The News!

The Noah’s Ark project is ready!

One and a half months of work: St Petersburg, Moscow, Potsdam, Dresden, Leipzig.

I heartily congratulate our students Nastya Ponomareva, Pavel Alekhin (aka Gleb Sinichkin), Makhina Dzhuraeva. This is the first show entirely created by themselves.

And Alexey Lanskoy evolved no less than into DEREVO’s technical manager.

And Nastya could also be seen in HARLEKIN in the main part of Pieretta and The Devoted Monkey at the Golden Mask Festival. Really not bad for just two years working with DEREVO…

About Oleg Zhukovsky you could read in the previous news. And if you could see Lena just now…..

Well, and now to the performances coming up.

In Poland – Nastya Ponomareva with her solo project Lunis.

Our dearest OEROL Festival on Terschelling island comes next. DEREVO School On Wheels will be improvising throughout ten days on an entire island day and night.

And then the wonderful festival and funfair Schaubudensommer in Dresden, with its tents and barkers… just like it was centuries ago.

And Edinburgh Fringe with MEPHISTO WALTZ. Apparently we can’t live without that adrenaline rush. Anna Bogodist has prepared a large scale invasion of Scotland with the „Russians in Roxy“ Programme.

So, that’s it. I don’t think I’ve ever wrote such a dry and plotless piece of news. Maybe I should attach a passport photo to it and the vase at the window with the half of a tomcat.

Anton.

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: Daniel Williams
Photo: Natalya Krymskaya, Roman Ekimov, Alexey Kostromin

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There’s an entire series of exercises within the DEREVO system which is dedicated to “anchors”: our habits, preferences, duties and desires…

All of those exercises I was joyfully trying out on a single test subject (and by his merciful agreement). Many of the exercises have been proved to be good ones. This man has become an even more happy and merry person than previously. Well, for the people around him he might have become useless but terribly interesting.

I could not say he shows up in my life very often but it’s always at the right time.

I was looking at the title «Ketzal. Part two». And I felt that a few other people in the world were looking anxiously for something at the very same moment.

A telephone rang. Not the mobile but the almost forgotten office landline. It was this same man, asking for a possibility to stay and sleep for a while in the studio.

He came with a backpack, rather merry again. He made a dug-out in the backyard and installed a small tent above it. An entire day he was busy with making a pickled cabbage, singing and sweeping the ground.

If I go left and he goes right we’ll turn around the globe and meet again.

We’ve met like that and we were working together on «La Divina Commedia» and later on «Islands».

About his dug-out he said, that it’s his desire to find out about the bears sucking their paws, about slowing down the body’s functions and overall about being below the level of human activity. He asked me to put over the lid and get some earth on it. He reminded me that God has gave himself the trouble to caulk up the seams of the Noah’s Ark from the outside.

Noah’s Ark…

You’re probably aware of the story. There’s one point in it…. as the decision was made, the Earth was to be purged of scum… But the Lord God really couldn’t arrange this slaughter with his leaving the first of all his men still alive… so he’s been waiting for Adam to die.

I covered the lair with earth and wondered about the smell of the Spring while it was just a humus. Everything fits.

It means «Ketzal. Part two. Noah’s Ark»

The man’s name is Oleg Zhukovsky. Once he saw the «Rider» in St. Petersburg he was jumping through puddles all night long and he followed us on our way next morning. With the same backpack.

It’s a good sign that he’s here again.

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: Daniel Williams
Photos: Oleg Zhukovsky

NOW in the PAST »»

DEREVO, in its own way, continues to work on the film Doppio:

Anton thinks the screenplay is not ready.

The guitarist Igor Timofeev thinks that the videoclip “Zvezda” (The star) comprises all the ideas of the motion picture and thus the shooting is over…

Leonid Leikin thinks there’s a series to be filmed and in particular from the starting point of Episode 3. ..

Anyway, the work goes on.

In following we offer you the video “Zvezda”, one significant photo and the long text which explains its significance.

Please, don’t get me wrong. A new thing is a new thing. An old one is old.

A thing comes cold to the world. Then it meets its first human being, takes a part of their warmth, their soul. Then it happens again and again.

Coloured by people’s love, a thing starts glistening, the circle of its admirers expands.

Both a human and a thing may have quarrels, divorces, picnics, weddings and crimes. A thing can run away from home, have an affair. A thing can punish or even kill. Don’t get me wrong.

There are living things and there are dead things. Just like people. But dead man is usually buried while a dead thing persists in the world until it is physically decayed .

A living thing has always been a part of a man’s destiny. Whether it was a car or a salt cellar. In the beginning of 70’s people started to sing sad songs. Weariness and the Lack of Faith have been summoned by the sounds of those ballads:lack of Faith in many things, including one’s own work. Why must one produce a good thing? Who will see the difference?

China, cold-blooded and faceless, loaded us with so many dead things. Particularly mean is the fact that they were the copies of the real things, an in each and every one of them there was a little man with his hard moustache and sly eyes, laughing…

Musical instruments have endured the longest…

I’m constantly in search of old guitars, trying to keep or to extend their life. I know there will come a day when there will be not a single old guitar leftin the world. But until then…

Hofner Congress comes from the 50’s . Pretty low priced it gained not too much respect and could be taken everywhere: to a beach, to a picnic… So just very few of them survived.

The classified ad attracted me by its brevity and a kind of timidity: “An old guitar for sale”. Full stop. And just one photo with an old wrapping in front. It seemed to me that the owner didn’t want to approach any nearer to it. The price was plainly invented: 100 Euro. By its shape I guessed it would be a Hofner. I’ve got a confirmation on the phone later. He also said that the guitar was hanging on the wall for 40 years. We made an appointment.

At night in the hallway of his house somewhere in Bavaria I asked him if he knows that his guitars actually would cost much more.

“It’s possible”, he said, “but it doesn’t matter now”.

He didn’t put the hundred Euro into his pocket, just kept trying to get rid of the banknotes.
We had to co-operate to put the old wrapping on. The guitar didn’t want to fit in. I asked him if he plays at all. He answered rather loud, as if it was for someone else.

“No. My father wanted me to, so he gave it to me”, then he corrected himself, “well, he bought it for me”.

He really wanted me to leave. I wanted the same.

In the car I had to open the windows, so strong was the foul smell of the wrapping . No, this guitar was not hanging on the wall. It was closed up in a cellar when a small boy has not become a musician. But dreams are dying slowly, so neither father nor the son were capable of parting with this thing.

How it shined when I removed the mould and grime layer. It was actually NEW! Nobody has ever played on it ! Inside I noticed a piece of paper. I’ve pulled it out and sat for a long time not knowing what to do with it. On a crumpled piece of paper there was a child scribble: a boy behind bars (or strings) and an inscription “I mustn’t”.

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: Daniel Williams

… You’re asleep.
Curled, embracing the pillow, deep under the blanket.
It’s late at night.
And you’re asleep,
And nobody knows who you’re going to be the next ringing morning.
What kind of chain armour you’ll be wearing by then. Will you be a politician, a faithful wife or an old man or… ?
You’re asleep. And the other one is sleeping too, the one you’ll see in the sight of a gun or the one at the shop, holding an avocado…
The only one, who will become a reason to miss the train…
Tonight we are just children.
It doesn’t matter how rich you see yourself in your dreams, no matter how big the painting over the bed. And the thrilled servants behind the bedroom door, changing your coffee cup every ten minutes to keep it warm, they do not matter either.
Just one bed for all, and one Home and one World.
We’re asleep and, oh God, let us stay so just a while longer, not to slip into the shells of our lives quite yet.
I know I’ll wake up and I’ll become the one who I must be, who I have to be, who I got used to being.
But now… there’s no war, no treason, no labour.
We’re asleep.
Like children,
And…
And I want to be like you,
To love and to be loved.
May Those Who We Insult During The Day Forgive Us At Night!
They were sleeping during the night too and they were wishing me Well.
I’m asleep.

Happy New Year! …

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: Daniel Williams
Photo: Anton Adasinsky, Igor Fomin, Nastya Ponomareva, S. Neuhaus, T. Belousova
Video: Nastya Ponomareva

In January 2012 the winner film of the 68th Venice Film Festival, Faust by Alexander Sokurov, comes to european cinemas.

Anton Adasinsky played one of the leading roles, the Moneylender (Mephistopheles). Renowned voice-over talent Santiago Ziesmer gave the character an inimitable features by dubbing the role as a native speaker in German.

On January 14th the public film screenings start in Germany, on January 19th in Austria. At the end of January 2012 the film is going to be released in Russia. St Petersburg Premiere takes place on January 26th in the Big Hall of St Petersburg Philharmonia. Moscow Premiere is set for January 28th at Barvikha Luxury Village Centre.

