The next workshop by Anton Adasinsky & DEREVO will be taking place in St. Petersburg, on Dec 8&9, 2018. Only for russian-speaking audience.

Full information and registration form in Russian »

The next workshop by Anton Adasinsky & DEREVO will be taking place in St. Petersburg, on May 19 & 20, 2018. Only for russian-speaking audience.

Full information and registration form in Russian »

Dear organisers of the 6th St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum!

1
Yesterday I spoke with Alexander Sokurov’s office. He does not take part in the forum. The reason for this is a letter signed by deputy of ministry of culture – Vladimir Aristarkhov, which he did not confirm but also didn’t deny. In the letter, several well-known directors, journalists, writers are called unwanted guests at the forum.

2
I do not see it’s possible for me to speak under the banner of the organisation which is called the Ministry of Culture. The organisation which still stays indifferent to arrest of my friends and colleagues K. Serebrennikov, S. Apfelbaum and A. Malobrodsky.

3
With all due respect to the participants of the “Circus and Street Theater” section, I apologise to my friends Slava Polunin, Joop Mulder, John Kilby, Horacio Czertok, whom I’ve been knowing for years and also to Natasha Tabachnikova, the organizer of this event. I hope for understanding.

I apologise to my spectators - they will receive information about the emergence (more precisely - about the revival) of street theatre in Russia in a different way. Either at my open lecture in St.Petersburg or through the internet. I’ll let you know in advance.

Please remove my name from the program of the “Circus and Street Theater” section of
VI St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum.

Anton Adasinsky
Tanztheater DEREVO

Why one would need to get married?

Tick the correct answer for you (a maximum of two checkboxes)

• Combine life paths (obsolete)
• Combine capital
• Combine glory
• Continuation of the species
• It’s time
• Registration
• Love
• Forced by parents
• The land question (bargaining for half a kingdom)
• Acceptance
• Lets do it!
• Other

There are stereotypes of social behavior, passionately hated by me.

In different cultures and peoples, the wedding is perceived in different ways.

Somewhere it is a festival, somewhere - the end of life, somewhere just a business agreement.
Somewhere polygamy, somewhere monogamy, somewhere monochrome, somewhere - three in one. With leaky laws, you can marry the deceased or marry a cat.
The whole story.

The Serbian version by Ana Sokolović is just one of the lines from this intricate folio.

Perfect in musical form, harmoniously and rhythmically throwing us into a Serbia which is no more, this “capella” work contains few words, which is how it should be in the forms of rituals, tunes, dialects, lamentations.

Music itself is an inviolable Cosmos. But one day someone could not resist and shoved the word “meaning” into it.

Opera is one of the well-aged heirs of this error.

And it took me into two worlds.

The first - domestic: the story of the heroine and her girlfriends. A history of lives.

The other - operatic: there is Music and Voice. It’s another hypostasis, emasculated.

A history of symbols, it also has the right to exist, but without the first world, is uninteresting.

For a long time I’ve practiced the stage arts, but still haven’t decided for myself what the relationship between man and the theatre is. The combination of reality and unreality is what interests me. And this production is another attempt to understand that,

What is art,
What is music,
What is singing,
What is human life.

Sokolovich’s “Wedding” - a hymn to the hopes of Women.
But they don’t come true for her.

And in a small two-story greenhouse, time will get intertwined.
Above - Notes, Throats and the anguish of operatic powder, searching to become natural.
Below - the same thing, but running on the crooked tracks of time, our lives.
From the sweaty phone booth and - “where did you hang out?” - to the marriage trap.

This is a dance of the five gateways of life. Five girls.

Childhood, adolescence, the WEDDING, everyday life and finally … through pots and pans and a belief in the next day - to meet with a gnarled old woman.

“As they say, the story is “set in stone”.

I’m not a director. I’m an actor first of all. And a dancer. In my company, DEREVO, I’m called “colander” because I sift out all kinds of rubbish, leaving only the best.

And it’s not so important that the viewer understands me literally.

It is important that during the rehearsals something happened in the girls and singers, and they remember this time.

The rest is on stage.

Anton

Translated by David Kemp

June 9th
“OKSTIS”
Dance action dedicated to stubbornness, a split personality and the heavenly bastards.
Music - Vladimir Volkov (double bass, voice)

June 10th
“HARAM”
We are told there
We are told we must
We are told we cannot speak
We are told
Don’t you dare
On the wall there is a fist
Youth has no dusty memorial

June 11th
“WARM-BLOODED”
This dance is about muscles, joints, pulse and blush, about shoulders and hugs, coughing and laughing, wince and desire. And the fact that the body’s language is still not available to us.

June 16th
“OVARY”
You are a donor and a vampire
Mother and father
Finger and ring
Cheek and slap in the face
God and the Devil
You are always two
This is the madness of the Force
Let it sparkle!

June 17th
“SNAKE TIME”
I am the king of nature, I am a man
I feel like I can’t stay sitting
We must create, sell, buy, break and build
I am the master of the illusion of activity
All grief and bubbling
And only after dinner will I calm down for an hour, digesting like a coiled snake hat
And, having drunk a cup of tea, I will stop the War

June 17th
Live concert of the AVIA & Anton Adasinsky

The next workshop by Anton Adasinsky & DEREVO will be taking place in St. Petresburg, on May 23d & 24th 2017. Only for russian-speaking audience.

Full information and registration form in Russian »

Ребята, привет!
Хорошая новость!

После длительных переговоров с РГИСИ и моих размышлений, я принял решение не набирать предварительный курс.

Структура РГИСИ не позволит мне учить студентов только по системе DEREVO. А некоторые дисциплины в нашем театре так и вообще идут вразрез с тем, что студенты будут изучать в Академии.

Это ни в коем случае не бросание “тени” на давно сложившуюся структуру РГИСИ.

Это то, от чего я всегда сбегал и прятался. И выходить на поверхность с довольно “герметическим” воспитанием актёра в стилистике DEREVO - это риск уплощения, а то и вовсе разрушение нашей структуры, которые я бережно строил в течение 35 лет.

Да и в сегодняшнем театральном мире диплом, или еще какое-то свидетельство, не имеют для меня никакого значения. Мастерство и талант человека будет проверяться мной в работе, не важно что вы закончили, как часто снимались и выступали

Поэтому - status quo:

Я буду проводить мастер-классы, когда почувствую в этом необходимость

На своем “поле” и по своим принципам

И вы узнаете об этом вовремя

Спасибо

и извините за чьи-то нарушенные планы

Антон Адасинский
DEREVO

Currently this information only available in Russian here: http://www.derevo.org/live/286

We knew a guy we called Nesta. I don’t remember - whether it was a nickname or from a cut-down surname.
Nothing special: soft voice, always half-turned to his companion,
Always the same sweater a la mid-60’s bard,
Stout white arms.
But two things made him stand out from our bunch.
First, for example, he would ask if anyone had the book “Unhurried Pace” by Lorca, or if someone had heard the metal band “The Cheekbone” from Volgograd.
Fabrications both, one and the other, which would lie firmly memorized!
And second.
After lunch in the college canteen, we walked into the courtyard, sat on a secluded bench,
Nesta pulled up his singlet, and we could see his stomach working. On the belly were waves of digestion.
The sight was mesmerising. While we were watching it for the first time, he said - “The Ships of Liss”, forever encoding us, invoking the black and white moustache of Alexander Grin against the background of a dancing navel.

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: David Kemp
Photo: Elena Yarovaya

Mephisto Waltz – always a struggle.
I struggle with my current reluctance to shake Death’s scythe and with the drunken genius of Shalyapin.
Gustav Holst struggles with electronics by Daniel Williams.
The audience struggles with the eternal “Planets” and today’s DEREVO.
　
We perform in the territory of the question:
“Is this Theatre?”
“What is this?”
　
In the past, less time was needed to take the audience into the zone of paid lunacy.
Interesting.
　
My solo work “Shell” has finally happened!
I want more!
　
And now, with the original cast, “La Divina Commedia” in Dresden!!
Tanya, Lena, Oleg, Alexey and me.
As the saying goes – HURRY! NOT TO BE MISSED!
　
Anton Adasinsky

English text editor: David Kemp
Photo: Natalia Korenovskaya

DEREVO performed at the opening of Mikhail Chemiakin’s photo exhibition ‘Carnival of Venice’ in the Russian Museum. Photos by Lena Yarovaya are also exhibited.

Now we’re getting ready for MEPHISTO WALTZ at Erarta in St. Petersburg.

And for ‘The Shell’ — my solo work of words and music

Finally my first book is now compiled.

It’s an attempt to capture the images, dreams and visions that had an impact on our performances or simply were a pill for sadness, or a prayer to the mirror, or a scratch on Petersburg’s grey skies, or for any other reason why I’m almost there…

And every day I’m assured that we’ve been given a wonderful world!

The Shell

only in Russian now, coming up in english later.

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

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: David Kemp
Photos: Anna Bogodist, Evgeny Sinyaver, Evgeny Pronin

The filming of “Mayakovsky” in which I played the role of V. Meyerhold is completed. Director Alexander Sheyn had to cross himself when I appeared for the first time in my make-up…

Then, the second set of rehearsals for a new project “Who is Happy in Russia?” at the Gogol Centre in Moscow. I am the director and choreographer of the “Drunken Night” segment. Composer - Ilya Demutsky. There are 23 dancers on stage. I must admit, I have never seen so many talents on one stage simultaneously. Strong company. Thanks to Kirill Serebrennikov for his disciples.

Upcoming projects are the “Viking” by A. Kravchuk and “Bonus” by Valeria Gai Germanika.

In the meantime, my “Extended Day Group” improvises in private apartments, in the streets and so on. Exercising by DEREVO.

Recently, Museums night in St Petersburg at Mikhail Chemiakin’s Foundation, in July there’s a festival in Nizhny Novgorod, on 8th of July we’re closing the Open Look Festival in St Petersburg.

In Summer there’s a lot of filming too and in Autumn there’s a big marathon coming up at ERARTA.

It would be good to be in time for all of this.

Anton

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

I spent a week in StP.
A record for meetings and conversations.
Meetings all about organising DEREVO’s work in St. Petersburg.
I was not on my own for one minute.
I met the Committee for culture, theaters, directors, officials, students …

Two days of rest and now I try to analyze my feelings

1. This happened in some other world. With this world DEREVO never was connected.
2. I was always in danger in these days.
   • Danger to look independent.
   • Danger to make a compromise.
   • Danger to be misunderstood. Danger of too many jokes. Danger to absorb the private lives, which pour from virtually every interlocutor.
   • Danger to get sick at heart seeing all these people’s insecure plans.
3. When there are millions of troubled people all around you - you will be troubled. The dream is gone. Just whisky and music.
4. Desire to vacuum and clean the shoes.
5. Flashes of anger with vendors and taxi drivers - never had this before.

I leaned too far out of the trench. Could be shot.

The last day, two students came to say their goodbye and thanks for the master class. To speak of the work, I forbade them. They asked - is it possible to smoke.

I gave permission. They smoked a joint and the smell drew from memory a distant morning when I woke up in space. It was 4 am. And from the window flowed a sound that did not belong to Leningrad, nor to the USSR nor to our damp morning courtyard …
I remembered how I went to the window and sat on the windowsill for forty minutes …
My 17 years have been dismissed by the judge. I’ve started from the beginning.

And I did the same thing!
I put an ancient speaker in the window and turned on “Wish you were here” …
But something strange has happened. Soon we became scared.
I reduced the volume - the fear never left.
I turned off everything and had to close the window to calm down.
I showed the girls a book, just bought that evening.
Searched for three years and bought it!
The first small edition of his book “Stone” that Mandelstam paid for himself in 1913.
300 small books that changed my world, and not only mine … We read the poems ….
and Pink Floyd came off and flew back home…
I sang page 8 to them.
That’s all.

Then the taxi and the familiar: “Do you mind turning off the radio?”

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: David Kemp

Video:

Lyrics by Osip Mandelstam
Music composed and performed by Roman Dubinnikov
Photos from DEREVO archive by various photographers

with
Anton Adasinsky
Nikolay Gusev
Alexei Rakhov
Victor Vyrvich
Igor Timofeev
Veronica Golubeva
Sasha Harinova

Video and Photography : Nastasia Maslennikova, Eva Kuligina
Sound : Seva Gakkel, Mark Titov
Editing : Nastasia Maslennikova, Eva Kuligina
Production Assistant : Alexandre Senin, Olga Ogneva
Producer : Seva Gakkel

In association with 3MostA Hotel and Erarta Museum and Galleries of Contemporary Art

see also: http://balconytv.com/v/positive-band-his-eyes-balconytv