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

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 »

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

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

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

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

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: Jennifer Williams
Photos, drawings and collages: Elena Iarovaia
Music: Roman Dubinnikov

Happy New Year!!

Text by Anton Adasinsky
Photo by Elena Yarovaya, Anton Adasinsky, Vladimir Lupovskoy, Roman Ekimov
Photo design by Elena Yarovaya

The cat dies. Her name was Pookha. She used to live with Lyuda Lipeiko, manager of the art-centre BEREG, but not only there. It happens to cats. And not only to cats.

And then a dream comes. At four in the morning.

“Hi Lyuda. It’s me, Pookha. I was born! I’m a girl! Quick, into the kitchen, write down an address. Ready? Ol’hovsk, Monchegorskaya 6″.

This address is found in the morning at the kitchen table - firm pencil writing in a margin of Krishnamurti’s book “Freedom from the Known”.

Anyone providing more information on a cat-Pookha-girl will be rewarded.

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

The first problems emerge early, when she is 11… a huge, uncontrollable desire to touch women’s breasts. Sometimes she does it and garners bewildered looks.

She tries to break up all the couples that surround her. She flirts with a boy or tells lies about him to a girl.

She finishes school with honours and getting her award at the leaving party she shouts: “Suck, boys, suck!”

Receiving unpleasant remarks from men she’s attracted only by handsome slender girls representing an absolute Femininity. Scandals and gossip around her aren’t rare. She visits a male party but flees from tender looks.

She revels in the firm feeling of being a chosen one and in the development of a philosophy on the benefits of masturbation.

As she turns 18 she finds a girlfriend - a standard short-haired sportswoman, a swimmer. They’re together for half a year, then the swimmer becomes pregnant. There’s a brutal row and the swimmer leaves, then the first suicidal attempt.

At the clinic she confesses to a doctor.

She is advised to wear women’s clothes, to play with children and by all means to get a male lover.

She tries hard. She’s dating married men but this goes nowhere.

She likes to talk, but lying under a male body she feels sick and looking at a naked man she can’t help but laugh.

She gets a job at some kindergarten but she’s mainly noticing the girls’ golden freckles. She’s sacked.

The doctor recommends that she get her own child, to instigate a reorientation. She offers him to do it here and now. He refuses, for he’s married and doesn’t want any problems in the future. She gives him a slap in the face: “fucking philosopher”.

She tries martial arts, swimming (out of dedication to her first love), shooting, dance. She dances in men’s suits, taking the lead. Her coldness is attractive. They offer her a role in a film. On a poster she’s in the very centre.

Her always clenched fists and turtleneck sweater become iconic.

She spends more and more time on stage.

She travels a lot. An airgun is always with her, as well as two-meter-high targets in the form of herself, naked. A nipple – “Home Button” – 5 points. A clit – “Life Trigger” – 10 points.

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editing: Jennifer Williams
Photos: Elena Yarovaya, Kirstin Richter
Photo design: Elena Yarovaya

Annual three days long exercise “Hello, School!”

During these three days you shouldn’t watch TV, listen to radio, read any newspapers. Avoid a computer. Better do it alone and silent.

It takes place at the end of August.
Ideally on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Friday

Throwing away things and moving furniture

Right in the morning or after your work all the clothes, shoes, linen, towels, dishes, old crèmes and pastes, anything concerning your body must be thrown out of the cupboards and drawers. Also books, letters and photographs, music, quite everything…

Just make a big pile to throw away this later but now just leave it as it is. At the same time try to move a furniture (particularly important a bed) from their usual positions. There must be a real mess in the house. You must go into rage and have no mercy for any valuables, just put them separately to leave later on the street.

You can sort your things in three categories:
- Instrument
- Weapon
- Ballast

As an example:
Good gloves keep my fingers safe – an instrument
My saxophone – a weapon
A poster with Parker in the toilet – a ballast.

It is very important to leave some talismans and religious symbols behind. For instance the stone bringing you back to the seashore trip as you were a child…

Go for a walk. Don’t eat or drink anything.

Return to your house or flat, take a shower, stand in the very centre of the mess, better naked, and do the “Compass” exercise.

Sleep with the windows open wide.

