Shkola Tanziv is a musical group founded by composer and visual artist Serhiy Zarudnyak, whose work is guided by an economy of artistic means to achieve a polysemy of meaning — a philosophy he applies equally to his music and his visual art.
This archival live recording captures the Zaporizhzhia band "Shkola Tantsev" ("School of Dances") performing at the 1995 concert "Songs on Poems by Brodsky." The group is led by Serhiy Zarudnyak, who performs guitars, vocals, and is the author of both music and lyrics. He is joined by Olya Volodina (vocals and stage presence), Shura Myalnytsia (guitars, backing vocals, arrangements), Aleksei Suranov (drums), Serhiy Sergeyev (guitar), Jean Seleznyov (bass, backing vocals, energy), and Kostya "Schubert" on bongos, with additional guitar and vocals by Serhiy Kozub. The video has been preserved and digitized from the only surviving tape, thanks to Yuka Gavrilova, who organized the original filming and editing, and especially to Ilia Vologurov, who rediscovered and digitized the recording 23 years later.
The group's recordings bring together a constellation of collaborating artists, including vocalists Olha Volodina and Nastya Shylo, and multi-instrumentalist Oleg Shynkarenko, whose spare arrangements of voice and guitar allow the deepest questions to emerge from silence.
Active from 1989 to 2005 in different combinations, the band also collaborated with guitarists Serhiy Kozub and Olexandr Myalnitsa, whose contributions shaped the evolving sound of the group across its various incarnations.
Shkola Tanziv draws on a wide cultural palette — adapting the poetry of Joseph Brodsky, the literary imagery of Edgar Allan Poe, and melodies rooted in Bulgarian folk tradition — weaving classical intellectual poetry into a contemporary indie sound.
A recurring thread across their compositions is the tragic essence of the human condition: the fleeting nature of time and reality, the loss of cultural eras, and the search for transcendence through art, themes Zarudnyak explores through his favourite genre — tragicomedy.
Positioning folklore and canonical literary works as a breath of fresh air in the exhausted era of postmodernism, Shkola Tanziv uses art and memory as tools for navigating life's moral crossroads, always with a transcendent plane in mind.
The ensemble was founded in October 1989. On the 16th of that month the collective held its first rehearsal — the date now regarded as the group's birthday. During the years of active work (1989–1996) the band recorded several albums and concert programmes, which found devoted audiences in select circles.
Discography of the first period:
…as well as a number of archival live recordings.
Serhiy Zarudnyak is the author of the majority of the works in the Shkola Tanziv catalogue and the founding spirit of the group. In 1996 the ensemble gave its last concert and, for a range of objective and personal reasons, ceased activity by 2002. Yet Zarudnyak, together with Oleg Shynkarenko, Olha Volodina, Nastya Shylo, and Tatyana Levina, continued to rehearse and record songs in a home studio throughout that period.
On 7 December 2002, a decision was made to revive Shkola Tanziv with a new lineup. In 2003 the ensemble performed three times at the Zaporizhzhia nightclub Tryasyna with the programme Hello for Tanya.
Lineup in 2003: