In the meantime in St. Petersburg they’re working on the concert & action “Cat on Accordeon”

with Positive Band, Poema Theatre, SpasiboDA Theatre,
Musical theatre of Children RADUGA, Dumb Choir, Theatre AKHE, other guests, friends, beloved ones…

More details and tickets online on this web-site (Russian) »

Photos from rehearsals by Elena Dolmatova

Tanya Khabarova – founding member and dancer of DEREVO – will hold a dance theatre workshop in Dresden in the course of the 28th International Pantomime Festival from 11 to 14 November, 2010. The workshop is based on metaphysical insights of DEREVO`s school of movement.

Theme: Stained Glass Window
Dates: November 11 -14, 2010

Contributors:
Tanya Khabarova - Conception, Choreography und Staging
Frieder Zimmermann - Composition, Sound
Falk Dittrich – Light Design

All details and application form can be found here »

DEREVO is still fighting at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. That’s really not easy.

For those who doesn’t know what it is: for instance, there’s seven to ten different companies performing on the same stage at the same venue. There are 200 of such venues. Time for set-up, minimal changes for light, sounds, for make-up and warm-up - 30 minutes precisely. Just as much time for break down and cleaning after the show.

Currently DEREVO with Harlekin is in the Top 5 from all 1100 companies who received any reviews at all. Here you can have a look at the critics rating, friendly compiled by The List: http://edinburghfestival.list.co.uk/top-rated

I’d also like to point again to the slideshow by Murdo Macleod from Guardian.co.uk

Congratulations to Harlekin (and The Devoted Monkey), as well as to Carabass. Hold on and keep up the good work, guys!

Just 6 days left…

DEREVO.org web-master

Here’s what the Scottish and English press thinks of DEREVO this year:

***** The Herald, Mary Brennan
…This piece really is about the heart and soul of tragi-comic physicality…

Watching Anton Adasinsky inhabit the age-old, timeless form of Harlequin – or Petrushka, Pierrot or Mr Punch, since they are the same elemental free spirit – is to witness a celebration of wordlessly expressive artistry shade into a poignant elegy for a theatrical dimension that long predates the machine age….

***** EdinburghGuide.com, Garry Platt
…This is not just a stage production it’s a phenomenon… Derevo’s Harlekin presents one scene after the next, each iconic and visually dazzling, unique. The stage is filled raw visceral emotion and then subtle considered jokes and funny vignettes…

***** Fest
…The show is a sequence of strange, arresting set-pieces which would be disorientating without the Harlekin himself. The weary innocence with which he greets every strange new situation is the play’s one constant note…

**** The Telegraph, Mark Monahan
…Just go and see this show. It’s strange, stirring, often beautiful entertainment, and you’ll be thinking about it for a long time…

**** The List, Brian Donaldson
…The sinister and the beautiful have been Derevo’s trademarks ever since their Edinburgh debut in 1997 with Red Zone, and Harlekin provides another memorable chapter in their captivating story…

**** The Scotsman, Kelly Apter
…big show filled with striking visual images and charming set pieces. As the Harlekin, Adasinsky’s capacity to mix tragedy and comedy in one role has never been more obvious, while his turn as the domineering Hurdy Gurdist is a little comic gem…

**** Edinburgh Spotlight, Julie Dawson
…Technically, Harlekin is flawless. The performers are breathtaking, the marriage between music and movement is impeccable, the lighting is perfect, the costumes and makeup are excellent. The overall effect is stunning…

**** Three Weeks, Hannah Myers
…a heart-rending tale of unrequited love, cruelty and suffering unfolds. Derevo transcend this dark matter to reveal pools of shimmering light in the tenacity of the human soul, matching sinister dances of death with exquisite physical manifestations of the beating heart…

**** Fringe Review
…once we accept the basic theme we sit back and take in the spectacle like a surreal dream….

The List still hasn’t counted all the Harlekin’s stars and put the show at the 9th position of 952. not that bad… ».

And just beyond all competition is the unique slide-show by Murdo Macleod from Guardian.co.uk just watch it on their web-site:

In June the WEISSE FESTUNG (WHITE FORTRESS) happened at the beautiful pond in the historical city centre in Dresden. After the last year’s success they asked us to repeat the open-air action. It was far too easy to persuade us in this case.

On and In the Water:

Anton Adasinsky, Lena Yarovaya, Pavel Semchenko (AKHE), Andrey Sizintsev (AKHE), Alisa Oleynik, Maxim Kuznetsov, Lidiya Makeeva, Lidiya Kopina, Tatyana Belousova, Valentin Tzin, Alexey Lanskoy, Nastya Ponomareva

The crew

Daniel Williams - Sound, Steffen Köhler - Technical direction, Falk Dittrich - Light, Igor Fomin - Light for floating objects, Isolde Matkey - Management, and many assistants - everything that wouldn’t be possible without them

Film by Andrey Gladkikh

See also WEISSE FESTUNG Day by Day »

We know powerful places by experience.
But this place is powerful to such an extent that one really risks losing his head.
I’ve lost my voice for an hour; in the dressing room (actually a beer cellar) a mirror has broken. Wind has lifted the tent over the mixing console and put it five meters away. Daniel Williams said it was good so, and that the other spot will be better acoustically…
First rehearsal at the Albrechtsburg Castle in Meissen.
The Execution of Harlequin scene.
Tanya plays an executioner and lifts an axe…
Suddenly a horrible scream and two falcons are falling from the sky.
Dodging and moaning.
It’s scary.
All the tourists in the yard just run away.
Steep curve right above the ground and they’re in the sky again…
Singing and crying.
Their nestling has fallen and smashed.
The nest was at the very top of the church.
“Yes, - the castle’s manager said, - at the very top. They could really build the nest much lower.”
Then he said to us, right in the face: “The place plays with you..”
The nestling has been buried then.
We stopped the rehearsal and went to see the Goat, who guards the House of the Lonely Knight.

