MARINA PRAVKINA
artist.choreographer
Marina Pravkina is a performing artist, choreographer, teacher and curator of the Jazzbetween project, based in Catalonia.
Marina began her artistic career in 2006, exploring social dances (house dance, club dance, jazz fusion) and free jazz improvisation, participating in international battles such as Summer Dance Forever (The Netherlands) and teaching across Europe and Asia. Over time, she developed a specific practice focused on researching clubbing footwork and social dance through experimental approaches to form and sound, integrating them with contemporary dance and performance art, and exploring how music and movement interact on stage.

Her artistic practice explores the potential of subcultural dance (club styles & jazz) as a contemporary choreographic language capable of addressing the complexities of modern society and human experience.
Since 2015, she has collaborated with choreographers such as Iron Skulls (Spain), Adrián Vega (Spain), and Alesya Dobysh (The Netherlands). These collaborations, along with her active participation in movement and sound research laboratories and events, have deeply inspired Marina´s interest in performing arts and live sound, which has become the central axis of her artistic practice.

In 2016, she founded the Jazzbetween project, which initially started as a series of artistic gatherings in a club night format in Moscow. Over the course of nine years, it has evolved into a multidisciplinary platform combining performances, workshops, and research laboratories exploring the intersection of dance and live sound, presented in Russia, Japan, Slovakia, and Spain, and became recognised as one of the most cutting-edge and inclusive sessions of the Barcelona city, where artists from any background can explore new forms of artistic expression, create hybrid performances and immersive experiences, and lead the workshops.
Since 2019, Marina has focused on experimenting with movement, live sound, and the interaction between musical instruments and the body.

Currently, her artistic practice revolves around three main directions: researching the languages of social dance, conducting choreographic research and creations with musical instruments, and exploring new hybrid formats of stage performance.
Additionally, Marina has incorporated her DJ experience into performances, enriching the works with rhythmic complexity and body-sound experimentation.

"My practice is particularly centered on creating new artistic languages that emerge from the interaction between the dancer’s body, the musician’s body, live sound, and space, developing new stage and public experiences." - Marina.

The themes of Marina´s work often encompass the exploration of collective and individual experiences, the connection between everyday life and art, and the interaction between culture and subcultures.

As a result of initial researches, she presented her first stage work: concert-performance JazzBetween.LIVE at La Mercé Festival, Barcelona (2019) and won the XV Certamen Coreografic de Sabadell (2020) with her first collaborative work "Re.titled" with choreographer Alesya Dobysh. In 2021 she was the finalist of the Choreographic Festival "Pasoa2", Madrid with the work " Re.titled" and choreography "We are just ok" by Adrian Vega.

Now
In 2022 Marina became an artist-in-residence at the Centro de Creación y artes vives Graner (Barcelona). Her new project, The Groove Experience, received the Grant for Research and Innovation in Performing Arts (The Institute of the Culture of Barcelona) and solo work was premiered in 2024 at CaminArt Festival.
2024-2025:
  • Choreographic support and project assistance for OoO by Alesya Dobysh within the Expanded Contemporary program at the Academy of Theatre and Dance in Amsterdam (2025).
  • Presentation of the new saxophone duet Abject of Breath (in progress) at the Dansa Metropolitana Festival 2025.
  • Presentation of Jazzbetween Experience, a three-hour site-specific performance at CC Teixonera (Hop Festival, Barcelona).
  • Choreographic creation The Grooves for the Tribu Urbana company, within the Arterias project, produced by the Danza Metropolitana Festival (Barcelona).
  • Collaboration on INAUDIT by Adrián Vega and Adriano Galante as assistant director and movement researcher, within the Creació i Museus program of the Grec Festival. Premiere in March 2025 at Antic Teatre (Barcelona), co-produced with Dansa Metropolitana.
  • Choreographic laboratory and performance DVOYE at the Submerge Festival, Lake Studio Arts Center (Berlin).
2023:
  • Premiered Movement 1, a trio on choreomusical relationships with saxophone, at the Kultursommerwien Festival (Vienna).
  • Debuted the duo DVOYE, co-created with Alesya Dobysh and co-produced by Corpo Maquina and E-Moves (Netherlands), with tour in the Netherlands and Austria.
  • Presented the three-hour performance-happening Jazzbetween in 6 Movements, composed of six acts of choreography and improvisation between jazz and electronic musicians and dancers from diverse artistic backgrounds, at the Mercat de les Flors Theater (Barcelona) during the Hop Festival.
2020:
Won the XV Choreographic Contest of Sabadell with Re.titled, co-created with Alesya Dobysh.

