The last day of the festival saw a public critical discussion about the shows we saw in the festival which, being in English, was mainly focused on those shows which were part of the 100 Years of Estonia centenary celebrations. The conversation remained typically polite but was, at times, fiercely contested. Particular attention was paid to national identity, with several responses indicating a kind of 'trap of representation' occurring within the works that were part of the celebrations, which were forced to engage national identity even though their work may sit uncomfortably in this frame. The projects were all initiated 5 years ago (apparently pairing smaller and larger companies for collaboration via a random ballot system - which seems far too democratic to me), and over this period the conversation around nation states has also shifted considerably, to the point where the celebrations of the Estonian republic are occurring in a Europe which increasingly heads down a nationalist, and in some cases, extreme nationalist path.
From colleagues in Lithuania and Latvia, it was expressed that Estonian theatre and culture more generally seems to have thoroughly processed its atrocious past, and be well on the way to developing new futures: "Your suffering is already passed" as Lithuanian dramaturg and critic Monika Jasinskaite stated. This is relative of course - for me it was interesting that national identity was deemed an important project at all, especially one worthy of such huge public investment in culture. The strange nature of some of the collaborations was commented on by a colleague from Nigeria, Michael Anyawu, who proposed that they were quite strange and imbalanced. The absence of Baltic German histories was noted by another colleague, London-based academic Mischa Twitchin, who suggested there was a total erasure of history between 1914 and 1939. The general popular appeal was noted by many critics as a shortcoming of the festival, in that it meant a forgoing of experimentation, especially in light of the 100 years of Estonian Independence celebrations. A country is only as independent as its artists, perhaps.
Two performances to write about today (a little later than I should be writing, but hey, it takes me a while to get home from Estonia). The first, To Come/Not to Come. Estonia in 100 Years from Estonia's Tallinn-based Russian Theatre, is a gamified choose your own adventure into the future. The second, Journeys. Songs of Terra Mariana is a juxtaposition of operatic monologue and choreography eximining the period of the 1920s, and forms a (very) loose pairing with Kadri Noormets work on the opening day of the festival, Journeys. Promised Land.
To Come/Not to Come. Estonia in 100 Years
Estonia has a quite large Ethnic Russian population - about 25% of people speak Russian as a first language and 66% speak the language. In recent history, this has not been a recipe for a very stable relationship with Russia, whose territorial incursions on the basis of ethnicity have included South Ossatia, Crimea, and, more recently and continuing, the Donetsk region of Ukraine (although the state still claims to be hands-off on that one, it made the same statements about Crimea... but was at very least an extremely enthusiastic participant). Estonia seems different, with its ethnic Russian population forming a respected and valuable contribution to cultural life, even if Russian language is declining in popularity among the rest of the country.
The Russian Theatre's contribution to the festival takes a fairly unique voting system (unfortunately all in Russian) to control the narrative, which can be voted on live through visiting a website. Audience vote their preferred future, with the actors playing out that scenario for a future Estonia. The scenarios themselves are repetitive in format, beginning almost unanimously with a projected news broadcast (Viktor Marvin) from a futuristic TV host, who explains the situation that was the result of the vote. Then there's a dinner party, where different beverages are served and certain protocols and rituals take place. Then there's a celebration or event, which takes the form of musical spectacle.
The scenarios follow familiar themes with regard to speculations about the future: environmental crisis (where humans attach themselves to plants in space suits to keep their oxygen), technological utopian (where we develop an artificial sun to make the temperature always comfortable), and multiculturalism (where the news broadcaster switches languages between sentences). One scenario has humans with both sets of genitals. It's not supposed to be particularly imaginative, just following different threads of today - and the important thing is that these scenarios have a connection with discourses of the present day.
There are apparently 44 different scenarios that the actors learn. I actually don't believe this - the dramaturgy was just a little too neat. Plus, the 5 scenarios we saw (not including the last, which is always the same) were so design heavy, that a further 39 distinct options would completely blow any budget. Still, the theme of choice is present to the audience as a metaphor for democracy, free will and the future, and is not entirely unsuccessful in this sense. Estonia has emerged as a techno-dystopian/Utopian state with the founding of Skype and booming tech industry fuelled by Finnish investment and cheap labour.
