Since his arrival in China in 2015, the Ukrainian photographer Sergey Melnitchenko (born in 1991 in Mykolayiv, Ukraine) has been documenting the other side of Chinese society from the perspective of the outsider. In his series Behind the scenes Melnitchenko captured an unnamed Chengdu’s underground club where he worked as a dancer. « Transvestites, girls bathing in tubs of beer, drunk actors and even more drunk visitors. All of this – [is the] club, the club where I’m working, » he explains. His straight snapshots unveil « the invisible side of the club, the atmosphere ». For him « there is more burlesque than on the stage, the concentration of sexual fluids is more powerful than oxygen. There's no falsehood – it’s not a scene, it’s their everyday life, our life, or rather mine. »