2019:
Premiered her first stage project, a concert-performance between four musicians and four dancers, JazzBetween.LIVE, at the La Mercè Festival (Barcelona).

Between 2019-2024 she curated numerous Jazzbetween events-performances at various venues and festivals in Spain (Festival Boombeta at Grec Festival, Festival Viu Montjuic, Nike Barcelona, Arte Barcelona, CC Teixonera at Hop Festival).
Marina is known for her constant collaborations and co-creations with musicians, including the latest experiences: with Edurne Arizu and Jazzgranollers Ensemble, experimental performance "Materia" with Adriano Galante in the EINESS (Konventzero, 2021), Festival Keroxen (Tenerife, 2022), and "Metaplec", an improvised performance, produced by Festival Moujuic (Barcelona, 2023).
Performing:
  • Abject of Breath, duet (in progress), Festival Danza Metropolitana, Barcelona, 2025.
  • Jazzbetween Experience: site-specific, Festival Hop, 2024
  • The Grooves Experience at Festival CaminArt, Barcelona, 2024
  • DVOYE, at Festival Submerge, Lake Studio, Berlin, 2024
  • The Grooves Experience & Movement 1 at Festival Danza Metropolitana, Barcelona, 2024
  • Jazzbetween in 6 Movements: performance-event, Mercat de les Flors, Festival Hop, Barcelona, 2023
  • MOVEMENT 1, Festival Kultursommerwien, Austria, 2023
  • Jazzbetween in 6 Movements, Centro Botin, Festival ON, Santander, 2023
  • DVOYE, Spectrum Festival, Austria,
  • DVOYE, Art Chapel, Amsterdam y Theater de Regentes, The Haag, 2023,
  • Metaplec, Festival Moujuic, Barcelona, 2023,
  • Ekxina, Festival Dansaneu, Catalunya, 2023,
  • Díptico sobre la caída: Grooves & We are just ok at Palacio de Festivales, 2022, Santander, Spain,
  • Grooves at Festival Moujuic, 2022, Barcelona,
  • DVOYE /finalist, Rotterdam Duet Contemporary Competition, The Netherlands, 2022,
  • "Re.titled" / finalist, "Pasao2" 2021, Madrid, Spain,
  • "We are just ok" / finalist, "Pasao2" 2021, Madrid, Spain,
  • "Re.titled"/ 1st prize, XV Certamen Coreografic de Sabadell, Spain, 2020.
  • "Jazzbetween.LIVE" at La Merce Festival, Barcelona, 2019.
  • Solo "Sujeto 725"/ 2nd prize, Certamen International Urban Facyl, Salamanca, 2019.
  • "LAGOM" at Festival of Contemporary Music & Art «Forma», Moscow, 2017,
  • LAGOM at «Universal PlayGround Festival» , Slovakia, 2017,
  • Graces at Festival "HОP" / Best Grоup Stage Wоrk, Mercat de Les Flors, Barcelоna, 2016.
Teaching Experience:
During her 16 years experience in social-club dance, jazz fusion and contemporary improvisation she conducted workshops and movement laboratories in in Spain, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Greece, Finland, Russia and Japan. She taught UK jazz fusion and house dance techniques, as well as Jazz not Jazz tools for movement exploration and experimentation with the forms and rhythms of social dances.

2018: Marina presented contemporary improvisation jazz practices during the official educational program of International Jazz Day in Saint-Petersburg
2019: directed an course of Urban Dance & jazz Improvisation at the Institute Del Teatre, Barcelona, 2019.
2020: launched educational Online courses on footworks & improvisation titled "Jazz not Jazz".
2021: initiated the annual Jazz Not Jazz Weekend, featuring workshops led by guest artists representing diverse approaches to movement development and artistic exploration (from social dance, contemporary dance and music).
From 2022 Marina travelled around European dance festivals and facilitated Jazz Not Jazz movement laboratories at leading European art centers, including TicTac Art Centre (Belgium), Mercat de les Flors (Barcelona), Colony Dance Camp (Nida, Lithuania), Lake Studio (Berlin, Germany).

