HISTORY

September 1990	Seven former participants from our contemporary dance studio based at the finance-economics institute decided to found a professional modern dance company. Along with three additional dancers brought in from the outside, we decided to adopt a professional operating structure and began the new season. We had agreed that the first year would be a preparatory phase and that we would premiere our first evening concert program during the following season. This first phase was funded by the company OJSC "Science Fiction" ("Nauchnaia Fantastika", founded in part by a former dancer from our studio, Vyacheslav Pirozhkov). Valerii Ivanov was brought in to help train the dancers.
April 1991	Funding was suspended.
September 1991	Began working on the first concert program.
November 1991	The dance company was officially registered as a private enterprise. Despite the clear absurdity of registering it as such (based on the Government Resolution on Independent Theatres, we should have been registered as a theatre), we nonetheless agreed to this registration, acquiring the status of a legal entity and a bank account and hoping that very soon we would find money and support. At that time we didn't suspect that we would never have money, and that there was no use expecting help from anyone. The company was registered under the official name "Aleksandr Kukin Dance Theatre" (English version - "Sasha Kukin Dance Company").
December 1991	Nina Zavarina of the U.S.A. spends one month teaching Martha Graham technique to the company.
February 1992	Trisha Brouk, a future scholarship student of the Paul Taylor Dance Company and a dancer in the Paul Taylor 2 company, spends two weeks teaching Cunningham technique to the company.
March 29, 1992 and April 22, 1992	The premiere of the company's first concert program at the Liteyny Theatre. Our friend from Houston, Louie Saletan, who at that time was working in St. Petersburg as part of the Watson Fellowship program, played an important role in helping us prepare for this concert.
May 5, 1992	An article by Olga Rozanova appears in the newspaper Smyena, entitled "Brilliant Dances on Thin Ice".
Summer 1992	Sasha Kukin takes part in the International Choreographers' Residency program at the American Dance Festival in Durham, North Carolina, after which he travels to New York to study at the Cunningham School.
November 1992	Participation in an international festival in Vitebsk. Sasha Kukin receives a special prize for "Forging New Paths in Contemporary Choreography".
January 1993	Seven people still remain in the company.
March 19, 1993	The premiere of our second program in the Conservatory's Opera Studio.
May 1993	Participation in a festival in Moscow. Performance in the N.V. Gogol Theatre.
June 1993	Trip to Dnepropetrovsk. Performance at a concert in honor of the opening of the Arthur Kolmakov School.
July 6, 7, and 8, 1993	The company's first tour. Three consecutive days of performances at the Udmurtsky Theatre of Opera and Ballet at the peak of the summer dacha season. Sold-out houses. We did not know then that this would be our first and last tour.
September 1993	From this moment on we decided that anyone wanting to take classes with the company could do so for a modest fee.
December 1993	Participation in the traditional Vitebsk Festival. Festival organizers changed the rules without warning, conducting the first round behind closed doors. We waited for the publicized Round Table, but it never was held. After this festival our company decided never again to take part in juried festivals or competitions (we later made an exception for the Tallinn Platforms of the Bagnolet 1996 and 1998 festival, out of respect for Priit Raud).
January 1994	Six people still remain in the company.
April 1994	The premiere of the company's third concert program in a studio at the Baltiiskii Dom Theatre.
Summer 1995	Sasha Kukin takes part as an invited choreographer in the Glenwood Springs Dance Festival (Colorado). After the festival he travels to Denver and sets two of his works ("1060" to music by Bach, and "Ob-viam" to music by Brahms) on the Kim Robards Dance Company.
September 1995	Three dancers leave the company: Misha Ivanov (to become a choreographer and dancer with the new dance theatre company "Iguana"), Lyena Belyaeva (moves to Pskov and founds her own troupe, "Personal Territory") and Svyeta Goraiko.
January 1996	Participation in the Tallinn Platform of the festival in Bagnolet, France, performing the work "Different Trains" to music by Steve Reich.
Summer 1996	Two of four dancers in the company (Olya Kochergina and Yulia Kuznetsova) go to the U.S. to take part in the American Dance Festival. At the same time, Sasha Kukin teaches technique at the Baltic Dance University (Gdynia, Poland).
September 1996	The company begins offering partnering and contact improvisation classes. The first "contact-improvisers" of St. Petersburg received their first lessons studying with the company's dancers.
Summer 1997	Yulia Kuznetsova takes a temporary leave from the company, while Misha Ivanov returns to the company (for one year). Participation in the second Baltic Dance University (Gdynia) and the festival in Bytom (Poland).
December 1997	The company receives a $5000 grant from the Soros Foundation (Open Society Institute) to stage its concert program "Dreams (Black-and-white and Color)".
January 1998	Premiere of "Dreams" (seventh concert program) in the Liteyny Theatre.
March 1998	Participation, along with Kinetic Theatre and Provincial Dances, in the festival "New Russia - The Human Spirit in Motion" in Denmark and Sweden. Two performances in Copenhagen and one performance each in Malma and Geteborg. Sasha Kukin conducts a week-long workshop for professionals in Malma.
September 1998	Yulia Kuznetsova returns to the company. From this time through the present there are only three dancers in the company.
July 2000	Premiere of "Latimeria- I" in a studio of Dance Station Theatre on the first day of the "Fresh Look" international festival.
July 2001	Premiere of "Latimeria - II" in the Dance Station Theatre as part of the "Fresh Look" festival.
January - February 2002	Trip to Germany. Conducting technique and contact improvisation workshops in Dortmund, Bochum, and Doesburg. Performance in the Schloss Horst castle in Gelsenkirchen. Participation in a festival in Gladbeck.
January - February 2003	Tour in Germany. Performances in Hannover, Wuppertal, Gelsenkirchen, Herne, and Krefeld. We will end on this note. The troupe’s subsequent decade (2004-2014) is a fundamentally different narrative with other dancers. The company has never ceased operation, although naturally the last of its founding members have left. Olga Kochergina retired from her career as a dancer in 2004, followed by Julia Kuznetzova in 2009.