The organizers of Sky on Stage have put much emphasis on the proper inclusion of music into the performances that are submitted in all contests, particularly in INDOOR and THROWBACK. Music does more than just set the tone or create atmosphere. Olga Bakulina talks about it in the second part of her interview.
The SoS organizers made a selection of music available for the contestants to use in their performances. It was above all a measure to avoid copyrights issues that have caused major problems in some of the artistic skydiving competitions in the past. Every track that is recorded jointly with a performance is subject to compliance with the requirement that the copyright and certain other rights attached to it are respected. Performing rights organizations monitor compliance and enforce sanctions, if rights are not properly cleared.
Music is important to how an artistic skydiving performance is perceived by those looking on, whether live at the venue or online in a live transmission, or in a recording. Olga Bakulina thinks that music can not only enhance the routine, it can help the non-expert audiences appreciate it in the first place.
Even though she chose not to perform to one of the 30+ SoS tracks, some of them specifically produced for the contest by Swiss "beatmaker" Le Greck, Olga has given her choice a lot of thought. Listen to her talk about it in Part II of the interview.
Olga lives and works in Moscow. Fortunately, she says, all wind tunnels in Russia are operating - currently - but that activity everywhere is considerably below normal levels. It is the economic fallout of national COVID-19 restrictions combined with the total absence of skydivers from abroad, she says.