A Bull engages the same force to see and know an Eagle, as an Eagle does for a Bull”
Alejandro Jodorowsky, ‘The Holy Mountain’
“- How could you lie to a child?
- I can’t wait till she’s grown up”
Barmaley, ‘Aybolit-66′
Good and knowledgeable people leave.
Now Elena Markova has gone.
Her articles in Russian can be found here: http://ptj.spb.ru/author/markova/
How many of you had a chance to meet her in person? Only a few I suppose.
And listening to her, it was the golden hours of our profession. Each time her analysis of DEREVO’s work pushed us to the next level. Conversations and interviews with her helped me to find the idea of an “emotional statuary”. And we too, at DEREVO, called it a “screaming obelisk” or a “crying stone”. And this attempt to break out of the dusty orbit of le mime statuaire was successful. We have become very strong in the stillness…
In person, it’s different when you work or talk to someone.
Three days of working with Grotowski personally gave more to us – DEREVO – than all his books and videos.
In just four hours, Jodorowsky blew my mind further than with his ‘Santa Sangre’.
That’s the reason I want you to meet each other and meet the Knowledge bearers, in person… In short, I’ll work as the procurer…
In August we’ll have another beauty in the old centre of Dresden – White Fortress II. Blind Rain.
In September a big improvisation at the wine festival in Radebeul near Dresden; the wine festival!!.
Independently and in parallel, Lena Imamova and Kolya Zapolskikh are working on a book of my short stories, ‘Back to the Sun’. And Makhina Dzhuraeva and Pavel Alekhin are busy in the museum and libraries of Mikhail Chemiakin at his mansion in France, growing cleverer every day under Mikhail’s eagle eye.
And I’m tormenting myself in Spain with the screenplay of the film ‘DOPPIO’.
Let’s know each other!
Anton
Text: Anton Adasinsky English text editor: David Kemp Photo: Elena Yarovaya, Elena Imamova, D. Pandurski
on Alexandrinsky Theater’s new stage I held a three-day masterclass, dedicated to the works of Craig, Grotowski and the FEKS group. I set a personal record for an indoor workshop: 30 participants and 40 students.
And it was very, very good.
Good to again feel myself like a bridge, where friendly pirates roll barrels with Knowledge…
Good to mention and praise teachers from the past.
I’m sure they could feel it too,
Feel how they’re living on….
Thanks to you all
Anton Adasinsky
Text: Anton Adasinskiy English text editor: David Kemp Photos: Valeria Erza, Olga Arefieva
And now, in June 2014, DEREVO will perform in Voronezh, Russia at the Platonov Arts Festival.
I don’t know if I will ever repeat this history…
It was not easy. For me or the audience…
DEREVO’s typical seven-layered happy-ending didn’t happen despite the beaming Slava Guyvoronsky.
I didn’t tell everything. Fifteen years of exile don’t fit in 68 minutes…
And I didn’t say at the end that I – the son of my mother – am still alive and I am on stage.
Thus the children of those once imprisoned, will meet, certainly meet, the imprisoners some time…
If we ever manage to translate the fragments of Memoirs of Galina Antonovna Adasinskaya you may like to read it. Don’t be afraid.
It won’t stop you from producing a russian fairy-tale on stage.
Just don’t forget to put in the Charusa – a clearing in a wood.
It’s full of flowers.
Unnaturally bright.
But step on it and you’ll disappear into a bottomless secret lake…
Text: Anton Adasinsky English text editor:David Kemp Photos: Anna Bogodist, Evgeny Sinyaver, Evgeny Pronin
David found a bread crust. Arthur saw this and in response hurdled himself on top of David and smacked his head with a maraca. David cried out and dropped the crust. Arthur grabbed the abandoned piece of bread, ran for the bathroom, shut himself, and also started screaming. David picked up the maraca, and began to laugh demonically.
At that moment, I realized the kids are all grown up now, and I can finally return to my professional career. It was all waiting and ready a while ago.
So of course sideburns, baseball cap bill over my face, glued blonde hair, a baggy coat, one heal higher than the other, and glasses with a “+ 3” prescription — helps me see and makes eyes look bigger.
The drive was fast. I left the car at a gas station near by a café. Perfect timing! It’s Saturday, crowded, and the employees probably already want to go home.
Armed with tubes of antiseptic salve “Vishenvskogo”, I squeezed the strong smelling cream onto the welcome rug in front of an elevator. The smell spread quickly and throughout the whole store. Aware of the video surveillance, I tried not to stop or look around. I was going to a person who, just eight months ago, sold me the wrong blinds.
The person was in his spot. I quickly made an order and he left for about ten minutes. Meanwhile, this gave me time to bring up “451 F” on his computer screen, set a toy barking dog for the attention of customers, pour permanent glue over the keyboard, and get the hell out of there. From the opening of my sleeve, I spayed all the locks with liquid putty.
