According to the long-year December tradition DEREVO performs a series of new works and brings back some older shows at the Festspielhaus Hellerau in Dresden.

20 - 22 December 2012, 20:00

“Fifth Sun”

new performance by Anton Adasinsky & DEREVO. Stage design by Pavel Semchenko (AKHE)

An abstract tales or myths make children and scientists happy. Common people rather passionately discuss those concerning the End of the World. Like The Flood, The Fire from the Sky, The Mad Asteroid and of course The Maya Calender. The End Of the Fifth Sun is on 21.12.2012. But the premiere is on 20th of December, don’t worry.

Anton

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28 December, 20:00

“Sake, the Moon and a Horse”

Solo performance by Anton Adasinsky with unique improvisations.

„Unique, ‘cos I positively couldn’t repeat them again.“
Anton

During final applause it becomes clear that Sake is the name of a Girl.

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29 - 30 December, 20:00

HARLEKIN

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We’re now working on MEPHISTO WALTZ.

The idea came to me during the filming of the «Faust» by A. Sokurov

The forced immobility and the total ban even for my daily excercises (to keep the character’s spirit intact) were exhausting.

Now this is a kind of dance version of the film coming up as «revenge».

Though it’s quite unclear where the scarecrow comes from. But nobody’s bewildered by that at DEREVO.

Harlekin’s life is jolly and wondrous!

We were in Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, St. Petersburg. Now we’re travelling to Serbia, then Budapest, then to…. And yes, the book about Me-Harlekin is available now. You can see it here:

It’s like a libretto or a manual.

And last but not least: my notion entitled „Motorway – the moles’ tomb“ has been approved for consideration by the Greens. By boring six cm wide holes at two meter intervals on all roads passing a wood moles can reach the surface freely. Too many of them get stuck under the asphalt only to find death!

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

Conversation with one of spectators

“I know why ‘Harlequin’, it’s for the help of his spirit. You could call the play in any other way, couldn’t you? And the costume is not that of Harlequin. It’s of The Poet! Pierette is his Muse. That’s so right! The Monkey is his inner demon, his sick and run-away heart! Isn’t it just like from Mayakovsky?”

And right there amidst roaring buses he started to read it out in Russian:

Situation that might have happened

One of Harlequin’s biographies

400 years ago some actor asked to join a wandering minstrels company.

His appearance was rather interesting: ragged and patched robe, blackened face…

“Has he never washed himself?”, asked the ‘Father’ of the actors family
“No, he has burned”
“How comes that?”
“He had to fall from a great heights”
“What’s that on his forehead?”
“A horn shiver”

Actors cracked up together.
‘Father’ raised his voice and they fell silent.

“Thine eyes are sharp. Go thou on stage to-day and to-morrow. It is for spectators to decide.”

Spectators decided. The new actor was accepted in the company

“How must we call thee, horned creature?”
“Alichino”

Who have you been? What was your name, a wandering actor? And why, just why you chose a devil’s name?..

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: Daniel Williams
Drawings: Frances Drewery
Photos: Elena Yarovaya, D. Adasinsky
Photo design: Elena Yarovaya

DEREVO is still fighting at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. That’s really not easy.

For those who doesn’t know what it is: for instance, there’s seven to ten different companies performing on the same stage at the same venue. There are 200 of such venues. Time for set-up, minimal changes for light, sounds, for make-up and warm-up - 30 minutes precisely. Just as much time for break down and cleaning after the show.

Currently DEREVO with Harlekin is in the Top 5 from all 1100 companies who received any reviews at all. Here you can have a look at the critics rating, friendly compiled by The List: http://edinburghfestival.list.co.uk/top-rated

I’d also like to point again to the slideshow by Murdo Macleod from Guardian.co.uk

Congratulations to Harlekin (and The Devoted Monkey), as well as to Carabass. Hold on and keep up the good work, guys!

Just 6 days left…

DEREVO.org web-master

Here’s what the Scottish and English press thinks of DEREVO this year:

***** The Herald, Mary Brennan
…This piece really is about the heart and soul of tragi-comic physicality…

Watching Anton Adasinsky inhabit the age-old, timeless form of Harlequin – or Petrushka, Pierrot or Mr Punch, since they are the same elemental free spirit – is to witness a celebration of wordlessly expressive artistry shade into a poignant elegy for a theatrical dimension that long predates the machine age….

