Festival of Contemporary Dance as a Way of Existence and Development of Modern Dance in Russia

The article considers the festival of contemporary dance as a type of situational institution, i.e. mechanism and tool of organizational forms of existence, functioning and evolution of this art form in Russia. The relevance of this mechanism is hard to overestimate: contemporary dance (as a type of contemporary art) has not been supported by official structures for a long time. Thanks to the festival movement, contemporary dance took shape in the institutional sphere of artistic culture, in the system combined artistic production, consuming, education and criticism. The article provides a brief history of the festival movement and, as an example, the main festivals of contemporary dance in Ekaterinburg today.