Meanwhile Faust has been presented as part of many different film festivals all around the globe, among them were:

• Venice International Film Festival (Golden Lion)
• Toronto Int’l film festival, Canada
• Reykjavik International Film Festival, Iceland
• Busan International Film Festival, Korea
• FESTIVAL DU NOUVEAU CINEMA Montreal, Canada
• London BFI
• Mumbai Int. Film festival, India
• VIENNALE - Vienna International Film Festival, Austria
• São Paulo International Film Festival, Brazil
• AFI FEST, Los Angeles, USA
• Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, Taiwan
• LEFF - Lisbon and Estoril Film Festival, Portugal
• Mar del plata, Argentine
• Kolkata Film Festival, India
• European Film Forum Scanorama, Lithuania

Some more festivals still to feature Faust:

• Bucharest Experimental IFF, Romania
• Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, Estonia
• Gijon Int. Film festival, Spain
• International Film Festival of Kerala, India
• Chennai International Film Festival, India

One day before the award ceremony Johannes Zeiler (Faust) and I did thirty two interviews each. And Alexander Sokurov did even more.

Every interview started with the question “what do you feel now having the Golden Lion?” By the first one I gave a start “did we get it already then?”
“No”, said the journalist, “but if you will, then we’ll put it together, if not, then we’ll cut it out. We wouldn’t be able to do another interview, right?”.

So I had to sing a song about how happy we are, without knowing who’s gonna win the prize.

After fifth interview I couldn’t keep repeating the same text all the time. I began to falter, to become angry, to accuse the journalists of illiteracy and Venice of the heat. I was tired. During the lunch time I ran back to my room and took my recorder, feeling that I might not remember anything I’ll tell then.

Here are some excerpts of the afternoon conversations.

Korean television:
“What was the most difficult during your filming”
“The most difficult was to stare at the director’s back for 47 days. Sokurov not only used a huge mirror against the camera for the actual filming but to see the picture in the same way he was carrying a car mirror on his shoulder. Thus discussing the role I remained behind him and was talking to Sokurov’s shoulder. I got used to it so much that I didn’t recognized our director as we met in Venice.”

Belarus newspaper:
“Anton, could you tell us if there’s some material in the “Faust” that didn’t make it to the final cut?”
“Oh, yes! Right in the beginning of the film Faust actually dies. Don’t you wonder how keen director’s idea was. In the hospital a bed with a cadaver, which Faust was just examining and looking for a human soul, falls on him. Wagner, his disciple tries to free Faust and pulls some substance with little similarity to Faust, fat and messy. Though this is Faust melted together with the Death. This is my character, Mephistopheles. Faust keeps living inside me. Well, by the final cut the entire shot, about 15 minutes, has been left out. “It’s obvious”, Sokurov said, “why would we need to explain it?”. So Faust didn’t die but I remain there with a huge fat stomach.”

Japanese newspaper:
“Anton, could you tell us what was the most dangerous moment during filming?”
“The most dangerous thing was to walk backwards. Particularly on the Iceland’s lava. For the entire film was shot backwards, actors had to do everything in the reverse order. This is why the big part of material, the underwater fight for Margaret, has been left out. We were unable to swim backwards. And Sokurov didn’t want to make any compromises.”

I don’t remember who:
“The most unusual thing was that Valley in Iceland where we saw hundreds of faceprints on the ground around the geyser, just like somebody would press his face firmly against it. There were big holes in place of mouths. Well, it turned out to be the Famous Sniffing Valley. Each Sunday hundreds of people lie down with their faces on the ground and inhale the healing sulphur moisture. Our film crew tried it too but without habit to do it our director of photography has started to hallucinate and suggested to dye the Geyser red. “Go to Tarantino with this”, said Sokurov.”

RAI uno, Italy:
“The Frisean horses that we ride on the way to Underworld are rare and expensive. They also known for their ability to pronounce words with lots of G’s and R’s. One of them (mine) could distinctly say “Great Rumble” and “Rare Gift”, thanks to the Czech groom, a big fan of Pushkin.”

