Sergey Gennadievich Zhuravlyov was born in Russia in Ural in 1967. Since his early childhood he was fond of folk music, singing and dances of different nations. But at the age of 10 for the first time he saw the performance of Indian dancers on TV and fell in love with India. He didn’t miss a film at the cinema or a TV program about India. He was persistent in self education: read a lot about India, sipping knowledge from books and magazines. And almost since that age he started to perform solo dances which he prepared on his own, using dance elements he had remembered from the TV screen. At school he used to prepare regular messages about events in India. He was a little star and authority at every school festival. In 1980 at the regional contest of Chelyabinsk he took the first place and brought his college to the first place in the region as well. He was accepted to the Troitsk Drama Theatre as a solo Indian dance performer and was on tour with the theatre. After this Sergey’s dance career stopped because of family reasons until 1995. At this period Sergey moved to Ukraine. In 1996 he made the final decision to devote himself to classical Indian dances, to proceed regular dance practice and to rise to the highest level of performance. At this time he already was a father of three children and two his daughters started to make their first steps in Indian dance with the father. In our Vinnitsa city we were and are the only performers of Indian dances. In 1996 the family trio took the name “Sangam”. Since that time “Sangam” was a constant awardee of city, regional, national and international contests and festivals. Sergey as a dancer and choreographer many times was honored with diplomas and acknowledgements from Department of Culture of Vinnitsa City Consul, Community “Ukraine-India”, Community “India-Club” and a certificate from the Embassy of India in Ukraine. Since 1996 Sergey gives practical culturology classes in Vinnitsa National Technical University. The theme of the classes is “Culture, religion and philosophy in the language of Indian dance”. Thousands of first year students have the possibility to learn this subject, to gain an impression about the great country, to touch its ancient culture, and for the long time carry the memory of heard and seen on the classes, to leave their impressions, comments and wishes. There are a lot of video programs created by Vinnitsa’s TV channels about creative work of Sergey Zhyravlyov. A lot of interviews have been made with Sergey - recorded and live broadcasted. A huge number of articles have been published in newspapers and magazines. In the year 2005 upon the application of president of Ukrainian Federation of Indian Dance Elena Ryzhey and Embassy of India in Ukraine Sergey was sent to India as ICCR scholarship for a deep, accelerated course of Bharatnatyam dance and Carnatic vocal in the “Ganesha-Natyalaya” institute of music and dance. His Guru was a famous dancer Padma Shri Saroja Vaidyanathan. Sergey has completed this course with a diploma which verifies his professionalism and allows to carry on activities in this area. Sergey is not only a Bharatnatyam dancer, but he also studies on his own and performs dances in Kathak and Kuchipudy styles, sings songs from Indian films (gazel, kavvali) in Urdua and Hindi languages. He is an invited guest and a member of jury at different contests and festivals of Indian dance in Ukraine. He also gives his own master classes. In 2011 “Sangam” dance group is renamed to “Sur-Sangam”, which means “Merger of sounds”...
