“This is a great honor and pride for us.” Choreographer Yulia Markovskaya about the Alina-2024 festival

Belarusian choreographer Yulia Markovskaya staged one of the performances at the Alina-2024 festival in Minsk together with Russia’s Honored coach Irina Zenovka.

She shared what it was like to prepare performances online.

“Irina Zenovka and I were in touch. The composition was provided to us. She was preparing her Russian part in Russia, and I was doing my Belarusian one here. We sent each other videos about the overall progress, and made the connections. There were no difficulties. We simply broke our routine down in terms of music, who goes out when, and put it together in a single structure. Everything worked out well because Irina Zenovka and I have known each other for a long time and already had some projects together,” Yulia said.

She also spoke about the responsibility of hosting the festival in Belarus.

“The festival is taking place in Minsk for the first time this year, and this is certainly a matter of pride; it is touching and emotional for us. That’s why we endeavor to implement such a large-scale project in our country because this is a great honor and great pride for us. We took small children to the festival for the first time this year. We made the qualification here, in Minsk. We selected the best children. Probably because they are so small, this festival was emotional for them. Some of them actually came for the first time, but I believe we managed to make it right,” Yulia said.

The Alina-2024 festival was held for the first time in Minsk on March 5. Yulia Markovskaya took part in the production of the Two Sisters performance, in which Russian and Belarusian gymnasts performed together to the music sung by Natalia Podolskaya and Ruslan Alekhno.