“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

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

DEREVO played Ketzal in Dresden
Although “playing” or “dancing” doesn’t really suite Ketzal
I rather should say “Ketzal happened” or “Ketzal has been here”

I always realised that that Ketzal game is a festival of men
So after two months of rehearsals it happened

The best cast!

Anton Adasinsky
Anna Budanova
Makhina Dzhuraeva
Pavel Alekhin
Ivan Nevzorov
Stepan Lyubimov
Ivan Volkov
Alexey Popov

Light: Elena Yarovaya, Igor Fomin
Music & Sound of course by Daniel Williams
All round helper: Liza Polyanskaya

Thank you!

Do not miss ISLANDS at ERARTA in St Petersburg!

Text: Anton Adasinsky
Photo: Peter R. Fiebig, Elena Yarovaya, Liza Polyanskaya

I wrote and wrote for two days about what was strange this year
and about the “Story of a Girl”
and about friends in Kiev
and about instincts
and about frozen time
about friends and career…
lots of things

I wrote and looked at the cabbage on the window sill

It’s useless!
Just as well I could simply write “Happy New Year!”
But that seemed too small to me

Suddenly, having no more thoughts of my own
I’d rather repeat someone else’s words, quite like Redrick Schuhart did:

“…But if you really are… all-powerful… all-knowing… then you figure it out! Look into my heart. I know that everything you need is in there. It has to be. I never sold my soul to anyone! It’s mine, it’s human! You take from me what it is I want… it just can’t be that I would want something bad! Damn it all, I can’t think of anything, except those words of his… ‘HAPPINESS FOR EVERYBODY, FREE, AND NO ONE WILL GO AWAY UNSATISFIED!’”

(from ‘Roadside Picnic’, Arkady & Boris Strugatsky, transl. Antonina W. Bouis)

Text: Anton Adasinskiy
Photo: Elena Yarovaya