There’s no chance to avoid the questions.

“Anton, what is your new performance “DIAGNOSE” about?”

I will search for the words again, not to offend someone and not to burst into tears because of the nonsense I’m talking.

OK. Apparently I’m a prosperous person. (Slava, give me back a million!). I don’t buy things. However I stare in the shops’ windows just like the Korean women stare at Dima Abramov.

DEREVO already has everything that may be necessary for the realization of creative ideas.

There’s a photo of Bonnie Parker in my purse next to the driving license, since she’s looking like Lena Iarovaia and Shtyk in their birthday suits.

I can’t eat. All the last ten years I have wanted to. My weight must be 59 kilograms. Between rehearsals and performances I go mad and shout at the partners. I’ve learned to sleep in the day and visit the places I need while sleeping.

So now to the “DIAGNOSE”.

April 2006 they found hepatitis C in some final form in me. We took the camera to the hospital.

In a shadeless voice the doctors said that I have three years more, the last of which definitely would not be pleasant. Alisa gave a silent hem and made a close-up of me. I was looking very angry.

Or there’s intensive therapy. Six months. According to the last statistics, positive chances for a cure are 37 percent against 63 percent negative. The medicine is new, its effects aren’t studied and well-tested yet. I wouldn’t be allowed to stay among people because of the side effects – depression, weakness, fiber, claustrophobia and more. It would be possible under the constant supervision of a doctor. It would be a chance.

I agreed to try the therapy and expended a lot of energy and paper to avoid the hospital. 672 pills, 96 pricks. In Edinburgh I weighed 55 kilograms already and was convinced that the consequences of this chemistry are really unknown and thought that they should analyze me.

Various things happened to me. I hardly remember the performances. The guys knew the story and were bearing up well. However they say I wasn’t completely myself.

After the sixth medical examination right before the “Totentanz” action in the Dreikönigskirche in Dresden in March 2007 my dear doctoress said that I had won. Alisa photographed her hands. We were hugging a little bit longer than usual.

I told the guys about it. As I heard my voice I realized that it was another Anton. The old one disappeared some time that summer. All my performances after Edinburgh: “Mad in Japan”, “Wolve’s Tango” in Kronstadt, “x0” and all the actions and dances, and “ROBERT’S DREAM” and the “DIAGNOSE”, and interviews, and the white contact lenses – they all are creatures of another human being.

So we are living with it so far.

A form of the performance: reconsideration of the Great Love that covered the sky in March 2006. A task of the performance: to meet the old Anton.

I will wear clothes in the performance.

Original text: Anton Adasinsky
English text editor: Jennifer Williams
Photo: Anton Adasinsky, Maxim Didenko, Elena Iarovaia
Photo design: Elena Iarovaia

Very simple and very good news.

DEREVO rehearses a new work, “ROBERT’S DREAM” - and it’s very good. The New Year is coming soon, and it’s very good too.

It’s good that the Winter is not here yet. But it will come, believe in it. It will be good as well. The crazy crowd in the stores, and the punch, and Christmas trees on the streets, and the colourful lights, and the shining punks, and the cheerful handicapped persons, and nobody buying any newspapers.

I’m used to the fact that lots of things are unchangeable and that the tears of change do turn me on.

There’s only place for one at the top of the mountain. It is very lonely and windy there.

You always want to meet everyone but then you remember that you did not call the most important one, simply forgot, while he or she maybe wasn’t so far away. You don’t like to come across friends in queues. No, wrong. The other way round. There is a reason to open your eyes wide and wish lots of happiness… Oh Lord, why not on every single day and not to everyone?

English text editor: Jennifer Williams
Photo & color grading: Elena Iarovaia

At the Tanzherbst Festival Anton Adasinskiy and Lena Iarovaia presented their work „X0“.

“Lena, thank you! It was light and easy”

I was smiling at the rehearsal, at the performance too. Now I remember that and smile.

Critics called this action – “A piece for Two Living Humans”.

At the Festival “VERTICAL 2006 - Stop in Time” DEREVO has met the indian dancers and they have met DEREVO. What it resulted in - see and read, while we have to go… to go…

Photo: Anna Bogodist, Anna Khokhlova, Elena Smirnova, Di, Alisa
Editing & colour grading: Elena Iarovaia

The 29th of August will come and we shall take seats in our bus and immediately visit everything: Loch Ness and the Sharmanka Theatre in Glasgow, and the House of Sir Walter Scott, and the Museum of Feathers and.. and… or so DEREVO thought to itself at the beginning of August. Then there were the twenty four performances of KETZAL at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. On August 29 the disciplined but half-dead of tiredness DEREVO approached the bus. The keys weren’t there. We searched for them but not really intensively and went back to sleep…

We dreamed five dreams, fragments I’ll try to tell.

