Abstract: The research subject is dance performance and the peculiarities of its artistic communication. Performance means that performers have no roles, they represent themselves; for dance performance, their gestures and movements have no underlying messages. The performative esthetics means that there exists a transformative range of spectators’ comprehension. The Performative Turn is described by the theatre critic E. Fischer-Lichter as manifestation of an unusual in a recognizable. The study aims to detect performative characteristics, the dichotomy of the real and the imaginative in dance performances of Moscow dance artists. The author focuses on the solo “Tants-Tants-Trants” by A. Andrianov and the “Red Square” by T. Burnashev as the examples of dance performance in which dancers represent themselves. The method of phenomenological reduction helps reveal the potential for spectators’ experience of the reality transformation in the works by Andrey Andrianov and Taras Burmashev (created together with E. Kalyuzhnaya, D.Volkov, M. Orlova). Artistic communication in dance performance hasn’t been studied sufficiently enough. The author’s conclusions can be used for the formation of criteria in critical analysis of dance performances.