The Bolshoi in Brazil

In the beginning of July we had the pleasure of working with a Brazilian production company filming a special TV show called “City of Dance” for RBS to broadcast across Santa Catarina.

For 33 years Joinville in Brazil has held a Dance festival and is included in the Guinness World Records for the largest student dance festival with around 6 thousand participants.

Photo by Igor Timoshin

This program focusses on the special relationship the Bolshoi Theatre has with Joinville. Here there is the only Bolshoi Theatre School outside of Russia and they are celebrating their 15 year anniversary of starting the School there after a tour of Brazil in the early 90s.

“Even if my participation in launching the Joinville School of Bolshoi would be my only achievement as a dancer, an artist and a poet – I would be able to say that my life is not in vain”

Vladimir Vasiliev

We took care of the pre-production and setting up permits for filming on the streets of Moscow as well as providing an assistant producer to accompany the crew while filming in the Bolshoi Theatre and around the city.

Photo by Igor Timoshin

Rafael Custodio, the presenter interviewed two famous ballet dancers Aleksandr Vetrov and Vladimir “God of Dance” Vasiliev as well as other key members of the Bolshoi team.

City of Dance will be broadcast on the 25^th Aug on RBS.

A City Like This

On the 22nd of June 2015 we launched our short film “A City Like This”. We have always been motivated to show Russia as the modern and creative country it is and its people are as the diverse, complicated and joyful as you would find anywhere.

We first got involved with Dance Walking as participants when it first found its way to Russia via Alexander Girshon, a psychologist and dance therapist, and from the very beginning we realised that there is a great film to be made.

A very nice film to watch and story to hear, with a certain amount of pleasure in seeing Russians in a way we do not often get to see in the West.

Short of the Week

In 2012 Ben Aaron, a reporter from New York City brought Dance Walking to a wider audience when he spotted a guy on 5th avenue with headphones dancing on his own and joined him.  He discovered that this form of dance walking combines three of his favorite things: Interacting with people, seeing the city and dancing.

Very quickly the idea spread to other countries as the world’s newest fitness craze and in 2014 it reached Moscow as well as the other cities of Russia.

2014 was full of complicated events in Russia and in all corners of the world, and many people seemed to be looking for something positive, something inspiring that could be a distraction if just for a short time.

So when Alexander Girshon announced Dance Walking on social media, it was the perfect time for people to go out into the streets, get involved and share something new.  He didn’t expect so many people would come straight away and that it would grow into what it has now become. People of different backgrounds and ages all united by their passion for dance.

Filming Dance Walking Moscow

Our Producer Alyona Pimanova attended the very first Dance Walking in Moscow as she has her own love of dance. She shot some beautiful footage on her phone and when we saw it in the office, we all agreed straight away that this would make a lovely short film.

We met with Alexander Girshon and made preparations to shoot the next Dance Walking. We shot it with 3 cameras and all of the team had the same music play list in their headphones as the dancers had.

For me this was very important to the shoot, this almost Gonzo treatment would mean the camera team would capture the joy of the dancing with the subjects they were filming.

Dan Smith, Creative Director

As music is such an important part of this film and for copyright reasons we couldn’t use music from the original playlist, we called upon a good friend of ours Alex Beharrell and his wonderful band The Reckostacks. They kindly agreed to let us use their music and it became apparent in post-production that their music gave the film the perfect emotion to accompany the footage.

So we want to say a huge thank you to The Reckostacks. Go buy their music, it is truly moving and beautiful – www.thereckostacks.com

We shared ‘A City Like This’ on social media with the Dance Walking Moscow group as well as Ben Aaron and other people and have been overwhelmed with the positive feedback.

So why not find a Dance Walking event near where you live, join in this wonderful experience as it will truly inspire, you will meet a lot of great people and it will open your eyes to the place you live.