I’ve been connected to dance since childhood. First through ballroom, ballet and folk dance — and even earlier through my grandmother, who played the balalaika for me, sewed colourful skirts, and recognised early on something in me that came completely naturally. That open, genuine aliveness showed itself most clearly in movement and dance. In loose hair, a swirling skirt and the sheer physical joy of a child, she saw something real — and knew how to give it space, acceptance and freedom to express itself.

Later, life took many different turns. There were many moves, interruptions and periods when dance was more dormant than alive in me. But movement kept finding its way back into my life. Not as technique or form, but as a way of coming closer to myself.

As a teenager, I began to notice how deeply the body and our inner state are connected. How the things we do not say still show up in our posture, our breathing and the way we move.

Since 2010, I have trained through a range of courses, programmes and research labs with teachers and mentors from the US, Europe and Moscow, in Authentic Movement, somatic approaches, contact improvisation, improvisation in therapy, shadow work, aikido, performative research, and work with families, children and people with special needs.

But what has always interested me most is the moment when movement becomes more than just movement. When the body becomes a way of coming closer to yourself. When something releases, shifts and comes alive again.

Prostor svobode gradually grew out of this exploration — a space where it does not matter how “correctly” you move, but whether movement helps you come closer to yourself, to aliveness, clarity and freedom.