Why did the Soviet state need rural dances on the city stage? How did Soviet choreographers invent folk dances? Why were some Soviet choreographers more vehemently opposed to modern Western dance than the leaders of the CPSU? How did participants in amateur dance performances privatize Stalin’s project of mass artistic creativity, aimed at nationalizing citizens’ leisure time? How did Soviet amateur choreography differ from its analogues in other countries? Combining the presentation of documents with historical sketches and memories of his own experience of participating in Soviet amateur performances of the 1960–1980s, alternately changing the research perspective and optics, the author raises these and many other questions. Proposing answers to them, the book introduces the reader to state policy regarding amateur dance in the USSR, to the ideas of professional choreographers about their tasks in relation to dance folklore and amateurism, as well as to the microhistory of the amateur dance group of the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant.