The next workshop by Anton Adasinsky & DEREVO will be held in Moscow on November 22nd 2016. Only for russian-speaking audience.

Full information and registration form in Russian »

English text editor: David Kemp
Photo & Video: Makhina Dzhuraeva

A week passed - my dreams haven’t changed
Endless celebrating faces, colourful flyers on the ground, the city covered with thousands
of posters, all the shows, performances, concerts…
We’ve barely left and we want to come back again
To go out in the street and look around, proudly thinking: there’s more of us, actors, here
than of you, visitors.

We played 24 shows in 26 days

What happened:
Makhina debuted in the role of Oleg
Alexey Popov debuted as Cupid
Never sleeping, Merkushev drove his standard 5000 km
People came who saw ONCE… 20 years ago
People came who had never seen ONCE… the children of those first ones

David ran onto the stage for the first time

What didn’t happen:
Guiness beer (god knows why)
A visit to ‘Sharmanka’ (what a shame)
Any quarrels coming from exhaustion (surprising for the Fringe)

I think a hamster running in a wheel must be happy!
His road never ends.

Anton

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

I’ve started rehearsals of the new project dedicated to Osip Mandelstam at the Gogol Centre in Moscow.
Chulpan Khamatova ― the Soul
I ― the Chitin of a Poet
and eight of the coolest guys from Kirill Serebrennikov’s troupe. We have already worked together in “Who Is Happy In Russia”.

Made the first photo proofs for my solo work “The Well-Tempered Clavier”. My knowledge of Uber-Marionette theory will be put to a full use here.
Lena Yarovaya did 12 solo performances at the medieval fair in Dresden.

We’re going to Edinburgh! What for? I do not know. No. I know.
There, in Edinburgh, we’re at home, on the street every second person - an artist, and the bartenders are not versed in art worse than the pros from the Scotsman or Herald.
Why are we bringing ONCE… ?
It’s more complicated to answer.
Four years we’re searching for fun for our kids ― a task more and more difficult.
A serious and troubled world doesn’t do much for children.
Hard times.
And you can’t go far with cartoons from the 50s and 60s.
And I want to take them to the theatre, a fairy-tale. Splendid and rich…
And even more, I MYSELF want to go to a good film. And that takes a long time to find.

Although “good” ― it’s not the right word. Well… at least I don’t want any morals: children are smarter than adults; drinking is bad; insects are aliens (or vice versa); Galápagos giant tortoises sacrifice themselves to stop evolution…

From the first line, the first picture, the first sound, I know whether they will eat a piece of my life… or… suddenly the heart beats stronger, the sparks run around my fingers and someone’s soul embraces my face like an oxygen mask. I, after all, like everyone else, I guess, someday everything will be fine. And I have to believe that in these hidden dreams I am not alone.

“ONCE…” ― it is eternal. Like Robinson Crusoe or Gagarin, or artificial snow under the Christmas tree, like a thundering old tram, like the drumming of domino stones in the backyard.
A ray of light leaves my chest and turns to a moon. It rises to the stars and suddenly there’s a shadow! It’s me. I’m so small, crossing the moonpath on a toy comet!
And this is what I’m ready to watch forever.
During August, every day we will catch a Miracle by the ear.

Anton

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: David Kemp
Video: Andrey Gladkikh
Photos: Makhina Dzhuraeva, Elena Imamova, Igor Fomin

P.S. Such an irony: yesterday in the middle of the show the fire alarm has set off, so the audience and we too - accompanied by friendly clapping - were escorted outside. We spent a couple of relaxed minutes in the sun together with Mary Brennan.

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

see also / siehe auch / см. также: http://www.derevo.org/live/275

“Behold a man who has commenced his run
Way back when dawn broke over the whole universe…”*

A corridor of a hospital.
It is not very clean and the interior is old.
Along the corridor a couple drift.
A boy warmly dressed in a sweater, 11 or 12 years old
Just behind — a man, with his head held unnaturally thrown back, with his face disfigured by burns.
He wears two dressing gowns.
And some hospital jacket on top
Pajama pants, dirty at the bottom, and completely barefoot.
At the exit door they are caught by either an orderly or a doctor.
He grabs the boy:
— Have you taken the rug?
The boy shows him a bundle under his arm.
The Burned looks somewhere above their heads, somehow through them…
They go down the steps and as soon as the man feels the ground under his feet he takes off and runs.
Apparently — it’s the hospital’s recreation park.
He runs along the wire fence.
The boy runs after him and it feels like this is their usual activity.

