10 days in June

• June 8th ISLANDS
• June 9th ISLANDS
• June 10th Filming for «Viking» (feature), director A. Kravchuk
• June 11th AVIA at the street parade
• June 12th «Midnight Balance»
• June 15th AVIA in concert
• June 17th Makhina Dzhuraeva performs with Elena Kaufman

These two weeks reminded me of DEREVO’s beginnings.

Working continuously for 24 hours at the limit of your strengths, you stop being conscious of any other world but your own. And thus it becomes easy to be creative!

No, “easy” is the wrong word.

At the peak of tiredness all the most crazy ideas become natural, the place begins to draw people in like a magnet, a church-like seriousness builds, a whirlpool of power…

And then the great moment comes when the actors and dancers on stage cease to look like “performers”. They are living it.

It stops being “just” a Theatre.

Elena Yarovaya
Makhina Dzhuraeva
Anna Budanova
Gleb Alekhin
Ivan Nevzorov
Lida Kopina
Liza Polyanskaya
Nikolay Zapolskih
Dmitry Krivochurov
Dasha Fedotova
Anna Bogodist
Elena Imamova
Nikolay Khamov
Igor Fomin
Grisha Shmidko
Sasha Gromyko

Thank you!

Anton Adasinsky

and folliwing was the ONCE… in Poland, we’re heading to Italy with MEPHISTO WALTZ soon and AVIA is going to play a big concert at the Open Cinema Festival in St Petersburg

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

Photo: Anton Adasinsky
Editing: Elena Yarovaya
Music: Daniel Williams
Dancers: Elena Yarovaya, Nastya Ponomareva, Nadya Mozheiko, Alexey Lanskoy, Gleb Alekhin and others
Costumes: Anna Frumson

Back in 1989 DEREVO was performing at OEROL for the very first time!

Aaaaah! Is it really so long ago???

22 years ago this Island made a new hardly noticeable companion to world re-knowned DEREVO theatre company.

Right there in the dunes, under the sky, on the endless sands, in the roaring wind and surf, there the unique principles of DEREVO’s dance have been elaborated. And they mean the mastering of huge spaces, laconic moves, purity of senses, precision in colours of the costumes and props, live music of nature…

Our improvisations here could be just four hours long, as well as nine days and nights without break, like in the „Adventures of the Golden Egg“.

And now at the thirtieth (!) anniversary OEROL Festival, on top of the hill, in an endless wind, blowing all the waste out of your mind and body, here DEREVO performs Mephisto Waltz.

No photograph could possibly convey the power of this place…
But still… here are some photo-visions…

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

See also one of the first online photo projects at DEREVO.org dedicated to the Island of Terschelling - Wind & Water »

The photographs from the Wind & Water are also available as a printed album DEREVO vol. 1 here »

In June the WEISSE FESTUNG (WHITE FORTRESS) happened at the beautiful pond in the historical city centre in Dresden. After the last year’s success they asked us to repeat the open-air action. It was far too easy to persuade us in this case.

On and In the Water:

Anton Adasinsky, Lena Yarovaya, Pavel Semchenko (AKHE), Andrey Sizintsev (AKHE), Alisa Oleynik, Maxim Kuznetsov, Lidiya Makeeva, Lidiya Kopina, Tatyana Belousova, Valentin Tzin, Alexey Lanskoy, Nastya Ponomareva

The crew

Daniel Williams - Sound, Steffen Köhler - Technical direction, Falk Dittrich - Light, Igor Fomin - Light for floating objects, Isolde Matkey - Management, and many assistants - everything that wouldn’t be possible without them

Film by Andrey Gladkikh

See also WEISSE FESTUNG Day by Day »

Photo - Elena Dolmatova

Click here to see all days »

Photo - Elena Dolmatova, Anton Adasinsky

Click here to see all days »

Photo - Elena Dolmatova

Click here to see all days »

Photo - Elena Dolmatova

Click here to see all days »

We are working on the WHITE FORTRESS project again. At the beautiful pond in the historical city centre in Dresden. After the last year’s success they asked us to repeat the open-air action. It was far too easy to persuade us in this case.

Usually the work on a show is a process closed for the public. But the weather and the mood are too good to keep anything secret.

In the next days we will share some impressions with you here.

On and In the Water:

• Anton Adasinsky
• Lena Yarovaya
• Pavel Semchenko (AKHE)
• Andrey Sizintsev (AKHE)
• Alisa Oleynik
• Maxim Kuznetsov
• Lidiya Makeeva
• Lidiya Kopina
• Tatyana Belousova
• Valentin Tzin
• Alexey Lanskoy
• Nastya Ponomareva

The crew

• Daniel Williams: Sound
• Steffen Köhler: Technical direction
• Falk Dittrich: Light
• Igor Fomin: Light for floating objects
• Isolde Matkey: Management
• and many assistants: everything that wouldn’t be possible without them

So here is the Day 1.

All photos by Elena Dolmatova

WEISSE FESTUNG 2010, 17-20 June, Dresden. More information and tickets »

WEISSE FESTUNG 2009 archive »

Hi Zhanna!
Do you remember?
Do you remember?
“I’ve been to a wonderful land
Where reefs bathe in amber waves…”

And in Moscow in the tiny kitchen Lenya Leikin and I showed you some funny pantomimes…

Do you remember how you sent me for flowers at 6 a.m.?
“What the f*ck, man? Where are the flowers? In a flash… to the metro!!”

