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 »

GLASGOW: The Arches / Conflux / DEREVO / AKHE

10 – 14 November 2009

Camera & cut: Andrey Gladkih

DRESDEN: The Arches / Conflux / DEREVO

20 & 21 November 2009

Camera & cut: Andrey Gladkih

Camera & cut: Andrey Gladkikh
Music: Daniel Williams

see this video in a bigger size »

 

 

 

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: Jennifer Williams

I allow myself one sentimental message from Prague.

Dear Lena,

Anton the Usurer.

JESTERS’ EMPIRE

Idea and direction:

• Elena Yarovaya

Project management, director’s assistant:

• Isolde Matkey

Wooden Sculptures:

• Reinhard Zapka

Dancers and other creators:

• Alisa Oleynik
• Eugeniya Chetvertkova
• Elena Yarovaya
• Maxim Kuznetsov
• Valentin Tzin
• Alexander Mescheryakov

Music:

• Andrey Sizintsev
• Daniel Williams

Light:

• Ulf Naumann

The Smoke Master:

• Andrey Bobylev

Photo: Isolde Matkey, Elena Yarovaya
Photo design: Elena Yarovaya

 

 

August.

I can’t recall everything very clearly…
I remember I had to watch seventy two short films on one single night,
since I was in a jury of the Open Cinema.
Enough for the next ten years.
And in the morning we were rehearsing the upcoming concert.
Two new songs emerged:
“Times of Year” by Andrey Sizintsev
and “The Cat on Accordion” by me.
Olga Arefieva gave us a song and we were to accompany her but the guys took away her guitar, so she had to sing only to the drums. It worked fine though.

It was easy to be on stage with Evgeny Fedorov, we played “Money” pretty joyfully.

And every day I was learning my text for the film by Alexander Sokurov:
Faust. Mephisto / the Usurer speaks the Old German.

Now I’m at the filming location near Prague.
At the same time Lena Yarovaya prepares the big project Jesters’
Empire for the closing of the street theatre festival in Radebeul.
During the filming I only can scribble a couple of lines in the
evening, about what happened on each day.

These short notes are what I’d like to show you.

Anton.

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: Jennifer Williams
Photo: Elena Yarovaya, Isolde Matkey
Photo design: Elena Yarovaya

Anton

It was a big risk just to make up our minds to begin that week…

Metaphysical Hoffmann-based epics by Mikhail Chemiakin, anti-world of the highest clownery by Slava Polunin, “talking body” of DEREVO by Anton Adasinsky — three apexes of a triangle, equidistant and suddenly united…

A sweaty, nervous but happy week spent in France has proved that the joint film project is possible.

Thousands of ideas, suggestions and directions. It’s too early to discover any secrets but at this high creative temperature something extraordinary must come out!

And that will be a real film, not videotape. Pavel Semchenko is behind the camera, with his inimitable cinematic language. The video chronicles will be documented by Andrey Gladkih.

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: Jennifer Williams
Photo: Elena Yarovaya, Pavel Semchenko, Andrey Gladkih, E. Ushakova
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

From now on you can download and share the free online version of the DVD “Adventures of the Golden Egg”, the film by Andrey Gladkikh about DEREVO’s most spectacular open-air actions.

The download is provided free of charge via BitTorrent protocol. You will need a torrent client software to download it.

Download is available via free (no registration required) torrent tracker Mininova here »
If your torrent client supports direct magnet links you can also use this magnet URI »

More information about the film and the links to the YouTube version you will find here »

Here some screenshots:

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

Dear friends!

Slava Polunin has planned and already started possibly the biggest project of the 21st Century, The Tower of Human Foolishness.

I heard him and saw the deed of an Architect, and I’ve got permission to talk on his behalf.

The place, where The Tower of Human Foolishness will stand
Photo: Elena Yarovaya
Click to enlarge

He obtained permission to construct a monument that is bigger than anything built in human history right at his old Mill / Studio near Paris.

Four pillars of 690,000 tons each will raise an 11,720 meter high tower to the sky. This unbelievable landmark is already being constructed.

Its base will consist of circus tents and hooded carts brought here from all over the world, as well as 32 temple buildings: from the log huts of the Old Believers to the Masonic “Khruschev’s concrete panel constructions”. They all, as symbols of the religious mess, will be used as foundations of the tower and will be frozen forever in highly transparent liquid kevlar glass.

The pillars themselves will be constructed of Thermit Aluminium by DuPont so that it can sway back and forth a distance of up to 300 metres at the top.

