Dancing out of the dark

A dancer from the Daimohk ensemble

Even the floorboards and piano wood have been

plundered to burn for fuel.

None of this is unusual in Chechnya, and certainly didn't upset or surprise dance teacher Ramzan Akhmadov.

His city is enduring the second of two wars waged against it by Russia and now consists mainly of rubble.

The few families who haven't fled, eke out their existence by selling their household goods for food, and live in daily danger.

Children are shot at on the way to school, men stopped for checks by the Russian army are never seen again, and endless planes drop bombs which shatter the eerie silence. But somehow life goes on.

Despite the odds, the Daimohk dance group has risen from the ashes of its capital and is touring Europe to prove Chechen culture is alive and well.

Ramzan, a Chechen former professional dancer famous throughout the Soviet Union, formed the group before the

second war began. But when the bombing started again in earnest, the children from his group fled with their families.

It took him months to track down 40 of the 60 children, many of whom were living on rubbish tips or in refugee camps.

Ramzan gave them something to sing about and dance for, something to wake up for in the morning, that helped them forget the grief, loss, fear and poverty they endure on a daily basis.

These are the some of the 33 children you will see on stage on June 26 in Oxford. The Daimohk dance ensemble is worth attending just to show solidarity with these children, but they are also astonishingly good in their own right.

A film of their first European tour has just been released as a documentary and is spellbinding in its poignancy. It tells the Daimohk story, and the histories of its dancers.

After suffering from nightmares, one girl tells how her father's body was found buried outside a hospital two years after he went missing in Grozny, another boy talks to the camera from his family home, where they are living on bread and water, but still have time for dance lessons and jollity.

Every little face tells its tale of suffering. Losing friends, families and their homes, moving from shelled house to shelled house, enduring the air raids and maintaining

normality, where possible, their spirit has certainly not been broken.

It's only on stage that these children, aged seven upwards, come alive, able to release their emotions and

channel their energy, spinning and dancing harder and faster, knife throwing, stamping and pirouetting to the simple xylophone and drum accompaniment, their

spectacular costumes only adding to the atmosphere.

"The audience must feel the energy, but see it is under

control", Ramzan teaches them, and their resulting

professionalism, focus and pure skill is breathtaking. Daimohk has given back these children a lease of life, a sense of pride and dignity, and above all enthusiasm

and fun.

It all began when Ramzan met Chris Hunter, general director of The Centre For Peacemaking and Community development, a British charity, who offered to finance the dance company and tour it in Europe to raise money and awareness.

And off Daimohk went to Poland, Germany and the UK, their irrepressible dancing style catching on wherever they went.

Now they're back and spending three weeks touring England, rather than last year's two dates.

At the end of each tour the group has to return to their bombed-out homeland, saying "I've seen paradise," clutching their photographs of the Tower of London, and memories of happier times. But they know if they keep practising they'll be back next year.

"They will judge all Chechens on us," Ramzan says during a pep talk before a show.

"I know you are under a lot of pressure, but we are fighters and will always survive to do what we do and that's what we must show the world. The responsibility lies with us."

Daimohk appears on June 26 at Oxford Town Hall. Box office 01865 305305. The documentary The Damned And The Sacred will be on sale at the show.