Time for the most important part… Thanks to the absence of cameras in the bathroom, I was able turn my coat inside out and leave a bag with a sticker “RUN!” on it. In less than ten minutes the radio echoed warning of evacuation.
Crammed in the elevator with everyone else, I leaned my back against the wall and left a large sticker reading: “God made us different – IKEA conforms us!” This slogan was chosen in advance and took some time. Other possibilities were: “Since 1997 — all the same”, “Prices match the quality!”, and others a bit more offensive ones but that would be just over doing it.
Along with the crowd, I ran out of the elevator and simply hid inside a closet. I stayed there for fifteen minutes before I put on a mask and lit up a smoke grenade.
Now, I could come out. I was invisible. There were no people. To light up everything was a matter of seconds and already, because of the smoke grenade, firemen were on their way. I put on a costume of a surgeon (taken from theater) as well as a facemask and disposable booties, which were extra but looked realistic. The basement was not as hot from the fire. There, I waited for the sound of an ambulance. (Their sirens echo the prefect fourth just like the Soviet Union anthem).
The basement filled up with clouds of smoke.
Using a couple of sticks and a piece of cloth, I put together something that resembled a stretcher and ran for the doors. Outside was flooded with cars, filled with screams, and bursting with chaotic sounds. I made my way to a wall and sat down coughing. Immediately, a fireman rushed over to me. I pointed into the depths of the store and ran off to get water from somebody by an ambulance. While I was washing my face, I was completely forgotten about. So I just changed, stuffed everything in my backpack, and joined the observing crowd.
I only forgot to take off the disposable booties (I noticed in the car), but it’s alright, they have been on since museum Hermitage…
Text: Anton Adasinsky Translation: Nikita Pushkareva Photos: Elena Yarovaya
Something very special will happen at the Exhibition opening in St. Petersburg on May 29th, 2013. Mikhail Chemiakin’s personal exhibition to be presented in the Russian Museum’s Marble Palace
Anton Adasinsky & Slava Polunin will take care of the live action part at the opening.
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.
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
Some quite exciting updates can be found in our tour-plan. Sokurov’s Faust premiere at the Venice Film Festival, an appearance of DEREVO in the russian city of Perm with both a performance and a workshop, Anton’s appearances along with AVIA band in St Petersburg, then MEPHISTO WALTZ in Moscow and in Sochi. The first options for 2012 are published too.
On 8th of September 2011, Anton Adasinsky and Elena Yarovaya will attend the premiere of the Alexander Sokurov’s Faust at the 68th Venice Film Festival. In the film by the Russian film master Anton plays the Usurer or Moneylender as an incarnation of Mephistopheles. Incredible team has been working on the film, including fellow actors Johannes Zeiler, playing Faust, Isolda Dychauk as Margaret and Hanna Schygulla as the Usurer’s wife. With the stunning cinematography by Bruno Delbonnel (”Amélie”, “A Very Long Engagement”, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”) this film is one of ten favourites from the very strong line-up in the run for the Golden Lion.
After this DEREVO travels to Perm, MEPHISTO WALTZ was invited to the “Texture” Festival and then Anton Adasinsky does a three days of workshop.
In St Petersburg Anton performs with the AVIA band then two more MEPHISTO WALTZ performances in Russia come up in Moscow and in Sochi where growing numbers of the world class cultural events should help the city to perfectly slip into its role of the host city for the winter Olympics in 2014.
I, Anton Adasinsky, am responsible for the news text.
Everyone is hurrying me.
Here, I wrote about my dream of a tunnel.
Daniel told me to stop writing a novel in the first person, people would need some facts, where have we been, where will we be, what have we done…
Here, I wrote about where we’ve been and what’s coming up
Lena Yarovaya told me that everyone knows it anyway and that a flatfish is hiding in the sand by using vibrations.
Here, I wrote about the flatfish, although it pretends to be a maggot there.
I’m tired now.
Just read all that you want. It’s just a troubled week of April.
We were in St.P.
HARLEKIN, MEPHISTO WALTZ, the workshop (there was quite a lot of people, about sixty or so). Then there were four days of dreaming up the DROP in the OCEAN.
Then I flew back to Dresden.
I’m not getting sic easily, you know. I mean any flu, quinsy and so on. But suddenly - bamm! I woke up and realise that I don’t want to go anywhere. I don’t want to go to the theatre. Rather I want to read something by James Fenimore Cooper. And I want a thermometer. It says to me: 38°.
Two days have passed like this. To me it’s just as unusual as reading my words in the press. Unusual but wonderful.
Now after a week in St.P., I have decided to end the story.
I’ve got a friend (yes, you can envy me). His name is Igor Timofeev. He lives on the outskirts of St Petersburg. He has a house, a sauna and twenty-eight guitars.
This place is my cavern. When I can’t cope anymore with hearing somebody else’s heart, I can escape there,into the sauna.
Everything describable just stops there. Words and actions change their meaning or lose it completely. We speak to each other there but subjects are not known to us and they’re not suggested by us.
He had a dream.
The manner, as he told it to me, refers to the special language of the steam room.
“raised on horizon… colour of the sky changed… like it was needed there… but they’re drawing here unnatural and a big piece… I unbuttonned the shirt to meet the punch… twenty seconds are still there… first light then I close my eyes then a sound, and in the sound I understand… stand and wait and then the air blows and it’s twisted… ribbed… I see the great playful movements of an accordion which you can touch with your hands… and the eyes flying towards you and me… do you understand!? I’m flying through the nuclear explosion and to my framework… to my skeleton everything is clean understand?? washed and cleaned and inflatable eyes maybe five meters large and I must turn them somehow…”
Then I could remember the rest of my own dream. I’ve never forgotten it to be honest.
I was running and following Pieretta to the stage. It’s a long tunnel. She’s lighter and faster, I wouldn’t be able to reach her. And suddenly I was not chasing her anymore but simply running, precisely and evenly. It was the run to the stage. I kissed my shoulder while I was running there.
On the opposite wall, there was a big letter “E” and then “A”. I realised that I must remember them, for I was running towards the beginning of these words. It’s not hard. When the letters were over I could put together the words “Heat Mode”. Now I was running directly towards the red glow. It was very easy to run.
We’ve added our dreams. I can’t quite remember what has happened after it. Nastya said something about a butterfly who gives a flower a slap in the face. We reproached her with poeticizing of men’s problems. However, the picture of that night has been completed: a butterfly and the hysterical kiss of a light bulb…
Ode to a one-day fly
The worm lying in a tight cocoon
Your life goes forth unhurried
You see no spring, you’re purposeless.
You’re sure you’re resting here for ever.
It’s so delightful, so silent here.
One year or two
But suddently there’s a coolness cracking in.
Scream, you worm! death is coming
Your shield is crackling and it’s scary. Scary!
The wind has blown away the pieces of the cocoon.
Are you dead? No, alive.
So what is that?
Where’s your house? Where’s the tightness and the dryness?
And the crushing there is again like thunder!
Behind your back two wonderful wings unfolded
And you are flying, you are singing.
Your day is in the sky, exposed to the wind
And to the sun of the world
You have been thinking this is death?
But this is life.
Exactly one day long.
Text: Anton Adasinsky
Photos: Elena Yarovaya, C. Friedlander, Lena Dolmatova, Roman Ekimov
Photo Design: Elena Yarovaya
In May Anton and the Positive Band hope to finish the promised CD “Cat on Accordion”. Meanwhile you can enjoy the new video by Andrey Gladkikh to the song “All Seasons” by Andrey Sizintsev, Nikolay Gusev and Anton Adasinsky.
Great news for our russian friends. Right after the perfomances in St. Petersburg in March 2011, there is a 3 day long workshop by Anton Adasinsky to be held. With many special exerсises and with deeper looks into the DEREVO system. Unfortunately this is only available for russian-speaking participants and audience.
With +10 °C in Dresden just a couple of days ago and with -24 °C in St. Petersburg right now we’re fearlessly looking forward to the Spring which is coming soon.
Meanwhile the tickets for our shows in both Dresden and St. Petersburg (and then Dresden again) can already by booked online.
TOTENTANZ 2011 in Dresden (18-19 March, Dreikönigskirche Dresden)
It happened in some way that my arms were opened widely in October, so many things could be embraced at once.
Look on the right – there’s a book to publish,
Look on the left – there’s a CD to finish,
Go ahead – there’s a performance to create,
Think what’s behind – there’s memories to write down.
I had to put off the trousers to avoid tearing them; and the DEREVO train had to roll on three different tracks…
October 22nd: an improvisation in the Nikolayevsky Hall at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.
Something weird is here:
Then there was a loud week (since we were laughing rather loudly) spent with the recording of the new Album by Anton and the Positive Band „Cat on Accordion“.
Something funny is here:
Then the new book «Profession: Harlekin».
We won’t show you the book quite yet (it’s out on November the 4th) but from the cuttings and clippings Nastya Ponomareva could glue together a nice animation.
Here it is:
And that’s all in just 11 days!
This time I’ve spent about 20 days in St. Petersburg. This duration must be a record for my brain. Now I’m in Germany and I think about it. I think it’s not JUST some differences between the countries and people, it’s an abyss which is getting wider and deeper.
Soon we’ll not be able to understand or see each other. Hence we’ll not disturb each others’ own madness.
The live action „Cat on Accordion“ that happened in September in the courtyard of Mikhailovsky Castle in St. Petersburg requires some deeper realisation. I hope you’ll be able to see and hear what happened there soon.
Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: Daniel Williams
Photo: Nastya Ponomareva, Elena Yarovaya, Anton Adasinsky
Photo design: Elena Yarovaya