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: Daniel Williams
Photo: Lena Dolmatova, Elena Yarovaya
Photo design: Elena Yarovaya

See also the video from the very first rehearsal back in Dresden »

This is a first video from the future film project about DEREVO Backstage.

Here we rehearse the open-air project “The Fight Of The Harlekin With His Own Shadow In Search Of The Barrel of Wine And The Eternal Life” to be performed on 27 June and 9 - 11 July 2010 in the courtyard of the late gothic castle Albrechtsburg in Meissen, Germany.

More info about the Albrechtsburg castle (German) »

Tickets online »

Camera & cut: Andrey Gladkikh
Participants: DEREVO

Photo - Elena Dolmatova

Click here to see all days »

Photo - Elena Dolmatova, Anton Adasinsky

Click here to see all days »

Photo - Elena Dolmatova

Click here to see all days »

Photo - Elena Dolmatova

Click here to see all days »

We are working on the WHITE FORTRESS project again. At the beautiful pond in the historical city centre in Dresden. After the last year’s success they asked us to repeat the open-air action. It was far too easy to persuade us in this case.

Usually the work on a show is a process closed for the public. But the weather and the mood are too good to keep anything secret.

In the next days we will share some impressions with you here.

On and In the Water:

• Anton Adasinsky
• Lena Yarovaya
• Pavel Semchenko (AKHE)
• Andrey Sizintsev (AKHE)
• Alisa Oleynik
• Maxim Kuznetsov
• Lidiya Makeeva
• Lidiya Kopina
• Tatyana Belousova
• Valentin Tzin
• Alexey Lanskoy
• Nastya Ponomareva

The crew

• Daniel Williams: Sound
• Steffen Köhler: Technical direction
• Falk Dittrich: Light
• Igor Fomin: Light for floating objects
• Isolde Matkey: Management
• and many assistants: everything that wouldn’t be possible without them

So here is the Day 1.

All photos by Elena Dolmatova

WEISSE FESTUNG 2010, 17-20 June, Dresden. More information and tickets »

WEISSE FESTUNG 2009 archive »

From: keiko
Date: 2 June 2010 16:43:03 CET
To: Elena
Subject: the source of dance

dear elena,

how are you?
i am thinking about the source of dance, where his dance came from…

where his dance sprang from.
kazuo ohno passed away yesterday. he was 103.
age doesn’t matter now.
he can dance as free as can be.
in the source.

his funeral is on this sunday.
join in prayer.

with my love,
keiko

see also »

After the workshop at Stanford one of the students offered to bring me to the hotel in San Francisco.

It’s about 40 minutes travel. In the car he asked me if I’ve seen the Redwood. Not if I’ve been there but if I’ve seen it. I said that I’m too tired. He suddenly flushed red and said that I’ve just got to go there. So he turned off the highway. Quite unexpectedly stubborn for an American…

I rarely visit any woods. I’m always sad there and it is somehow cramped. But the Redwood, it’s something entirely different. They are also known as Mammoth trees. We were walking somewhere rather fast and he spoke something looking at his feet. He said nothing new, nothing new could I hear but something unusual was going on.

All his thoughts about technology development, about the destiny of the Father of Internet seemed to me rather flat for a Stanford student.

He tried to pull me into discussion. I suspected an attempt to show off a little bit.

“Everyone I know in Stanford wants to change the world.” I answered that I really want to keep the world as it is, so we’re on different paths. We laughed.

He brought me to a cut of a tree trunk and I couldn’t believe my eyes: the tree must have been around 2500 years old! And some of the annual rings were marked and signed.

The student went on talking and I was reading… 1347, Europe’s Black Death… “We’ve got a club, called The Cell. There are really selected brains. We try to analyze the moment when inventions or discoveries or rather presentiments of an invention can be captured by other people. Or even more precisely when some kind of an invention’s carrier frequency emerges and is available for scanning, since at that very moment… how should I explain it…” – 1492, Columbus arrives to the New World – “ … it’s not a stealing, it’s much more complex… best of the best are working here” – hmm, if it’s allowed to smoke a cigarette here in the woods… – “…we’re moving the world here. And another moment which is particularly exciting is when an invention becomes destructive and may come into unfriendly hands…” – Declaration of Independence is signed, 1776 – “another project I’m working on at The Cell is a software development, the software invoking an enmity to other software in one’s mind… a sort of shady copy of the original software but actually quite sophisticated… ” – Gold Rush, 1848 – “one of the tasks is an integration of elements which irritate a human biosystem via PC and arouse a consequent rejection, an inability to perceive information without additional effort…”

At the hotel’s doors he said to me that he’s always talking that much in the Wood because he hears the voices of the Redwood if he’s silent.

“And what do the voices say?”
“Pretty much the same but quite understandable and clear, and just like it happened yesterday. It’s dangerous. Thank you once again for your Harlequin. Have a good night.”

The Black Dance from the previous news is the first outline of the new DEREVO project MEPHISTO WALTZ. Scenic design by Maxim Isaev (AKHE). In May Lena, Tanya, Alisa and Anton presented this work at the Meta Theatre of Mikhail Chemiakin in France.

The main character of the performance was born there – The Scarecrow (you will not see him on any photo).

Text: Anton Adasinskiy
English text editor: Jennifer Williams
Photo: Elena Yarovaya, Maxim Isaev, Mikhail Chemiakin
Photo design: Elena Yarovaya