***** EdinburghGuide.com, Garry Platt
…This is not just a stage production it’s a phenomenon… Derevo’s Harlekin presents one scene after the next, each iconic and visually dazzling, unique. The stage is filled raw visceral emotion and then subtle considered jokes and funny vignettes…

***** Fest
…The show is a sequence of strange, arresting set-pieces which would be disorientating without the Harlekin himself. The weary innocence with which he greets every strange new situation is the play’s one constant note…

**** The Telegraph, Mark Monahan
…Just go and see this show. It’s strange, stirring, often beautiful entertainment, and you’ll be thinking about it for a long time…

**** The List, Brian Donaldson
…The sinister and the beautiful have been Derevo’s trademarks ever since their Edinburgh debut in 1997 with Red Zone, and Harlekin provides another memorable chapter in their captivating story…

**** The Scotsman, Kelly Apter
…big show filled with striking visual images and charming set pieces. As the Harlekin, Adasinsky’s capacity to mix tragedy and comedy in one role has never been more obvious, while his turn as the domineering Hurdy Gurdist is a little comic gem…

**** Edinburgh Spotlight, Julie Dawson
…Technically, Harlekin is flawless. The performers are breathtaking, the marriage between music and movement is impeccable, the lighting is perfect, the costumes and makeup are excellent. The overall effect is stunning…

**** Three Weeks, Hannah Myers
…a heart-rending tale of unrequited love, cruelty and suffering unfolds. Derevo transcend this dark matter to reveal pools of shimmering light in the tenacity of the human soul, matching sinister dances of death with exquisite physical manifestations of the beating heart…

**** Fringe Review
…once we accept the basic theme we sit back and take in the spectacle like a surreal dream….

The List still hasn’t counted all the Harlekin’s stars and put the show at the 9th position of 952. not that bad… ».

And just beyond all competition is the unique slide-show by Murdo Macleod from Guardian.co.uk just watch it on their web-site:

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

After the workshop at Stanford one of the students offered to bring me to the hotel in San Francisco.

It’s about 40 minutes travel. In the car he asked me if I’ve seen the Redwood. Not if I’ve been there but if I’ve seen it. I said that I’m too tired. He suddenly flushed red and said that I’ve just got to go there. So he turned off the highway. Quite unexpectedly stubborn for an American…

I rarely visit any woods. I’m always sad there and it is somehow cramped. But the Redwood, it’s something entirely different. They are also known as Mammoth trees. We were walking somewhere rather fast and he spoke something looking at his feet. He said nothing new, nothing new could I hear but something unusual was going on.

All his thoughts about technology development, about the destiny of the Father of Internet seemed to me rather flat for a Stanford student.

He tried to pull me into discussion. I suspected an attempt to show off a little bit.

“Everyone I know in Stanford wants to change the world.” I answered that I really want to keep the world as it is, so we’re on different paths. We laughed.

He brought me to a cut of a tree trunk and I couldn’t believe my eyes: the tree must have been around 2500 years old! And some of the annual rings were marked and signed.

The student went on talking and I was reading… 1347, Europe’s Black Death… “We’ve got a club, called The Cell. There are really selected brains. We try to analyze the moment when inventions or discoveries or rather presentiments of an invention can be captured by other people. Or even more precisely when some kind of an invention’s carrier frequency emerges and is available for scanning, since at that very moment… how should I explain it…” – 1492, Columbus arrives to the New World – “ … it’s not a stealing, it’s much more complex… best of the best are working here” – hmm, if it’s allowed to smoke a cigarette here in the woods… – “…we’re moving the world here. And another moment which is particularly exciting is when an invention becomes destructive and may come into unfriendly hands…” – Declaration of Independence is signed, 1776 – “another project I’m working on at The Cell is a software development, the software invoking an enmity to other software in one’s mind… a sort of shady copy of the original software but actually quite sophisticated… ” – Gold Rush, 1848 – “one of the tasks is an integration of elements which irritate a human biosystem via PC and arouse a consequent rejection, an inability to perceive information without additional effort…”

At the hotel’s doors he said to me that he’s always talking that much in the Wood because he hears the voices of the Redwood if he’s silent.

“And what do the voices say?”
“Pretty much the same but quite understandable and clear, and just like it happened yesterday. It’s dangerous. Thank you once again for your Harlequin. Have a good night.”

The Black Dance from the previous news is the first outline of the new DEREVO project MEPHISTO WALTZ. Scenic design by Maxim Isaev (AKHE). In May Lena, Tanya, Alisa and Anton presented this work at the Meta Theatre of Mikhail Chemiakin in France.

The main character of the performance was born there – The Scarecrow (you will not see him on any photo).

Text: Anton Adasinskiy
English text editor: Jennifer Williams
Photo: Elena Yarovaya, Maxim Isaev, Mikhail Chemiakin
Photo design: Elena Yarovaya

Dear Friends!

It’s very important to remember:

That there are friends

That somebody needs you

That fraud and cowardice will punish themselves

That there are many Teachers

That “a happy men” is not a museum piece

And that everyday You, only You can change your life…

Happy New Year!

And we are celebrating the New Year with blinding tiredness!

There were performances, tours, 4 big projects, filming of “Hoffmaniada” with Mikhail Chemyakin and Slava Polunin, filming of the “Faust” by Alexander Sokurov…many things…and finally – our premiere of “HARLEKIN” (We wish him a long and jolly road!).

DEREVO

Video about one of our projects in 2009 – Nature Morte is here »

More about the new performance HARLEKIN »