At the top of the tower a Hand Palm will be constructed, where everyone who made a contribution can curl up and hold a tiny thread for approximately five minutes. That thread will dangle down from the satellite named CHIME which is scheduled for launch in 2014.

The CHIME is connected to a smaller satellite that holds the other end of the thread approximately 500 kilometres above CHIME’s orbit. This far end of the thread is not isolated and serves as an antenna to receive the Unknown.

5 minutes of holding the thread — this is The Very Essential, what the famous Russian scholar Dmitry Likhachev described as follows: “Laughter, mysterious laugh is the last thread, connecting a Human being with the Universe. When it’s torn, the cranes will be shouting…”

The project has been approved by the authorities and is now being rolled out.
The only problem is time. According to managers’ calculations construction will take 9 to 15 years. It’s far too long.

However it can be sped up by pumping more money into it, by the involvement of more people, and by the supply of better materials.

Beginning from 20th May, 2009 DEREVO theatre starts the charity trust “The Tower of the Human Foolishness”. Every contributor’s name will be engraved on one of the pillars, for people must know the names of those who deify Foolishness.

You can donate some money to the Trust in the following ways:

1. Bank wire transfer:

   Recipient: Tanztheater DEREVO GbR
   Payment purpose: for “The Tower of Human Foolishness” Trust
   Bank: Dresdner Bank, Dresden
   Account No.: 0132640500
   SWIFT-BIC: DRES DE FF 850
   IBAN: DE87 8508 0000 0132 6405 00

2. You can also use the instant and secure transfer by PayPal
   
   
   
   

Donation amount is not limited.

Every week at DEREVO.org we will update the list of the contributors.

Friends!
Tell everyone, mail everyone! Let’s do it together!!!!

Hurry! We also want to hold the thread…

Anton Adasinsky
29th Degree

============

English text editor: Jennifer Williams

I went to the show… or I was taken there to be precise.
A puppet show. A cloth and two puppets hanging. A Boy and a Girl.
7 and a half people in the audience…
tears in my eyes. The world becomes so pure and bright.
On stage, no people smelling of life, no newspapers with murderers.
- Hide quoted text -

Just the cardboard heart, the crumpled silk flower and a small bag of
money (don’t know anymore what for, whether a dowry or ransom…)
Quite an old story. Sound of toy horses and barrel organs. It just
can’t be true.
And at the end the cashier Yershov is hanged at the gallows.

Outside I smoked and blew my nose. Silk, Gypsies and Fandango.

Do you remember? Mommy, mommy, it hurts…

So here’s a song about the small bag of happiness.
Listen to and obey…

Thanksssss…

Anton

===================

Anton Adasinsky - Lyrics, Music, Bass, Vocals
Igor Timofeev - Guitar, Vocals
Nikolay Gusev - Keyboards, Vocals
Andrey Sizintsev - Elektro-Percussion, Vocals
Viktor Virvich - Drums
Alexey Rakhov - Saxophone

Recorded and mixed at Studio “36″ and “Studio Grey”, St. Petersburg, 2009.
Finished on April Fool’s Day.

Camera & cut: Andrey Gladkih
Design: Elena Yarovaya

© DEREVO GbR (Dresden), 2009

Please respect musicians – watch and listen in good quality!
High quality link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYySlcv19Cw&fmt=18

===================

Photos by David Pokorni, Anna Bogodist, Roman Ekimov, Olga Arefieva, Elena Yarovaya
Photo design: Elena Yarovaya
English text editor: Jennifer Williams

===================

Video professional Andrey Gladkih looked at the cupboard full of video tapes. Then at the second cupboard. He drank some tequila and looked at the third one.

“Something have to be done with it”, he said.

And from millions of pixels and squares and points he chose right those amazing moments where his mouth fell open or laughter came out or his beard had to be scratched (yes the work took some notable time).

You’re now invited to watch the tangram Adventures of the Golden Egg!
Film by Andrey Gladkih. DEREVO is on screen.

Part 1. Provincial Magic / 5th Wheel, St. Petersburg

Part 2. The Empire, Sovana, Italy

Part 3. Midnight Balance, St. Petersburg

Part 4. Crossing (Totentanz), Dresden

Part 5. Wheel of Power, Mannheim

Part 6. Grauzone, Dresden

Part 7. White Garden, Dublin

Part 8. Lighhouses, Vienna / Babushka, St. Petersburg

Part 9. Windrose, Dresden

Part 10. Windrose - continued, Dresden

Part 11. OEROL, Terschelling island, Netherlands