Saturday

Cleaning

Wake up without your alarm-clock and enjoy the mess.

Start to wash the windows curtains while packing and bringing out the whole litter.
“Valuable” things just leave next to the container and be glad how fast they’re disappearing.

Start the cleaning from the ceiling and windows. No hackwork!

The last is your doormat.

If it’s possible remove the doors between the adjacent rooms and make one room empty. Keep it in this state as long as possible.

Call your friends and make a supper in the empty room.

Sunday

Go for a walk but use an unusual route. Start to make a kim-chi (buy the ingredients prior to the exercise). It is nice to do it together with your friend.

Good luck!

Newbie in the school!!!

“Compass”, DEREVO’s exercise.

Takes at least 30 minutes. Performed in standing.

Windows are tightly shut. Complete darkness. Minimal noise, minimal clothing.

Relax and feel your entire skin surface. Very important is the skin on the back.

Lay down the radio in the middle of the room, loudspeakers on top. Find that hissing noise between the waves. Not too loud, just to damp the noise from outside. Try to reach the state when you can’t distinguish where the window is.

Eyes are shut.

Start the slow rotation clockwise and then counter clockwise, bending your head to the left and to the right. Extend your perception until you feel as you were alone on the planet, in the universe. Leave the closest disturbances like a neighbour’s energy, different temperature of in- and exhalation out of your attention.

Your body will find only one comfortable position between West-East-South-and-North. It depends on your birth date, sign and so on. You may guess about the rest.

Remain in the found position for a while. Then turn around in 90 degrees. Compare the sensation. The difference is enormous. Turn back to the previous position. Turn around in 180 degrees. The difference is negligible. It’s a question of your spine’s excitation. Go back to the found position again. Open your eyes, remember the direction.

Put your bed in a way to sleep with your head in this direction.

Good luck!

Text: Anton Adasinsky
Photo: Elena Yarovaya
Photo design: Elena Yarovaya

No tickets from Moscow to St. Petersburg. None and never.

Bought myself a place in the conductor’s compartment.

In Tver two young-and-wonderful boarded.

They were sleeping with their heads against the glass in the corridor. I invited them to join me and waited outside while they prepared a bunk.

The girl came out and asked, laughing:
“Do we disturb you?”
“No”, I said.
“Who are you, actually?” – she asked.
I said, “I’m one of the train security,” (bald, black jacket – so she couldn’t doubt it).
“Excuse us, if we get noisy.”
“No worries,” said I, “sing, laugh… should I wait in the corridor?”
“Well, you’ll probably have to wait a long time. He’s like a Roman law, you know, indistinct and very slow.”

We laughed very loud… The guy peeked out.

“I’m coming. I’m running. I’m already there!” she said to him.

I slept quite honest-minded and dreamed of a bi-directional flow of people.

In the morning she catches me up on the platform, laughing again:

“But you’re not from the security.”
“Security?”
“I know you.”
“I know.”
“Do you have echolalia?”
“Echolalia.”

She’s laughing again. Now the chap is here: “Baby, leave him alone!”

Just outside of the train station she turns to me again:
“Did you sleep well?”
“Fine. Rome, Sparta, a kid falling down the abyss; he was too lightweight, not warrior-like.”

Her eyes narrow.
“Anton, right?”
“Yes.”
“Good. So what do you guard there?”
“The secret of Caipirinha.”

And I head for a taxi. I want to dance.

On June 11 and 12 I was on stage with a guitar in my hands and a microphone at my throat. Friendly musicians around me. We called the concert “Vsyo Khorosho!” – “Everything is fine!”

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

How good it is to sit on a perch under the table and look at the leaves and insects flowing in streams below!

A big creature is stirring beside me, Maxim Isaev.

“and the hormones…”

“oh yes, a harmony of the world…” answers Pasha Semchenko.

Innumerable feet rushing along. There are lots of people, but I can’t see them through the tiny hole in the tablecloth.

I can’t see the Great Northern Bear either, but I know it’s above us. Somewhere.

A “WINDROSE” project.

See all photos »

See also WINDROSE Video »

Text: Elena Yarovaya
English text editor: Jennifer Williams
Photos: Carola Fritzsche, Julia Steinfartz
Photo design: Elena Yarovaya