His curse – Newspaper Kommersant No. 179 (7380) dated 09/28/2022

Dancer and singer Boris Moiseev died at the age of 68. The media became aware of this from the long-term administrator of the artist Sergei Gorokh. The causes of death were not disclosed, but it is known that back in 2010, Boris Moiseev experienced an ischemic stroke, then another one and could not fully recover.

Boris Moiseev devoted a significant part of his creative life exclusively to classical choreography, and did not even think about the vocal craft. Moiseev began his career in his native Belarus, then moved to Kharkov, and later to Kaunas.

As far back as the 1970s, fate seemed to have determined once and for all that his destiny was musical theater. But in 1978, he became interested in pop music and created, together with two dancers, the Expression trio, whose first concert numbers were shown on the stage of the famous Jurmala variety show Juras Perle.

“Expression” fit perfectly into the atmosphere of this oasis of “abroad”. The dances were saturated with eroticism and were performed to voluptuous foreign hits. Grace Jones’ song “I’ve Seen That Face Before”, created on the basis of Astor Piazzolla’s “Libertango”, was recognized by the domestic public primarily thanks to the number of Moiseev and his associates.

When “Expression” became part of Alla Pugacheva’s concert group, the all-Union glory of the trio was ensured. Its participants began to be recognized, and the central character was probably the most extravagant showman on Russian TV in terms of concert costumes. At a time when Iosif Kobzon and Lev Leshchenko reigned on the air, and Valery Leontiev was considered almost a revolutionary on the stage, Moiseev allowed himself too bright make-up and too feminine outfits. Under the wing of Pugacheva, he spent ten years and was not just a hired worker, but a friend, belonged to her inner circle, which means that, compared to many others, he received more attention, more broadcasts, more work. She also encouraged him to try singing.

In perestroika, like many of his colleagues, Boris Moiseev suffered, like a disease, the period of “conquest of the West”, but his place was, of course, primarily on the stages of the republics of the newly disintegrated USSR.

He traveled his country both with Pugacheva and with his own programs, studied it up and down. He knew perfectly well what the local spectator, or rather, the spectator, needed. The engine of Moiseev’s career was the thought-out legend about “Little Bora” from Mogilev, a boy born in a women’s colony, raised without a father in an atmosphere of bullying from peers and seduced in a cemetery by a classmate. The audience, which consisted mainly of adult women, filled concert halls across the country, certainly not in order to listen to “live vocals.” The audience was driven by the desire to realize their empathy, to share the pain with the character created by Moiseev.

With the advent of Boris Moiseev in the first echelon of stars, the stereotype about a “live” performance as a kind of indispensable quality, a sacred duty of an artist, which had been shaken back in the days of Tender May, collapsed. With his light hand, the story that the artist tells on stage has become more important than “technical data”. In the 1990s, Moiseev produced large-scale variety programs one after another, the first of which was the show Boris Moiseev and His Lady. After the country saw all the major shows in the world during the tour boom, including Cirque du Soleil and Madonna, YouTube videos, where “little Borya” walks around the stage in a negligee and whispers something into a microphone, cause only a sad nostalgic grin. But for regions where Madonna, Michael Jackson and even the Army Of Lovers did not reach, his performances were a revelation.

The turning point in the career of Boris Moiseev was Kim Breitburg’s song “Blue Moon” (1997), recorded together with Nikolai Trubach. It became both a national hit and actually a coming-out of the artist.

However, he made a real coming out back in 1991, during an interview with Arguments and Facts, and Moiseev, it must be said, subsequently regretted what he had said. Moiseev did not consider it right to recognize same-sex marriages in Russia and hold gay pride parades, but he protested as best he could against the laws banning “propaganda of homosexuality.”

The older “little Borya” became, the less he wanted to shock the public and the more he needed the patronage of the establishment.

He got tired of his provocative stage image, in 2003 he joined United Russia, supported Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev.

Nevertheless, Moiseev long remained the “banner” of the domestic gay movement. For many of those who hid their orientation, the fact of the presence of such a person as Moiseev in the media field was an argument in favor of living without hiding.

Probably the last high-profile hit recorded by Moiseev was his duet with Lyudmila Gurchenko “Petersburg – Leningrad” (2004). But until his illness, Moiseev continued to record albums and release new shows. With the role of a jester, he parted due to age and health reasons. However, by this time, numerous tales about the “child of vice” Borya Moiseev had long gone to the people. His antics were taken for granted even by such figures as Iosif Kobzon, with whom Moiseev was friends for many years. In general, jesters are allowed a lot – and this is the most traditional value.

Boris Barabanov