Greek TV:
“Anton, could you tell us what funny moments from filming you still remember?”
“There was many funny things. In a break I went to the adjacent woods for a walk and rest. I came across a clearance full of wild mushrooms. Pure porcini! I had no basket or anything and started to fill my pockets, thanks to the oversized costume. Full of mushrooms I realised that I went astray. And I was scared by the thought that I may derange the filming. I started to shout in russian and italian for help. Czech family of mushroom-pickers has come around and ran off immediately – I totally forgot about my make-up. In fifteen minutes there were three policemen. I tried to explain in Czech about the filming and made a confident gesture to some fictional direction. There we went. After twenty minutes we turned on my command and lost our way entirely. One of them pulled his pistol, another one called for a helicopter. It came much later and there was no place for landing. In the twilight it showed us a way. When finally we came to the filming location, full of burdock, angry, the policemen couldn’t really accuse me of anything. Sokurov in turn couldn’t find a better question to ask me: “where did you find them?”
“In the forest”, I replied thinking of the mushrooms, “there’s lots of them.”

And on September the 10th we perfectly played the piece “Limousine, Red Carpet, Golden Lion, Photo, Limousine, Much Wishky, Night. Venice. Morning. Way Back Home”.

The excitement of these days has gone quite fast. What remains is “Faust” and an untypically long (for a festival) standing ovation for the director Alexander Sokurov.

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: Daniel Williams
Video: Elena Yarovaya

Anton Adasinsky & Alexander Sokurov. Photo by Jiri Hanzl. (c) Proline-film.ru

DEREVO.org web-master

«let the good man in, otherwise he’ll break down the door» («Aibolit-66», USSR, 1966)

Dear friends,

A very intense one and a half years have ended with a performance in Jyväskylä.

Both Anton and Lena are leaving for creative holidays to the Island of Monkeys and Butterflies to write the screenplay for a feature film. An offer from the Lenfilm studios has come rather surprisingly. Pre-production is going to start in October. And we had better keep the plot a secret now.

In September, as an exercise, DEREVO is going to film some videos to the music by Positive Band. We suspect it might become a film too. That’d be good.

Cast:
Such a one – Anton Adasinsky
Chief Wow-Wow – Igor Timofeev
Ferdinand – Nikolay Gusev
DJ Cornflower – Andrey Sizintsev
Emmanuel Brüskind – Alexey Rakhov
Friendly Geometer – Viktor Vyrvich
Frigate «The Swift» – Elena Yarovaya
Gentle Giant – Vadim Tverdyukov

and also the entire DEREVO and many, very many friends, actors, artists, children, musicians, dancers…

«…Six musicians are playing at parties. There’s a phone call and the party host sends a car for them. As they see it the guys realise that this party they will hardly forget: the car is constructed of shinbones of drug dealers, the sail is stitched from a thousand blue neckties of the GDR young pioneers, the driver is a Giant Albino of dying breed of Squirrelgoats…»

Such a one

«…the reviving well of laughter is getting dry, the bucket bangs against the mossy walls… Instead of a jolly joke it brings back just sadness in the green bottle of tarragon soda…»

DJ Cornflower

«… It will be a musical film. Even too musical..»

Emmanuel Brüskind

Anybody wishing to help out with the costumes, light and sound, props and make-up, with the lunch and general assistance, anybody wishing to be merry and quick-witted…. please e-mail us

Meanwhile Vadim Tverdyukov, Nikolay Gusev and Nastya Ponomareva are finishing the mixing and mastering of the Positive Band’s album „Cat on Accordion“…

And there’s more to come:

• September, Faust by Alexander Sokurov is in competition at the Venice Film Festival.
  (I should think about getting some tails)
• A big theatrical project in Perm in Russia
• AVIA concert in Yubileyny in St Petersburg
• Preparations for the performance at the Mikhail Chemiakin’s art exhibition

«Sleeplessnes. Homer. Taut sails. I have read the catalogue of ship just halfway through…»

(Osip Mandelstam, transl. Alan Shaw, Ugly Duckling Presse)

Gaudeamus igitur!

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: Daniel Williams
Photo: Elena Yarovaya, Roman Ekimov, Anton Adasinsky and others
Photo design: Elena Yarovaya
Video: Elena Yarovaya

Photo: Anton Adasinsky
Editing: Elena Yarovaya
Music: Daniel Williams
Dancers: Elena Yarovaya, Nastya Ponomareva, Nadya Mozheiko, Alexey Lanskoy, Gleb Alekhin and others
Costumes: Anna Frumson