On July 1 to 20, the fourth choreography session of Innopraktika School will be held at the Boris Eifman Dance Academy in Saint Petersburg. It will be attended by dancers and choreographers from all over the world. Within three weeks, they will have to create performances that will be presented as part of the final gala concert.

For this year's choreography session of Innopraktika School, 206 applications from 38 countries of the world were received, including 144 for the performance laboratory and 62 for the choreography laboratory.

The Expert Council has shortlisted 21 candidates, while Boris Eifman, Artistic Director of the choreography session, has approved 10 dancers and two choreographers from China, the Philippines, Nigeria, India, South Korea, Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and North Macedonia.

“The evolution of the art of dance in our time is impossible outside the practice of a live exchange of creative experience, fruitful interaction between representatives of diverse choreographic trends and cultural systems. It is the creative synthesis of currents, styles and technologies that can become the key to finding new dance forms adequate to the challenges and spirit of the 21st century,” Boris Eifman shared his opinion.

The main objective of the choreography session is to create unique dance performances that reveal the major subject of the project: “Creativity unites”. For three weeks Russian choreographers Anastasia Peshkova, Olga Lobovkina, Olga Tsvetkova and Boris Shipulin will work with foreign dancers, and foreign choreographers will work with students of the Dance Academy. Together they will have to understand how humans make choices between their own values and external factors: Mass media, the Internet, common stereotypes. The answers to these philosophical questions hold the clue to how to preserve oneself and not succumb to the temptations of the modern world.

A rich educational program awaits students, including classical ballet lessons under the guidance of Academy professors Natalia Sologub and Sergei Zimin, and master classes in modern dance by leading Russian choreographers. A cultural block with visits to museums, theaters and other iconic places of Saint Petersburg is also planned.

The best performances created during the session will be presented at the final concert, which will be held on the stage of the Boris Eifman Dance Academy Theater on July 20.

“Creative interaction between people from different countries through looking at contemporary culture and the ongoing changes in the world is the main idea of Innopraktika School. I hope that the participants of the session will be able not only to improve their professional skills, share their artistic vision of contemporary dance tasks based on their experience and national traditions, but also to touch the Russian cultural code and then creatively integrate their impressions. Every year the number of those willing to join the School grows, and this proves that the theme of eternal universal human values, revealed through the universal language of art, continues to excite and inspire young dancers and choreographers,” Natalia Popova, First Deputy Director General of the Innopraktika company, said.