Multimedia performance "The Death of Tarelkin". Mockumentary theatre

Special project of the IV Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, parallel program of MANIFESTA 10 and Media Forum within Moscow International Film Festival

                            

Organizers: MediaArtLab Center for Art and Culture, Open School Manege/MediaArtLab, International Centre for Dance and Performance TsEKh, Theatre «Balet Moskva»»/ Ballet Moscow

With the support of:

Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. Grant for support of innovative projects in the field of contemporary art within realization of the federal program “Culture of Russia (2012-2018)”

Department of Culture of Moscow

Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation

Museum and Exhibition Complex MANEGE

June 26—27, 20:00
Culture Center ZIL, Vostochnaya st., 4, building 1

July 10, 19:30
New stage of Alexandrinsky Theater, 49A Fontanka Emb., St. Petersburg

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Based on eponymous play by Aleksandr Sukhovo-Kobylin
Curator Alexandra Dementieva
Choreographer Artem Ignatiev
Idea Evgeniya Dolinina
Script, stage direction, video art Evgeniya Dolinina, Vera Konyashova, Alexander Leshchev, Olga Lukyanova, Marina Ragozina, Mari Sokol 
With participation of Olga Koryakina, Gleb Nechyaev, Natalia Toropicina
Music by Roman Kutnov, Alexandra Frieden aka Mass:côté  
Executive producer Olga Lukyanova
Producers Olga Shishko, Elena Tupyseva

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The MediaArtLab Center for Art and Culture, Open School Manege/MediaArtLab, International Centre for Dance and Performance TsEKh, Theatre «Balet Moskva»/ Ballet Moscow present Multimedia Dance Performance The Death of Tarelkin.

Mr. Tarelkin, Kandid Kastorovich, a dodgy official, who staged his own death and resurrected under a false identity, has indeed become an immortal character.  It happened not only at drama theatre stages, where the chronicle of Tarelkin’s declared death written by Aleksandr Vassilievich Sukhovo-Kobylin, has long been established. Today thanks to efforts of young artists of the Manege/MediaArtLab Open School, performers of the Balet Moskva Theatre and of the International Centre for Dance and Performance TsEKh, the comedy has become a multimedia dance performance. Instead of words – aesthetics of movement, instead of stage set – four screens showing, besides other things, live broadcast of the audience. This is a performance where Russian classics, contemporary dance, contemporary art and new technologies meet.

For the project curator Alexandra Dementyeva, as well as for the artists of the MediaArtLab School, Tarelkin’s Death by Sukhovo-Kobylin in spite of being written 145 years ago goes in line with both Metropolis by Fritz Lang and Alexey Balabanov’s movies. But of course, the new production engages in a dialogue first of all with the legendary one of 1922 by Vsevolod Meyerhold. Meyerhold interpreted the grotesque comedy about a “Hegelian from a tavern” as a modernist story – about a transformation of a person into a screw or a small wheel of red tape bureaucratic machine. The stage had no set except an enigmatic object created according to Varvara Stepanova’s drawings – either a mincer or a cage, or both together. Performers’ movements resembled those of puppets – Meyerhold was keen on biomechanics ideas at that time.

Creators of today’s production, by transferring the action into today’s (or tomorrow’s) day, offer audience a chance to meet an updated modification of bureaucratic machine, the latest version emerged after globalization and digital revolution. Thanks to globalization, the differences between bureaucratic apparatuses of different countries turn out to be not critical. Thanks to the newest technologies their authority over human being is invisible, ubiquitous and noctidial. While a human being out of a screw or a wheel turns into a database, which can be copied, transferred, and used at one’s discretion. Overall, there is no surprise that Kandid Tarelkin in the new production resurrects as a character resembling Edward Snowden.

Finally, there is no auditorium in today’s stage of action. One can regard oneself a viewer, however bearing in mind that everyone is in the list of actors. The cameras broadcasting on the screens in real time remind the latter during the performance.

Premiere shows will be held on 26 and 27 of June in Moscow in transformer hall of the Culture Center ZIL.

The performance will be also shown in St.Petersburg on 10 of July at the New Stage of Alexandrinsky theatre within the Parallel program of Manifesta 10.

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Tickets

Tickets are available:

At the box office of the Theatre “Balet Moskva”/ Ballet Moscow, tel.: (495) 607-04-57, +7 (916) 786-10-26

Online: https://bilet.baletmoskva.ru/book.php

At the box office of Culture Center ZIL, Moscow, Vostochnaya st., 4

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Venues

June 26—27, 20:00
Culture Center ZIL
Moscow, Vostochnaya st., 4, building 1
zilcc.ru

July 10, 19:30
New stage of Alexandrinsky Theater
49A Fontanka Emb., St. Petersburg

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Contacts

Anna Buali
+7 (926) 582-02-81
bualianna@gmail.com