CHOREOGRAPHIC WORK
DVOYE (co-creation with Alesya Dobsyh)
Premier: Submerge Festival, Berlin, 2024.
THE GROOVES EXPERIENCE: solo performance + public experience
Premier: Barcelona, 2024
MOVEMENT 1 / TRIO
Premier: Centro Botin, Santander, 2023
THE GROOVES EXPERIENCE: solo performance + public experience
Premier: Barcelona, 2024
DVOYE / site-specific
Premier: Marres, Maastricht, The Netherlands, 2023
Jazzbetween in 6 Movements / indoor
Premier: Mercat de les Flors, Barcelona, Spain, 2023
EKXINA
Festival Dansaneu, 2023
Jazzbetween in 6 Movements / site-specific
Premier: Centro Botin, Santander, 2023
DVOYE /indoor
Premier: Kunstkapel, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2023
THE GROOVES for duet / outdoor
Festival Moujuic, Barcelona, 2022
WE ARE JUST OK
Premier: Barcelona, 2020
JazzBetween. Live
Premier: Barcelona, 2019
Re.titled
Premier: Barcelona, 2019
LAGOM by MIJ x MILA HALIZOVA
Premier: Moscow, 2017
Movement laboratories & Improvisation Practices
more dance classes
Jazz Not Jazz Laboratory & Creation, Mercat de les Flors
Barcelona, 2023
Jazz not Jazz Workshops, TicTac Art Centre
Brussels, 2024
Jazz Not Jazz Workshops
Barcelona, 2023
Jazz not Jazz Improvsation, Festival Keys
Moscow, 2021
Jazz not Jazz Footworks for performance & improvisation
Motion Lab, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, 2020
Improvisation in jazz and not jazz with live musicians
Institute del Teatre Conservatorio Superior de Danza, Barcelona, 2018
MATERIA: Marina Pravkina & Adrian Vega & Adriano Galante
KonventZero, Barcelona, 2021
Conversations by Marina Pravkina & Alesya Dobysh,
Barcelona, 2020
Music video: Jazz not Jazz x LCSM - Frequency (Cengiz Remix), 2020
VIDEO-WORK "Rhythm", 2018, Moscow
JAZZBETWEEN / curation
about Jazzbetween
JazzBetween Club Night: party - concert - performance
Artte, Barcelona, 2019
Jazzbetween Open Air: performative acts & party.
Play Nike, Barcelona, 2022
Jazz not Jazz Acts between artists from different dance backgrounds: Open air Sessions.
Play Nike, Barcelona, 2022
Jazzbetween Club Night: dance exchanges & party.
Bratislava, Slovakia, 2017.
MARINA PRAVKINA
DJ
Marina Pravkina, the ideologist of JazzBetween project and curator of JazzBetween performance-events, also dedicates herself to selecting and playing the music.
Marina about her music influences:
"I was into hip-hop music and extreme sport as a teenager, hanging out in the clubs, where at the same hip-hop night played drum and bass and techno music, later when I moved to Moscow and started to be a part of the dance community my tastes evolved into funk, house and future beats music, later on dancing to one of the jazzy remixes on the house track, I discovered the jazz. From that moment my musical preferences started to revolve around all types of music with a hint of jazz: house, detroit, broken beats, jazz fusion, bebop, jazztronica.
In 2015 i created couple of radio podcasts, speaking about young music producers and playing jazz-inspired music and later i became a DJ with the idea to transmit all the music I liked, as a dancer and as a listener: everything between jazz that grooves me in the dancing room or on the dance floor".
As a DJ she generates her personal vision between jazz, club grooves and electronic sound as a JazzBetween music.

Marina: "The DJ sets that I like to play now are always an invisible musical bridge between the past and the future of jazz music mixed with a lot of experimentation for the electronic sounds in between".

In 2016 she started to organise the first JazzBetween events in the music clubs of Moscow, that ended up exporting to Saint-Petersburg, Tokyo and Bratislava and finally had been based in Barcelona as one of the most avant-garde Jazz not Jazz sessions, that starting from 2022 continued as a performance - happening at the theatres, public and other site-specific places.
Her interest lies in the renewal of the relation between contemporary performance, dance and music from different sound backgrounds, clearly seen in Jazzbetween and her inexplicable way to generate a space that can be co-inhabited by artists who came from Jazz and Not Jazz.
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