Don’t betray the myth : modernist dance and the avantgarde studio Heptachor in the memoirs of its co-founder Stephanida Rudneva

The Heptachor (Гептахор) studio was a leading early 20th-century Russian modern dance school committed to a revival of the art of dance and the development of new forms of musical movement and new concepts of artistic creation. In the years 1914-1934, it was the centre of the Musical Movement dance school, experimenting with a wide range of artistic, educational and therapeutic practices. The aim of the article is, first, to present the history of the Heptachor studio on the basis of the recollections and memoirs of its co-founder Stephanida Rudneva, contemporary documents and archive materials, and, second, to analyze the typical creative process narratives included in those sources.