Oleg Stepanov | dance, film, music maker

O L E G

S T E P A

N O V

moving spaces

stopping time

refracting visible

it happens sometimes,

when suddenly,

something catches your gaze,

stops you for a moment.

your eyes seem to squint

in order to focus,

tune the connection…

the full understanding

hasn’t come yet,

but you’re already engaged

with what you see…

there’s that unnoticeable moment,

when things, let’s say,

are pending,

a split second before

the choice is made.

you haven’t fully yet realised

what is in front of you,

but somehow

it made you linger...

in such a moment,

the inexplicable and

unconscious

is present,

but ceasing to be such.

I wish I could

stretch that moment,

or capture it

as on a photo,

where light and shade

drew something

that has already

disappeared

from reality

I am a dance artist, choreographer,

film and movement director,

music maker.

my first education lies

in the field of physics.

for 7 years, I’ve been dancing at

tanztheater wuppertal

pina bausch,

and for 3 years at

gothenburg dance company.

the longer I explore the body and mind,

the more I find how diverse our tools of

cognition and existence are,

and how endless we are in our limitations.

the organism is such a mosaic of states,

qualities and structures, it gives us countless variations

for constructing, experiencing and expressing the movement.

this most infinite set of options is in my focus.

I’m interested to find how to achieve virtuosity

and unpredictability, complexity and simplicity

at the same time, the feeling that dance is at ease,

but not primitive.

humanity, habitat, human conditions and human impact on the environment are in the focus of my work, I explore that with and through the body.

I locate my research and creation in the territories between the real and

the invented, the documentary and the fictional, the political and

the poetical, the present and the absent, the illusory and the elusive.

things find its rhythm and composition within the space, including what is not given a focus, including silence. silence and space of emptiness are extremely ‘danceable’ for me. I am particularly fascinated by the notion that nothing can ‘hide’ from the gaze, and intentionally play with this.

I move towards the states in which conscious and unconscious choices

expand the room for manoeuvres.

space, body, and object - they are those elements that ‘dance’, and it is they that shape the outline and contain the mystery in my work.

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my choreographic language and method

is based on the observation of

the body in space and space in the body,

and in particular, I see the movement as

a synthesis between the architecture and

biomechanics of the body and

internal sensorial journey.

I always try to unleash the potential of the unknown.

I look at things from the point of view of their complexity and duality, inconsistency

and ambiguity, designating the polar qualities of the movement and

bodily states, framing their spectrum

and delving into the range.

I like to play with

defragmentation and re-assembling. non-linearly and non-trivially

alternate the natural movement with an unusual and peculiar, breaking the habitual

or predictable pattern and create a dance that is constantly shifting, and thus really "moving", even when it’s still.

I oscillate between improvisation and composition, gradually structuring and sophisticating the choreography/action. addressing contradictory tasks and states allows me to create

a kind of restrained movement forward, a balancing act, a volume, a state that

does not slip into a monotonous presence.

current

exciting ‘A MOTH ON A BOMB’ updates:

my short was selected for screening at

New York Tri-State International Film Festival

and Tokyo International Short Film Festival

TISFF also took an interview with me

SHORT FILMS MATTER wrote a beautiful review

a film ‘GRAPE MAESTRO’

I’m excited to announce that I am part of a creative team as a co-writer and choreographer in a short film ‘GRAPE MAESTRO’ directed and written by Alla Kovgan, director of photography Miko Malkhasyan.

We just finilised the shooting of the short in Italy.

This short anticipates the feature film ‘PURPLE RIVER’ which is planned to kick off in the 2nd half of 2025.

highlights

of professional

dance experience

THEATER BASEL

(BASEL, SWITZERLAND)

August 2023 - current time

TANZTHEATER WUPPERTAL

PINA BAUSCH

(WUPPERTAL, GERMANY)

December 2016 - July 2023

full engagement in the

repertoire of Pina Bausch

GOTHENBURG

DANCE COMPANY

(GOTHENBURG, SWEDEN)

July 2014 - December 2016

BOLSHOI THEATRE

(MOSCOW, RUSSIA)

March 2013 - June 2014

assistant of the choreographer Tatiana Baganova and soloist dancer in the original creation of “Rite of Spring”

PROVINCIAL DANCES THEATRE

(EKATERINBURG, RUSSIA)

March 2009 - June 2014

I collaborated on original creations with

Dimitris Papaioannou, Alan Lucien Oyen, Constanza Macras,

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Richard Siegal, Saburo Teshigawara, Bobbi Jene Smith, Fabrice Mazliah,

Uri Ivgi & Johan Greben

I am interested in moving from the point of view that it is not I who create the movement, but the movement creates me, or even better, that the movement happens to me, to my body,

as if space and time dimensions materialize in one form or another through my body.

of course, it is I who create the movement and make choices, but somehow this shift in perspective allows me to embrace unpredictability and to be open to the unknown,

especially when I feel stuck and don’t want to start moving as usual.

as soon as I change this perspective, the feeling of being blocked,

stuck, and limited becomes paradoxically liberating.

my research usually starts with some intricate questions, e.g.:

am I a body with a mind or a mind with a body?

what is in me from me?

why am I what you’re saying that I am?

research

creation

the creations, I facilitate, circle around the themes of identity, belonging, displacement, homelessness;

then, shortcomings, tricks and traps of human mind “software”;

power and oppression and the problem of “I know what’s best for you”,

tabu and traditionalism and many others.

my experience shows me that within the time and place in which we create,

the personal people’s contribution and the concept that our bodies constantly reflect

the world’s events and carry the imprints of history and contemporaneity

will yield something more unique than if I, alone, insisted on my limited perspective. the only place where I'm persistent is in emphasising the spectrum and polysemy of things we explore.

thus, the work becomes a mosaic, a kind of constantly moving and transforming substance.

humour coexists with sadness, illusion with reality, simplicity with complexity, limitation with freedom.