And that wonderfully unexpected encounter in Edinburgh… You stayed overnight in our house and slept on the huge bed with Dima

with your feet on the pillow (just in case). Next morning Dima smoked many cigarettes analyzing it: “I haven’t got plastered with Grebenschikov yet but already slept with Aguzarova…”

And we found that wonderful land… Maybe you didn’t know that it existed. Did you know at that time? Did you? Just guessed, perhaps?

And I saw everything that you sang about. And we found the corner of the island with the three Thai rastas. And we met the shark. And I was sick almost to death.

Lena attended the school for monkeys and for Thai cuisine. She was quite proud of herself after reading that she’s not only an Itelmen but also a Navajo.

And I was sweeping the beach, smoking out the mosquitoes and didn’t touch the guitar, just ate sunbeams instead. Thanks, I’m full now.

Nobody was there anyway. And no thoughts too.

And waving your arm means an explosion of the glistering night water.
And the elephant’s trunk is soppy. They’re very lonely, you know.
And Bob Marley from Dawn to Dusk…

I do know what I’m doing. I explained it in hundreds of interviews.
But I didn’t manage to explain it to the rasta brothers.
It wasn’t necessary. Just – hello Sun, hello Water!

In our performance Islands we’ve guessed right quite everything – the
colour and Captain The Janitor, the glowing fishes and the running
clouds.

We just need to add the shark…

“And in the meantime”, whisper the emerald (amber) lips into the amber (emerald) mouth, “you can have a look at the new photos of the HARLEKIN performance, as well as the new old photos of the TOTENTANZ 07 project . And the wind will comb your hair.”

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: Jennifer Williams
Photo: Anton Adasinsky, Elena Yarovaya, Alexandra Kavalova
Photo design: Elena Yarovaya

…The White Fortress project in Dresden is over.

Now Anton Adasinsky (DEREVO) and Pavel Semchenko (AKHE) are on the way to France. There they will work on the new film “Signature” (working title), a joint project of Mikhail Chemiakin, Slava Polunin and Anton Adasinsky.

Meanwhile you can watch the very first video of the White Fortress:

Camera & cut: Andrey Gladkih
Music: Daniel Williams

How is it called in English; the ‘flash’, the ‘rush’? In Russian this is ‘prikhod’…

I sat on the bank and it looked like Alisa was checking the construction for walking on the water’s surface. You know, she’s quite risible…

A small pond. It was very hot. Water threw back the bright patches of light…

I closed my eyes but not very much changed. Alisa’s shape became black-and-white. Somebody said distinctly, “We shouldn’t speak of the light specks’ colour.”

First I realised that Alisa was repeating one and the same comic phrase. And this at regular intervals. I knew it was a preparation.

I was falling asleep somehow. The birds’ chorus grew stronger. Alisa’s laughter became quieter but jerky. Now it was obviously a Morse code, and instantly the light specks glistened behind my closed eyelids.

They pulsated along the rhythm of Alisa’s laughter. It seemed that they were pouring down, all alike in a form, all like tiny smiles. The water was laughing.

Furthermore, I realised clearly that the main function of the water was to bring people to a smile, to make them happy.

Watching the dance of the light patches, I knew that I couldn’t influence their size or their speed, and I couldn’t turn my head away.

Immediately there came a confidence about music and the sound waves.

I could memorize it easily and knew that I would be able to explain it in words later. I learned that ice is the water’s slumber, that Geisha’s religion is a happiness to be in somebody else’s form, and that the speed of the clouds, not the wind, defines the rhythm of a day.

Everything came to me in simple sentences. Apparently with a slight accent.

Something touched my toes. I opened my eyes. A dog. She was looking at me attentively. We were interested in each other. Her master pulled on a leash. She jumped on the pond’s bank and started to bite the waves, her upper lip curled a bit. “She’s laughing”, said Alisa.

The dog was playing with waves. The world’s sounds returned but they were different now.

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: Jennifer Williams
Photo: Anna Bogodist, Elena Yarovaya
Photo design: Elena Yarovaya

After uneasy and sleepless days in Mannheim (girls, tractors & night elegy) we found ourselves in Dublin. We were going to open the big Fringe festival. We couldn’t realize it at the start.

We really really wanted to sleep. Really.

What we could dance was maybe the sirtaki. And most likely only the first male part – slow and circumstantial.

And so we started. A dream on black waters at Hanon’s music. “Her Midst”. Hanon – is a pseudonym. I don’t think he would allow Skryabin to leave a wonderful greenhouse in the Pushkarskaya street in St. Petersburg without asking for permission.

The water wasn’t warm or clear. But it was happy that we gave our bodies to it. Just touch the water and some high-speed shimmering wonder connects you through all the brooks, rivers, seas and oceans to that peaceful creek where Krapp is hearing the sedge rustling against the bottom of his boat.

And then we performed in Samuel Beckett’s Theatre. A “happy days”…

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: Jennifer Williams
Photo: Elena Yarovaya, Andrey Bobylev
Photo design: Elena Yarovaya

See also the video shot by visual designers from Mercury Boy Inc. and originally posted at TheBubble.

DEREVO + AKHE + ROBODOCK

The project in Mannheim. Street action / Rehearsal
Das Projekt in Mannheim. Straßenaktion / Die Probe
Проект в Манхайме. Уличная акция / репетиция

The action takes place from July 24 till 29, 2007.
Die Aktion findet vom 24. bis 29. Juli statt.
Акция проходит с 24 по 29 июля.

19:00 - 23:00

See also / siehe auch / см. также: [DE] [EN] [RU]

let’s watch / смотрим:

from “Süd. Grenze” (en / de / ru), a white-and-black film by DEREVO © 2001.