CAPÍTULO III: METODOLOGÍA DEL PROYECTO
4.2 PRÁCTICA DE LA ENSEÑANZA DE DANZA EDUCATIVA
According to Mitin, Londoners, unlike Muscovites, did not need to be prepared for Ziferblat—it is rather Ziferblat that had to be tested in the creative, or, rather, super- creative city of London. As he explained in his media interviews, he chose London not only for some personal and organisational reasons (i.e. his long-standing interest in English culture and a relatively short distance between London and Moscow) but also as a challenge, which, if successful, would have paved the way for Ziferblat in the global context: ‘We wanted to check whether this concept can fit in the city that is the most progressive in the world in terms of the amount of creative youth’; ‘If we conquer London, we can be confident about opening branches in other parts of the world’
(interviews in: Ilyina, 2013; Zakharyeva, 2013).
Upon arrival, he and Alymkulova spent a couple of months on fieldwork research, or, as Mitin put it, ‘soaking up London’s aesthetic’ (interview in: Nikitina, 2014). Whereas his choice of locations for Treehouse and Ziferblat in Moscow was determined by its concentric-radial form, accumulating all sorts of capital— financial, cultural and social— in its historical and geographic centre, London’s cultural geography was much trickier, so Mitin used the help of locals and his LiveJournal followers. In July 2013, he
published a post explaining his research strategy (‘We’re going to visit all potentially interesting districts and rate them, then we’ll start looking for the property’) and asking his followers to share their thoughts on the criteria they find essential for choosing a place for Ziferblat; he also announced his visit to Shoreditch, describing it as an area
‘with hipsters, the oldest gay bar, graffiti, galleries, art shops and things like that’ (Mitin, 2013b). As follows from his reply to one of the commenters asking why he brought up the gay bar—‘Because this fact adds the zest to the atmosphere of this district’—his vision of London was influenced by Floridanian approach to the creative city, promoting the so-called ‘gay index’ as a quantification of creativity and diversity (Florida, 2005: 40), which was afterwards widely criticised for commodifying homosexuality and
nurturing stereotypes about gay culture (Serpentini, 2013). The following extract from Alymkulova’s interview sheds light on why she and Mitin eventually opted for
Shoreditch: ‘We chose it because it’s so progressive. (…) We figured—it’s a lively area, it’s mostly young people, who are more flexible and open-minded, and overall, it’s such a cool district’ (interview, Pokrovka, July 2016).
In my 2016 interviews with Old Street’s team, I have heard different opinions on whether Shoreditch’s cultural identity fits with the idea of Ziferblat—some hosts were positive about this (‘The vibe down the street—it’s us. If we were in a different area or part of London, maybe we wouldn’t want foot traffic, but because we’re in Shoreditch— yeah, foot traffic, for sure!’),201 others were more critical (‘Shoreditch is known as
something very pretentious, something that puts on a show, and doesn’t actually mean anything, so we had to define ourselves in contrast to it’),202 but no one has ever—
either explicitly or implicitly—pointed at any category of people that would not be welcome in Ziferblat on the basis of their class belonging or cultural capital. In fact, Old Street’s team contested Mitin’s choice of location as insufficiently inclusive;
furthermore, they not only cooperate with local and adjacent communities203 but also
make efforts to reach those who have already been forced out of Hackney because of gentrification, as will be discussed in more detail in chapter 7.
Overall, Mitin’s decision to open Ziferblat in London seems to have paid off—the image of a super-creative city served as a locomotive for Ziferblat’s promotion in a global context. Most importantly, it caught the interest of Shenton Group, whose vision of Ziferblat’s cultural-geographic identity in the UK context was even more specific. 6.1.3. Ziferblat in Manchester: a collaboration
If Mitin had a number of districts to choose from in London, the Northern Quarter was, as ZUKI’s COO Gareth put it, ‘a no-brainer’ for a Manchester-based team (interview, October 2016). Edge Street’s guests were also unanimous—as one of them
summarised, ‘It fits well into the Northern Quarter; being here completely suits the kind of personality that has. When it popped up, I was not surprised that it was here’
(Harper, interview, March 2017). When talking about this district, many participants, including both staff and guests, compared it to East London or, even more specifically,
201 Sara, interview, August 2016.
202 Evan, interview, September 2016. See also his comment on the contrast between Ziferblat and
Shoreditch’s streets, full of ‘drunken, shouting, violent people’ (presumably, on Friday’s and Saturday’s nights), p. 105.
203'People who live or used to live in Hackney and around—white, black, Asian, Muslim… [pointing
directions] there’s Bricklane over here, African-Caribbean neighbourhoods over there—they all come to Ziferblat, they bring their culture in here… at our poetry slams, for example' (Alex, Old Street branch manager, interview, November 2016).