Dynamic shot.
But there must be a glitch:
Either the camera slows down or the fence grille becomes more aggressive, and the light flickers, gets dark

Snow cloud.

And the snow falls and melts on his face
And his cheeks flush, with death

Out of a hospital window a nurse with an unhealthy boy in her arms looks at the Burned and his young companion.
They sit on a bench.
The man’s feet are wrapped in a towel, under his feet the rug covering the snow.
He doesn’t notice it
There, far below

Very wide shot (Bruegel’s “The Hunters in the Snow”?)

There’s an almost finished snowman.
Instead of hands he has twigs. Many of them.
The urchins have conceived something and the Burned knows what.

— Take it to them

He gives the boy a box of matches,
The boy purses his lips and runs down.
He stumbles on the way. Falls slapstick in the snow. He gets up and turns around.
The Burned is lying awkwardly on his side on the bench.
The boy with a scream runs back from the bench directly to the hospital building.

The snowflakes on the face of the Burned do not melt any more.

The children down below somehow set fire to the snowman’s twigs.
Fire and snow.
The white Idol melts, a white toy!!
A carrot nose and button eyes!
This is forever!
He will burn — and take you with him!

A fool in the window:

— What rotten heathens!…

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: David Kemp
Photo: Anna Bogodist, Elena Imamova, Elena Yarovaya
* from Bella Akhmadullina, Transl. by Gregory Freidin

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

The story of the clones ended in 2164.
It started boringly and finished unnoticed.
The last clone reservations in Canada didn’t even need guards.
It was difficult for mere mortals to get there, for the reservations were also the territory of the ‘Indians’. But if somebody was still interested, the cost was inexpensive and there wasn’t much to see.
As was well known, the clones could speak any language but their words were dry and sparce.
When they spoke they looked at the nipples of their interlocutor, left eye on the left one, right eye on the right one.
They never asked any questions.
They would end a conversation abruptly and the stories about their ability to foresee or heal were just bait for tourists.

But in just ten years the remaining 150-200 thousand clones were bought by the Swiss, ostensibly to end the experiment.

Canada and the ‘Indians’ were happy.

The last notorious case involving clones began in Geneva, in its swamp of boredom and eco-paranoia.

The first performance of Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus” took its course as usual, with dinner and lethargic applause at the end. All quite ordinary until the moment when a gaunt and frantic clerk stepped on stage and announced to the “most honourable audience” that tonight 43 people had died on stage. In response to the laughter from the stalls he raised a curtain and pointed to a pile of bodies, a concise snapshot - “Clones”.

“Titus Andronicus”
It does indeed have many killings
And impeccably played and perfectly real, the death of a clone-actor attracted spectators hungry - now just as in ancient times - for blood.
But the terms got more complex, and a particular privilege became not just to watch throughout and clap at the end
But to also attend the funerals.
The clones weren’t buried or cremated. They were dissolved in a solution of complex composition bearing the glorious name “Sfumato” - the haze of Florence, raising a mountain in the hearts of those who never stoop.
And this elite audience, bidding farewell to the body of a clone melting in the solution, lived the show to its real end and took away, one would hope, some honour, courage and disdain for revenge.

Such theatres were banned, hidden, closed, then reappeared.
Because romantic love, passion, shown faithfully and frankly, always wins in front of cardboard knives and plastic clubs.

For the Endless Death Show, the weapons were brought from museums and sharpened by the masters of the fifth generation.

But all this has passed.

Not much has been written about it. People (men, mostly) didn’t want to speak, think or write about clones.

A single convenient argument was always used - imperfection of their souls.

Women were never included in the polemics, for a sin with a clone wasn’t actually a sin and after the explosion of clone-dating, a husband just became a talking zucchini…

Some things remain unclear: their unwillingness to tell jokes, dislike of geometry, prostration in front of any animal, crying at the sight of a river, endless catarrh.

But most likeable, what moved idiots and children, was when fifteen or more clones placed their arms on each other’s shoulders and danced in a ring for a short while before peacefully falling asleep, their skin colour changing to silver.

To look at their sleeping faces is forbidden, for he who does will see them always in his dreams till the end of his (their) days.

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