Penza, 12 December 2011. PenzaNews. The winner of the national dancing award “Gold mask” theater “Evgene Panfilov Ballet” presented the performance “Tearing away” and the concert program “You’ll remember me and my world again …” at Penza regional drama theater named after A.V. Lunacharsky.

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The organizer of the performance of Perm Theater Victoria Dryuchkova said: “Spectators saw the performance “Tearing away”, which is a one-act ballet where music of Vladimir Martynov, groups “Les Reines Prochaines” and Alexander Vertinsky was used. Its premiere was in 2008 within the limits of the 21st international festival of modern choreography in Vitebsk”.

She added that “Tearing away” is the winner of the national theatrical award “Gold Mask” in nominations “Best performance in modern dance” and “Best work of the artist all over the world at musical theater”.

She said: “The performance makes the spectator think and try to answer such questions as “who pulls us threads at this strange theater of life” and “why we go by the way of illusions and disappointments, repeating all the same scenario that connects us, forcing to fly in infinite spinning of passions, and then scatters, as splinters of happiness, such desired and unattainable”.

The second part of the program “You’ll remember me and my world again …” was devoted to the theater founder, the choreographer Evgene Panfilov.

The organizer of the performance said: “It is the magnificent concert program made of the best miniatures of Evgene Panfilov, the awarded prizes of the All-Russia and international competitions of ballet and a modern choreography”.

Victoria Dryuchkova informed also that within the limits of the project the photo competition “Dance is life” was held and its winners were awarded with the prizes of the organizers of the concert and its partners.

Eugene (Yevgeni) Panfilov (1955 in Pyatkovo, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia – 2002 in Perm, Urals age 47) was a Russian choreographer.

Panfilov was a graduate of the Institute of Culture in Perm and of GITIS, the state theatrical and dance institute in Moscow. His work was a combination of classical ballet and modern dance. He formed his first company, Impulse, in 1981 to explore modern dance. This was followed in 1987 by Experiment, and then in 1994 by the Yevgeny Panfilov Ballet.

His choreography was a mixture of many dance styles performed to music ranging from classical ballet's great composers to modern rock music. His works were often given eclectic titles, "Waltzes for the Dim-witted", for example.

Panfilov visited America in the early '90s where he premiered his work, Lolita.

The ballet world lost an original and inventive mind in 2002 when Panfilov was stabbed to death in his home in Perm by a burglar.

Panfilov is best known (outside of Russia) as the creator of the Big Ballet, a convention-busting dance company whose female members each have a minimum weight of 17 stones. The troupe's male members are all conventionally slender and athletic dancers.

The troupe was formed in 1994 to prove Panfilov's belief that dancers can be of any size, and not just of the slenderness favoured by professional companies. Being so large also meant that the dancers had little- if any -previous experience of public performance, a further consideration of Panfilov's.

The initial invitation to audition was aimed at teenagers weighing more than twelve stones. Demand for places has forced this hurdle up to seventeen stones. Any dancer falling below this minimum weight has to regain the loss with the help of a nutritionist or be replaced.

The troupe's act consists of parody of ballet along with modern and ethnic dances.