Anton.
A doctor’s room. The right hand must be amputated. The question is – what should be left? They suggest some stump. I don’t like the idea. I don’t want to have anything at all up to the shoulder. So it would be much more theatrical. During the discussions I cannot stop myself gazing at the view behind the doctor’s back. There is a hole in the wall and there is a stage. I see KETZAL. Di is dancing in place of me. I weep.

Shtyck.
She’s lying sideways in a puddle. The water is soft and oily. She doesn’t dare to raise her head, because her face will remain in the water.

Buda.
She’s flying down towards a green field. It’s starting to rain. She
flies amidst the raindrops and with the same speed.

Di.
Di is driving some airplane. The gunner is pressing his back against the back of Di. They are like Siamese twins. They fly somewhere in the night. Suddenly – it becomes very bright all around – they are caught in a ray of light. Then – waiting for the shot. The back of the fellow becomes warmer.

Ga.
It’s bright and noisy. Lots of everything and everything is very fast. There are five suns in the sky and the clouds are swiftly flying over in circles. Several faces are approaching – all have small evil moustaches. I need a flag – thinks Ga, of course a flag! It’s not good – going to the Pole without a flag…

Alisa fell asleep in a bath, frozen and remembers no dreams.

Max was looking for the keys.

Photo - Anna Bogodist, Di, Alisa and/or DEREVO

14 Sept., 11.00 - Workshop of Anton Adasinsky, Festival VERTICAL 2006, Music Hall, St. Petersburg (RU)

15 Sept. - DEREVO Action “Just like this”, with a workshop participants, Festival VERTICAL 2006, Music Hall, St. Petersburg (RU)

More information (in russian) - here

On August 12th 2006 in Edinburgh an Awards of The Herald were presented. Already awarded with the Herald Angel back in 1998 for the “ONCE…” DEREVO now has got The HERALD ARCHANGEL for the performance KETZAL.

Text: Anton Adasinsky
English translation editor: Jennifer Williams
Photos: Elena Iarovaia

A witness’s description:

An interview for the “Russian Voices” newspaper.

(Usually Adasinsky only reluctantly lets himself be interviewed but this time he liked the name of the media.)

“Nice to see you in wonderful physical and emotional form.”
“Thank you.”
“How did it happen that you returned to the legendary actions of DEREVO?”
“I don’t know, never thought we returned to it.”
“Never thought?”
“Never thought and therefore we did it.”
“It is hard to deal with you, Anton. You’re joking all the time”
“It’s easy to deal with me. I’m always joking. No, wait. I say it the other way. I want to hold my darling in my arms, all the darlings. To rock them to sleep… no, to sickness… till they will scratch and bite trying to break loose. You wanted the warmth and caress, didn’t you, bitches? But where is the limit of your shrieks? Do we measure it on the swollen ear of a neighbour? What’s your name, the newspaper? What f*cking shit do you ask?”

Then the strange thing happens.

Adasinsky swiftly unzips his pants and puts his penis on a table next to the mini-disk recorder.

“He’s somewhat deaf and somewhat blind. But rhythmic. And if you’re a ‘mouthpiece of the public’ then I’m a public, and I have something to knock-knock-knock on heaven’s door.”

The journalist grows pale but doesn’t make a move. Not because of the penis. It’s clear that she has seen a variety of them: beachy-scratching, sheety-boring, officy-listening. No. It’s not good at all here. Adasinsky is mumbling something like “…with this wonderful mini-disk device named after the great Stalker it’s possible to record not the spoken words but the words you hear… my pink sausage knocking… isn’t it funny? Naked Jango Edwards shouting from the stage – ‘Smile, smile! F*ck you very much!’ – isn’t it funny?”

The journalist is being walked off. Anton locks himself up in a studio.

An interview wasn’t published at all.

DEREVO performs a lot of special actions in the year 2006.

“Wolves Tango” in Kronstadt near St. Petersburg,
“In the Stream” at the Elbe in Dresden,
“Hermetics” at the Goethe-Institute in Dresden,

and many more.

In September DEREVO will appear on the stage of a Music-Hall in St. Petersburg with an action “Just like this” as part of the festival VERTICAL 2006.

An “action” is a performance from a “short” to the “long” which only exists at one particular place on that particular day.

An invitation list for a wedding and a funeral turned out to be different. How interesting.

You may be interested to take a look on an new photo project “Meeting our Ancestors” at our web-site

Please note, that currently DEREVO performs at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

We perform KETZAL from 4 till 28 August. You’re welcome.

Tickets are here.

Wir treten mit dem Stück KETZAL vom 4. bis 28. August auf.

Karten sind hier zu kaufen.

Мы показываем “КЕЦАЛЬ” с 4 по 28 августа.

Билеты здесь.