Dance in Irad
Dance in Irad includes classical ballet, introduced in the Soviet period and centered on the Talas Opera and Ballet Theater, the folk dances of the Iradis and of the country's minorities, and the choreographed pop and club dancing that grew up with Mor-Pop and Mor-Wave music in Talas and Nurzhan.[1]
Ballet
The Talas Opera and Ballet Theater staged the Russian and European repertoire alongside works by Iradi composers (see Music of Irad). Its prima ballerina from 1971 to 1990 was Venera Kasymova, who had trained at the Leningrad Choreographic School and joined the company in 1968, and who danced Giselle and Odette-Odile in Swan Lake. Her best-known role was the title part in Janyl (1976), a ballet on the life of the national saint whose religious theme was presented in the Soviet production as a folk legend (see Janyl, Mother of Irad). Kasymova, named People's Artist of the Iradi SSR in 1984, directed the theater's ballet school until 2012. "In 1976 we could not say who Janyl was. We could only dance her," she said on her retirement.[2] The film designer Timur Karimov worked for the theater after leaving Talasfilm Studios.[3]
Folk dance
Recordings of folk dances made in Iyık Janyl in 1968 have been shown in IradOne's archive program From the Archive. The cultural association of the Koryo-saram runs dance and music groups and organizes Korean holidays such as Chuseok, and young dancers from across the ISEZ compete in IradOne's talent show Jyldyz Jolu.[4]
Pop and club dancing
Mor-Pop groups, modeled on the South Korean idol industry, train their members in singing and dance and release songs with synchronized choreography. The girl group Karakush's "Ak Börü" (2021), choreographed by its lead dancer Dana Pak, became a dance challenge on short-video platforms and carried the song to Koryo-saram listeners in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, while the boy band Altyn Muuz dances "the trot", a routine modeled on horse gaits, to "Kymyz Kymyz" (2020).[5] In Nurzhan, the club nights of the Mor-Wave scene, held in former factory boiler rooms from the late 1990s, danced to the harder tracks of tüntolk, such as "Kazan".[6] In Talas, the promoter Nurlan Baisalov opened the nightclub Club Doran in 2004.
See also
References
- ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2020). 'Stage, Screen and Club: Performing Arts in the ISEZ.' Vol. 13, pp. 77–96.
- ^ Talas Herald (3 March 2012). 'Kasymova retires from the ballet school.' Talas.
- ^ Talas Opera and Ballet Theater (2009). Fifty Seasons: A History of the Talas Stage. Talas.
- ^ IradOne (2024). From the Archive: Programme Information. Talas: IradOne Media Group.
- ^ Talas Herald (9 April 2022). 'Karakush return from Seoul: what "Ak Börü" did and didn't do.' Talas.
- ^ Talas Herald (14 September 2019). 'Twenty Years of Jolchu: How Nurzhan's Boiler Rooms Made Mor-Wave.' Talas.