage and to in­vite re­flec­tion from the Mus­covite au­di­ence. On the day of the pre­miere, a team from a major Russ­ian tele­vi­sion net­work went to the the­atre to record parts of the per­for­mance and to in­ter­view Lar­riba. “It is a work that is re­lated to the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in the coun­try be­cause it talks about fam­ily dra­mas due to the death of the fa­ther...”, she pointed out in front of the mi­cro­phone.

Yet her an­swer could hurt sen­si­tiv­i­ties in a coun­try where there is now lit­tle room for ma­noeu­vre when the media has be­come an­other weapon in the con­flict, so the jour­nal­ist asked her to give a dif­fer­ent an­swer for the re­port. Lar­riba, aware she was touch­ing on a taboo sub­ject, made the work of the jour­nal­ists eas­ier by chang­ing her words to dis­tance the plot from cur­rent events. Yet she tried and that has merit in a coun­try where many today pre­fer to keep their po­lit­i­cal opin­ions to them­selves and their inner cir­cle.

The fla­menco cen­tre or­gan­ises a fes­ti­val every year to which Span­ish dance stars are in­vited, but this year the artists were ad­vised to avoid trav­el­ling to Rus­sia. “The cen­tre pro­pos­als to some im­por­tant fig­ures, who re­ceive sub­si­dies from the Span­ish State, but they could not come, even though the Fla­men­quería is a pri­vate ini­tia­tive,” ex­plains Lar­riba. Even the Span­ish em­bassy did not ap­pear on the pro­mo­tional posters as a spon­sor, as it has done in pre­vi­ous years. Yet cul­ture is a door that never shuts com­pletely for those who are de­ter­mined to pass through.

In­ter­est in and even pas­sion for the cul­tures of other coun­tries is some­thing that re­mains undi­min­ished among many Rus­sians, de­spite sanc­tions and the dis­dain that many now per­ceive di­rected at them from be­yond their bor­ders. While some con­tinue to watch Net­flix movies – which re­quires a VPN in­ter­net con­nec­tion so that view­ers can pre­tend they are in an­other coun­try since the Amer­i­can plat­form can­celled its ser­vice in Rus­sia – other young peo­ple are in­ter­ested in learn­ing Cata­lan at Moscow State Uni­ver­sity. Cul­ture re­mains a very thin thread but one that is also re­sis­tant, unit­ing peo­ple de­spite the fact that the war in Ukraine has cre­ated a new iron cur­tain that it seems Eu­ro­pean and Russ­ian lead­ers are de­ter­mined to strengthen.

Yet cul­ture is a dou­ble-edged sword, and while it can pro­vide a way of avoid­ing a rift be­tween peo­ples and coun­tries, there are also large Eu­ro­pean in­sti­tu­tions that have de­cided to deny Rus­sia’s role in uni­ver­sal cul­ture. The renowned Russ­ian con­duc­tor Valery Gergiev is an ex­am­ple of this, after the Mu­nich Phil­har­monic dis­missed him as con­duc­tor and major Eu­ro­pean the­atres, such as La Scala in Milan, dis­pensed with his ser­vices. In fact, the leg­endary the­atre in north­ern Italy will soon start its sea­son with the Russ­ian opera Boris Go­dunov, with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of artists from the coun­try, and its man­agers have felt the need to pub­licly jus­tify the de­ci­sion. So­prano Anna Ne­tre­bko and dancers from the Bol­shoi The­atre have also had per­for­mances can­celled in Eu­rope. They are de­ci­sions that the Krem­lin ar­gues show how preva­lent Rus­so­pho­bia is, and they help fuel the sense of vic­tim­hood in the gov­ern­ment’s na­tion­al­ist dis­course.

In large book­stores in the Russ­ian cap­i­tal, such as Xitai-Gorod, Respúblika, Bib­lio-Globus or Molo­daia Gvardiya, there are cus­tomers who feel that there are fewer books in Eng­lish since the in­ter­rup­tion of trade re­la­tions with West­ern coun­tries, while oth­ers point out that they are see­ing more ti­tles with a mil­i­tary theme. De­spite the fact that one has to mea­sure one’s words very care­fully in today’s Rus­sia, there are still pub­li­ca­tions that do not fol­low the gov­ern­ment line, such as the dig­i­tal lit­er­ary mag­a­zine Gorky Media, which has made such rec­om­men­da­tions as: “Books to counter pro­pa­ganda” or “Why Rus­sia is the way it is”. This is far from the norm, how­ever, as can be seen with the re­cent law passed by the Duma ban­ning “ho­mo­sex­ual pro­pa­ganda” - a pre­text to fur­ther cor­ner a sys­tem­at­i­cally op­pressed group. There are on­line book­stores, such as Labyrinth, which have an­nounced that they will re­view the ti­tles they have for sale to com­ply with the new reg­u­la­tions. These are cul­tural win­dows to other worlds and uni­verses that the cen­tral power seeks to close.

In an ex­hi­bi­tion hall next to the Bau­man Gar­den, very close to the cen­tre of Moscow, an art-lov­ing mil­lion­aire orig­i­nally from Yeka­ter­in­burg has brought to­gether some 250 art pieces by Dalí and Pi­casso. De­spite the fact that the media have re­cently ques­tioned the au­then­tic­ity of some of the works, the ex­hi­bi­tion has been a re­mark­able suc­cess due to the in­ter­est that the two painters arouse and be­cause ac­tiv­i­ties have been or­gan­ised around the ex­hi­bi­tion, such as Eu­ro­pean wine tast­ings. It is a way to ex­plore Cata­lan lands through wine tast­ing and art at a time when, once again, as Win­ston Churchill stated after the end of the Sec­ond World War, “an iron cur­tain has de­scended on Eu­rope”.

fea­ture in­ter­na­tional

fea­ture in­ter­na­tional