Shoreditch. However, further research revealed one important difference between these two locations that had a strong impact on both Ziferblats. Despite often being labelled as a ‘hipster’ area, the Northern Quarter—largely due to the difference
between Manchester’s and London’s geographies—has much more diverse foot traffic than Shoreditch, as it is not so secluded. To quote Gareth, ‘London is diverse as a whole but it’s full of small villages, which aren’t necessarily particularly diverse. (…) Shoreditch is very far east, so there is nothing else around there, other than bars and restaurants, whereas here… Piccadilly, where the train station is, it’s a hive of activity, and we are 10 minutes from there’ (op. cit. interview). Close proximity to Primark shop and Manchester Arndale shopping centre (enclosing a variety of high-street brands, e.g., Boots, Foot Locker, H&M, Poundland, Wilko), and an entertainment hub (The Printworks) is another factor that makes the Northern Quarter more penetrable for ‘non-creative’ demographics.
As mentioned above, in terms of promotion Ziferblat arguably got more benefits from being in London than London did from hosting Ziferblat. In Manchester, it seems to be a mutually beneficial relationship, if not a romance—while local media constantly use Ziferblat as tourist attraction (Shackleton, 2016) and a symbol of ‘Manchester’s creative revolution’ (Rhind-Tutt, 2016), the ZUKI team frames Edge Street as ‘a tribute to the city’s community’ (see Colin Shenton’s direct quote in: Ibid.) and an independent business, contributing to the city’s creative economy (see Ben Davis’s direct speech in: Willis, 2016). As Ben also emphasised,
We need to be aware of this stuff [meaning gentrification in the Northern Quarter—A.K.]. We are trying to be as inclusive as possible. It’s bloody cheap… of course, we get creatives in here, but we also get families, we get people from different socioeconomic backgrounds, we get a variety of people. We are trying to contribute to our environment in which we sit and add to it. (Interview, Edge Street, October 2016)
Getting back to how Mancunians often compare the Northern Quarter to Shoreditch, not only do local media see Ziferblat as an important element of Manchester’s creative industries, but they also use it as an evidence of the fact that Manchester does not lag behind London (Rhind-Tutt, op. cit.), resembling Paul Manning’s (2013) observation of how peripheral and provincial cities see cafe culture as a symbol of urban modernity.204
Nevertheless, the ZUKI team has a very clear idea of which geographic areas are suitable for Ziferblat and which are not. Summarising what Gareth and Ben mentioned in their interviews (October 2016), their choice of locations is purely based on the principle of financial sustainability, which they estimate from a number of social and
204 In my media analysis, this leitmotif was also echoed by all Russian Ziferblats outside Moscow, as well
cultural criteria. Thus, a Ziferblat kind of area is a city centre (‘because our revenue is fifty-fifty meeting rooms and sitting room, and meetings don’t happen in the suburbs’) of a densely populated university town (most likely an old one) with ‘pre-established cafe culture’, ‘coworking culture’, and ‘creative culture’ (e.g., Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cork, Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Oxford, Sheffield). However, ZUKI’s reliance on university towns does not mean that they see students as their primary audience. Even though, according to the team, students account for one-third of all Edge Street’s customers, and they are offered a 25% discount in the venue, ZUKI’s marketing
strategy is carefully thought-out avoid the so-called ‘student stigma’:205
We didn’t want it to be too studently because that sometimes can put off locals. We obviously welcome students, we want students to come, but we don’t want it to be… we did have a lot of feedback initially from the people here, who were like… for example, if you’re late 30s –early 40s, and a place is entirely filled with people who look a certain way and are within two-three years of each other, you know, it can make you feel
uncomfortable, and this is what we try to do—make sure that it feels inclusive to as many types of people as possible. (Ben, op. cit. interview) In summary, the above-cited word ‘pre-established’ illustrates the difference between Ziferblat’s cultural ambitions in London and Manchester versus in Moscow (where the creative city, interpreted as the hegemony of the cultured and the creative, has to be
established). Contrastingly, in both Old Street and Edge Street, according to staff’s interviews, verified to the extent possible by my own observations, teams are equally open to everyone complying with the formal rules of behaviour in Ziferblat, regardless of their class belonging or cultural capital. While pointing out that the vast majority of their audience are creative professionals, London and Manchester teams never mentioned that this social group is in any regard better than others. Instead, they reflected on the ways to make it more accessible to all kinds of guests.
As Bourdieu ([1979] 1984: 6) famously stated, ‘Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier’. The next section will provide a closer look at Ziferblat’s taste as an important driver of placemaking and one of the factors affecting the power dynamic within the chain (franchiser vs. franchisee; owner vs. branch manager) and on a branch level (staff vs. guests).
205 I borrowed this term from one of Edge Street’s guests, Byron, who said: ‘It’s a negative stigma. I wouldn’t come in to a student place. Nothing against students, but they have their own agenda’