Press · 16 October 2026 · Telovidenie, Saydash Cultural Centre

“Two Wings” of One Triptych: How Alsu Sungatullina’s Pages from a Life Took Flight on the Dance Stage Once Again

When music steps beyond the written score, it gains a visual dimension of its own. Alsu Sungatullina’s triptych Pages from a Life for flute, violin and piano is now enjoying a beautiful new wave of life. In early September its studio recording premiered on streaming platforms, and on 16 October the music took physical shape on the stage of the Saydash Cultural Centre. It was performed live at Telovidenie, the International Festival of Dance Performance and one of Russia’s leading centres of contemporary dance.

The Pantera Chamber Ballet revived a choreographic piece set to this music several years ago. The evening made it plain that contemporary classical music is not locked away in academic concert halls: it is a living, pulsing art, open to dialogue.

New Sincerity and the Tactility of Sound

The cinematic charm of the triptych is carved out of the New Sincerity, understood not only as a musical style but as the composer’s own philosophy of life. Spirituality or naivety? Melancholy or nostalgia?

Remarkably, the airy texture of the music turns out, on closer listening, to come from the familiar Tatar pentatonic scale, whose softness the composer has raised to an absolute. The trembling ornaments are like life beating in a fragile heart.

The music is intensely tactile: the rustle of the flute is the breath of the lungs, the piano is the pulse, and the warmth of the violin is the touch of skin against the skin of beloved hands.

This is embodied music, able to bring us back to ourselves after a long dissolution in the vast, noisy world.

It is this tangibility that makes Pages from a Life an ideal foundation for dance. Yet even alone with the recording on a streaming service, with no choreography at all, the cycle lets you live through an invisible ballet of your own, about yourself.

Daya Bekirova, musicologist

Pages from a LifeReleased on the Shostakovichi i Stravinskie label · Listen on all platforms ↗

A Word from the Composer

Choreography has always drawn me! A performance at the Telovidenie festival, where live sound combined with the fleeting magic of movement, created a unique energy and atmosphere. Performances like this are the result of searching, hard work and moments of insight.

The music of the triptych Pages from a Life had previously been heard on concert stages in Kazan and Perm. I am so glad that along the way I have been able to work with different musicians, and I sincerely thank them all!

The International Festival of Dance Performance Telovidenie was held on the main stage of the Saydash Cultural Centre for the fifteenth time (since 2008!), and this performance was special. The big stage, the grand piano, the amplified instruments, the lighting, the audience: all of it gave a special cut to the triptych Pages from a Life in Nail Ibragimov’s choreography.

Thank you for the invitation! Thank you to the musicians! Thank you for our shared co-creation! Thank you for the organisation! Thank you to all the audience and friends!

With respect and gratitude,
Alsu Sungatullina, composer