Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: Daniel Williams
Photos: Elena Yarovaya, Elena Dolmatova, K. Chmura-Cegielkowska, Anna Bogodist
Photo design: Elena Yarovaya

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

It happened in some way that my arms were opened widely in October, so many things could be embraced at once.

Look on the right – there’s a book to publish,
Look on the left – there’s a CD to finish,
Go ahead – there’s a performance to create,
Think what’s behind – there’s memories to write down.

I had to put off the trousers to avoid tearing them; and the DEREVO train had to roll on three different tracks…

Something weird is here:

Something funny is here:

We won’t show you the book quite yet (it’s out on November the 4th) but from the cuttings and clippings Nastya Ponomareva could glue together a nice animation.

Here it is:

This time I’ve spent about 20 days in St. Petersburg. This duration must be a record for my brain. Now I’m in Germany and I think about it. I think it’s not JUST some differences between the countries and people, it’s an abyss which is getting wider and deeper.

Soon we’ll not be able to understand or see each other. Hence we’ll not disturb each others’ own madness.

The live action „Cat on Accordion“ that happened in September in the courtyard of Mikhailovsky Castle in St. Petersburg requires some deeper realisation. I hope you’ll be able to see and hear what happened there soon.

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: Daniel Williams
Photo: Nastya Ponomareva, Elena Yarovaya, Anton Adasinsky
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

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:

We know powerful places by experience.
But this place is powerful to such an extent that one really risks losing his head.
I’ve lost my voice for an hour; in the dressing room (actually a beer cellar) a mirror has broken. Wind has lifted the tent over the mixing console and put it five meters away. Daniel Williams said it was good so, and that the other spot will be better acoustically…
First rehearsal at the Albrechtsburg Castle in Meissen.
The Execution of Harlequin scene.
Tanya plays an executioner and lifts an axe…
Suddenly a horrible scream and two falcons are falling from the sky.
Dodging and moaning.
It’s scary.
All the tourists in the yard just run away.
Steep curve right above the ground and they’re in the sky again…
Singing and crying.
Their nestling has fallen and smashed.
The nest was at the very top of the church.
“Yes, - the castle’s manager said, - at the very top. They could really build the nest much lower.”
Then he said to us, right in the face: “The place plays with you..”
The nestling has been buried then.
We stopped the rehearsal and went to see the Goat, who guards the House of the Lonely Knight.

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: Daniel Williams
Photo: Lena Dolmatova, Elena Yarovaya
Photo design: Elena Yarovaya

See also the video from the very first rehearsal back in Dresden »

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

I’ve got some thoughts. Just like any other being.
Some are reflections of the surrounding world,
Some are the past, chewed and re-chewed again,
Some are dreams of the future.
Overall it’s a jumble which is hardly worth any classification.
When I’m on stage my thoughts contain no more words.
It’s just another kind of the brain activity. Can’t explain it better. Many years of exercises and performances have lead to that particular result.
But sometimes some childish questions come into my head. I ‘listen’ to them, I laugh and it’s a quite a cheerful mood I’m in then.

Here’s the first piece of the series of audio / video compositions; Black Dance. I like the form. Maybe I can explain something in that way?

(English text editor: Jennifer Williams)

Camera & cut: Andrey Gladkikh
Dancers: Anton Adasinsky, Tatyana Khabarova, Elena Yarovaya
Music: Dmitriy Tyulpanov, Daniel Williams, Igor Timofeyev
Text: Anton Adasinsky

Hi Anton,

You wouldn’t remember me probably. It’s St. Petersburg, former Leningrad. I saw you yesterday on the street but was too shy to say hello. Besides, it was just too noisy.

I have heard quite a lot about you. Recently I read a nice interview of yours, some girl dropped it somewhere. Well done. I’m almost envying you.

And I’m looking like some terrible creature. It’s OK for now, when the snow is still there. But in Summer it becomes really awful. I’m old now. And this damn salt they use against the ice… I’m stinking like a foul stockfish. I used to look after myself but I just gave up. Who values it anyway? Old good Petersburger chaps are passing, there’s nobody to talk to in the good Russian. And I don’t really understand those youngsters, we hardly can become friends. They seem to ignore me. They think instead of New York. By the way, the latter called me yesterday. It sounded tired. Though it was trying to save face. You know them, Americans…

And I’m not really fond of travelling anymore. Do you remember as I went on a short trip in 1993 and right away the mushrooms attacked the Leningrad area? I hardly could stop them.

I’m not in the best mood now, you see. I’m looking forward to Victory Day though. I like it when they march on me… it tickles!

Remember as you were leaving and told me to be careful with helping people. You also said something about the dead Teotihuacan, who

said that the Force goes first, then the Priests and then the people. Or have I mixed something up? Could you write me more precisely? It’s really important to me.

This Spring I am hoping to clean myself properly, wash away all this dirt. The snow should be enough but it will be nearly impossible because of the dyke. Maybe I should move away, Anton. What do you think?

When you are here again, just show up. Maybe we can spend some time together sitting on the Naryshkin bastion.

It’s not looking good with my internet access right now. Just write me per Neva river.

best regards,

Yours truly

St. Petersburg

P.S. Many greetings to Berlin

Positive Band

“Vse razoshlis’…”

Lyrics by Arseny Tarkovsky

Anton Adasinsky - music, guitar, vocals
Igor Timofeev - guitar, vocals
Nikolay Gusev - keyboards, vocals
Andrey Sizintsev - percussion, vocals
Viktor Vyrvich - percussion
Alexey Rakhov - percussion, saxophone

English text editor: Jennifer Williams

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