Dance Grozny Dance

Director: Jos De Putter,
Camara: Masja Novikov
Running Time : 75 mins
The Netherlands 2002
Original Language : Czech, Russian
English Subtitles

Post Screening Discussion with Masja Novikov

The film follows a children’s dance troupe from the ravaged Chechnyan city of Grozny. We follow the children, aged between six and sixteen, on their European Tour, in Amsterdam, London, Krakow and Warsaw.

The film shows the children practicing in the rubble of Grozny and performing in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and London’s Lyric Theatre. The images are touching and unforgettable. It becomes clear as the film progresses that these children not only want to dance, but must dance, in order to find a release for their overloaded nervous systems.

A boy is seen dancing even though his knee has been dislocated. A girl literally collapses during a performance. What began as an apparent celebration emerges, by the end of the film, as a desperate attempt to go onto a stage and say: ‘look at us – we exist’.

The group’s performing becomes a metaphor for the horror of a daily reality in which these children could disappear from one moment to the next.

Jos De Putter was shocked by the devastation he found in Grozny: “It reminded me of the photos of Dresden at the end of World War II … anywhere there is a war, the important areas are hit. By the nature of war, the whole city – and I mean literally the whole city – is in ruins. People are living in holes because Russia has not kept its promise of paying for reconstruction”.

Filmography:
Dance Grozny Dance (2003); Passing Future (2002); The Making Of A New Empire(1999) Nagasaki Stories (1997) Solo, the Law Of The Favela (1994)

PLEASE NOTE; THE GROZNY CHILDRENS DANCE TROUPE WILL BE PERFORMING LIVE IN OXFORD TOWN HALL ON THURSDAY 26 JUNE 2003

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