Student Spring 2024

Yugra State University hosted the Student Spring-2024 contest-festival. This year the competition viewings were held without audience participation.

Manifest yourself - "Goodbye, Roma?"

The festival programme included different directions: "Vocal", "Instrumental", "Theatre", "Dance", "Original Genre" and "Student Programme". For the first time there were also new nominations - "Media", "Video" and "Art".

Renata Oprya, a fourth-year student of Journalism, has been making videos since she was a school student. During her student years the girl continued doing what she loved to do. Now she has her own team. These are her groupmates Elina Galicheva and Alexandra Ivanova, they act as actresses on the set of short films. Last year the girls took the grand prize at the district festival with the work "I am also afraid". Renata likes to raise significant problems of society with the help of her creative work. Last time the film focused on people's fears and uncertainty about something new. At this Student Spring the judges saw a short fiction film "Manifest - "Goodbye, Roma?". This is a story about people's thoughts, the very "rats in the attic" that control our thoughts and life. The work was highly appreciated by the jury and became the best at the festival.

"What I like most of all is the non-triviality of the idea. We didn't film about people and were very worried that the audience wouldn't realise who we were. It took about eight hours to film. The only difficulty was that the film ends with a fight: the actors threw food and poured juice on themselves. Of course, it took a long time to clean up afterwards, we had all the curtains in the cake, we had to take them to the dry cleaners. "Student Spring" for me is getting the brightest emotions! I am very excited when I see how the guys put their hearts into the creative process," Renata said.

"Last Chance"

As the organisers and participants of the festival say, the competition has changed the lives of many people: they managed to believe in their own strengths and shared their creative work with the public.

Olga Petrova, a third-year student of Philology, has been participating in the festival for the three years already. She performs in the direction "Theatre". During this time she has achieved high results. Last year Olga became the first at the student and district levels with a monologue based on Maria Fomkina's work "Ah, Shelly, baby, how I envy you". This time her piece was called "Last Chance." The artist sincerely got into the role of an independent woman who dreams of a family. For the first time Olga received the highest award for her work - the Grand Prix of the festival.

"I chose this work because I love strong heroines who are very vulnerable at heart. For me, Student Spring is another life in which you can be strange, and this is part of your image. Thanks to participation in this competition, I made friends, got a lot of positive emotions, and was able to travel around Russia. I am glad that I found one of the niches that allows me to enjoy my youth," the girl shared.

"Mad Mood" dance team

"Mad Mood" dance team won the Grand Prix in the dance direction. Six girls in bright pink costumes energetically presented K-pop direction. They danced to one of BABYMONSTER's songs "2NE1 Mash Up".

Competent staging of hands, change of patterns, lively emotions - all this formed a single picture. The team has already existed for two years, the dancers are actively travelling to various festivals. The last ones: Kitsune-con and K-Pop Aigoo Ural Festival 2023.

Everyone finds time for their favourite business, because many of them have been developing in this direction for more than one year. Elizaveta Petrova, a member of the team, learnt ligaments in her school years, actively filmed her dances and published them in social networks. Finding like-minded people in her hobby was a dream come true for the young dancer.

- Student Spring was an important milestone for our team. It was the first time we received an award, and even such an award! We still can't believe that K-Ror resonated with the judges and the audience. We are incredibly grateful for the words of support. Many people were pleasantly surprised by our performance and wished us further success. I don't feel any excitement being on stage. I try to get maximum pleasure from the performance and give myself to the full. Performing on stage, it is as if I thank the little girl Lisa for her endeavours and aspirations, which she has been putting in all these years.

The next stage for the participants will be preparation for the district stage of "Student Spring", which will be held in the capital of the district from 15 to 18 April. Traditionally, the best teams are selected at the regional level to represent their university at the Russian Student Spring. This year it will be held in Saratov from 26 May to 1 June.