Derevo
Anton Adassinsky 'We want to bring an extreme soul feeling to the stage'

 

WE'RE GOING TO cat Anna Pavlova!*

Lena Yarovaya, performer with astonishing Russian 'anti-clown' group Derevo and self-styled 'catcher of chaos', laughs as she dishes up (he mix of meringue, raspberries and whipped cream. It seems that the famous ballerina can rest easy, but with Derevo you really never know.
Formed in St. Petersburg in 1988, Derevo (Russian for 'tree') are a maelstrom of chaotic clowning, anarchic aesthetics, silence and special effects, volume and violence. Between 1982 and 1986, Derevo founder, director and performer Anton Adassinsky was the pupil and colleague of Slava Polunin. whose Snowshow was last year's Fringe hit. Derevo and Polunin are working on a new show together - Rats, which is planned for the Fringe in 1998. Now Derevo arc performing Red Zone in the midnight hour every night.
The time suits the darkly stylish show. Its hatchet-sharp tone shifts metronome-like between hilarity and menace. The group are visually stunning. Skinheads in heavy make up, when not semi-nude, wear costumes which arc a firebomb in a wizard's wardrobe.
Kicking off with a cacophonous clown show of the fall-about-lhrow-stuff-around-toot-the-trumpet variety. Derevo move through 'Red Zone is an explosion of our emotions, our training, our feelings about life. We do not discuss meanings. The words just fly from your mouth and disappear.'
Anton Adassinsky' beautiful physical sculpture, choreographed violence, tricks with mirrors and lights and incredible acrobatics. Various themes are touched - birth sexuality, ageing, death - but this is not a show with a message, this is soul.
'We want to bring an extreme soul feeling to the stage.' explains Adassinsky. 'The emotional life of the 20th century is dying. We want to re-connect the performer and audience, connect heart to heart. 'Red Zone is in explosion of our emotions, our training, our feelings about life. We do not discuss meanings. The words just fly from your mouth and disappear.'
To achieve their goal, Derevo have a rigorous training schedule that has more in common with the self-mortification rituals of Buddhist monks than any existing acting school. In 1988 Adassinsky gathered 50 St Petersburg performers for a year of intense training based on 200 physical, mental and emotional exercises of his own invention.
The training concluded with an 'exam' - a twenty-minute solo performance unaccompanied by sound, lights, words or effects. Of the original 50 students, only twelve made it to the end of the year, the others unable to maintain the pace of sixteen-hour working days and a brown rice diet. Out of those twelve, only five made the grade and formed Derevo.
'I didn't worry about the exam.' Lena notes sagely. 'I was so concentrated on the work that I lost my sense of self. The hardest exercise is to come back to reality.
Anton Adassinsky 'We want to bring an extreme soul feeling to the stage'
'Our training is not about learning to tap dance or whatever,' she sheers. 'We are trying to create a philosophical base.'
Adassinsky leaps on this idea of total commitment. 'Our work is like rock music in that they are both 100% expression. It is not enough just to play - the best music comes from the moment when the musician is burning up. So it is with us. Action, havoc.
burn the car. knock down the buildings. You have to be prepared to kill yourself at midnight every night.'
In a Festival of scams, stunts and hype-stuffed turkeys Derevo are the real deal. (PR)
Red Zone (Fringe) Derevo. The Pleasance (Venue
33) Edinburgh. 0131 556 6550. until 27 Aug.
11.30pm. £6.50/£7.50 (£5/£6).

22-28 Aug 1997 The List
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