10 days in June

• June 8th ISLANDS
• June 9th ISLANDS
• June 10th Filming for «Viking» (feature), director A. Kravchuk
• June 11th AVIA at the street parade
• June 12th «Midnight Balance»
• June 15th AVIA in concert
• June 17th Makhina Dzhuraeva performs with Elena Kaufman

These two weeks reminded me of DEREVO’s beginnings.

Working continuously for 24 hours at the limit of your strengths, you stop being conscious of any other world but your own. And thus it becomes easy to be creative!

No, “easy” is the wrong word.

At the peak of tiredness all the most crazy ideas become natural, the place begins to draw people in like a magnet, a church-like seriousness builds, a whirlpool of power…

And then the great moment comes when the actors and dancers on stage cease to look like “performers”. They are living it.

It stops being “just” a Theatre.

Elena Yarovaya
Makhina Dzhuraeva
Anna Budanova
Gleb Alekhin
Ivan Nevzorov
Lida Kopina
Liza Polyanskaya
Nikolay Zapolskih
Dmitry Krivochurov
Dasha Fedotova
Anna Bogodist
Elena Imamova
Nikolay Khamov
Igor Fomin
Grisha Shmidko
Sasha Gromyko

Thank you!

Anton Adasinsky

and folliwing was the ONCE… in Poland, we’re heading to Italy with MEPHISTO WALTZ soon and AVIA is going to play a big concert at the Open Cinema Festival in St Petersburg

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: David Kemp
Photo: Anna Bogodist

Nikolay Gusev
is eternal
is strong
is clever
Nikolay Gusev is a musician.

I saw him puzzled just once, on April the 8th,
When I told him that the dancers rehearse night & day.
They know the duration of each track (4 min 26 sec, for example)
And the tempo (metronome at 120 or 86)
But no one listened to the songs. I forbade them.

“They know you, Kolya, they know the AVIA and they trust me. They will hear your music for the first time during the show.”
And so they did, and performed wonderfully!
My experiment was a success.
Danke,
Anton

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: David Kemp
Photos: Igor Anosov, Elena Yarovaya

Excuse me for an extremely plain depiction of the complicated theory of Agoraphobia. The subject is definitely worth a deeper contemplation. Maybe I’ll come back to it soon at some of our workshops.

From a very young age a human requires some physical limit of the world.

Something that reminds us of the prenatal closeness. Such space can be a cave, a tree hollow, a city appartment, a sleeping bag… even a canvas tent would be placed next to a tree if possible, not because of the rain or wind. It just seems to give some kind of protection.

Skipping all eight volumes of a detailed commentary on the subject I’d rather leap right to the conclusion: everyone is affected by Agoraphobia, at least with its minimal symptoms. And this is what DEREVO is quite interested for.

In case of the Terschelling island, measuring 20 by 4 km, there’s an opportunity to try out something what hardly fits the indoor training.

For instance that can be practices connected with an extended influence range of dancers on their audience, as well as some techniques of „wide-shot-like focusing of eyes“ or dynamically adjusting the dance according to the distance to a partner or an instant transition to the dance action in front of the audience and many more.

It is stated in DEREVO’s Manifest „the sky begins right from the ground“, well it’s easier said…

Once on a summer day at the Elbe, as merry and damp as I was, I shouted to Slava Guyvoronsky „Why don’t you bath?“. „I wasn’t invited“ he replied.

Text: Anton Adasinsky
Photo by DEREVO

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

Back in 1989 DEREVO was performing at OEROL for the very first time!

Aaaaah! Is it really so long ago???

22 years ago this Island made a new hardly noticeable companion to world re-knowned DEREVO theatre company.

Right there in the dunes, under the sky, on the endless sands, in the roaring wind and surf, there the unique principles of DEREVO’s dance have been elaborated. And they mean the mastering of huge spaces, laconic moves, purity of senses, precision in colours of the costumes and props, live music of nature…

Our improvisations here could be just four hours long, as well as nine days and nights without break, like in the „Adventures of the Golden Egg“.

And now at the thirtieth (!) anniversary OEROL Festival, on top of the hill, in an endless wind, blowing all the waste out of your mind and body, here DEREVO performs Mephisto Waltz.

No photograph could possibly convey the power of this place…
But still… here are some photo-visions…

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: Daniel Williams
Photos: Anna Bogodist, Elena Yarovaya
Photo design: Elena Yarovaya

See also one of the first online photo projects at DEREVO.org dedicated to the Island of Terschelling - Wind & Water »

The photographs from the Wind & Water are also available as a printed album DEREVO vol. 1 here »

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

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 »