The design and sound are nevertheless noteworthy. Visually, the show is excessive, producing a total reality out of futuristic costumes, robotic set-pieces, and cosmetics (set Aljona Movko, costumes Rosita Raud). The music (Aleksandr Žedeljov) is a kind of unsettling elevator music, presenting a reading of the future that's both banal and other-worldly. The actors are non-dramatic, simply executing their function. This continues right up until the slightly different ending, which present a reality TV game-show format where an ethnic Russian family tries to win the chance to stay in Estonia.
It all seems a little over the top, but it's not an unsuccessful experiment from director/choreographer Artjom Garejev, showing to an extent the problems of our choice of different futures, linking this with the problem of migration in Estonia through the ending. What will be the future of this family? What will be the future of us? Are they not interlinked?
Journeys. Songs of Terra Mariana
This is a show that deals with language. That's clear from the very opening, as the entire first half of the performance is dedicated to just one or two actors delivering monologues to a slowly evolving video backdrop (Carmen Seljamaa), which begins as a tree. One is by a young boy about a mother, and the mother stands beside him, almost expressionless, still, as he explains that "mothers are always young, and gorgeous, and beautiful". In this eternal moment, it's difficult to disagree. Behind them, the tree slowly blooms - as the boy explains that "a mother speaks to us in our mother tongue", returning to the subject of language. The actors leave the stage and another comes out, and this time, as the tree blooms fully into summer, the subject is love and creation, a discussion about the violence of the words "I love you", and some precise analogies about nature and language "We are plants whose sole purpose in life is to create words. We are the soil that feeds the sentences".
So it proceeds. And it's a beautiful requiem, in my opinion, shifting and evolving slightly as it progresses through the loss of winter ("the young man who took bites from my apple seed went to war and was lost", and "now only a small bit of apple is left. I am not worried - I know it'll last until the end") and emptiness ("I breathe from this picture. I have to breathe carefully to keep it from wearing out"). A common theme is the fragility, malleability, and disappearance of language, which can be used to declare independence and grow 1000 trees, or can destroy everything in a moment. There are also some subtle shifts in dialects which I lost - some actors adopting accents of different areas in Estonia, not time-specific to the 1920s (the period of research for the performance, in which significant language shifts apparently occurred in Estonia).
The backdrop suddenly disappears, and gives way to a giant frame (Silver Vahtre), with the verbal poem also giving way to a choreographic poem (Ruslan Stepanov). This is less successful for me. Backed by hesitant, crawling music (Kara-Lis Coverdale), the dance participates in an experiment of extension, with moments stretched out until they cannot go further. The dancers clump into various clusters, pairs, and splits - and yet the result is somehow unnatural, sitting oddly in the space like the giant aluminum structure that towers over it. It's an other-worldly addition, repeating the subtlty and emptiness of the opening in the form of movement. Vignettes of movement and stillness flame and disappear into nothing, only to revive themselves and disappear again.
On the surface, it's difficult to see how the two halves of Journeys. Songs of Terra Mariana fit together, and indeed I'm reliably told this was a common complaint among Estonian critics. I'm inclined to be more forgiving, although I can only struggle for answers myself. Dramaturg Deivi Tuppits appears to create a kind of hesitancy, a common thread of birth and death serving as a metaphor for the creation of language through seasonal change and the passing of time. The result is a spectacle that presents language as a suggstion open to interpretation and influence, one which, having been born of violence, displays a fragility meaning it can disappear entirely at any moment, taking its struggles for existence with it.
Much like life, I suppose.
To Come/Not to Come. Estonia in 100 Years
Director and scenographer: Artjom Garejev
Composer and producer: Aleksandr Žedeljov
Visuals: Aljona Movko
Costume design: Rosita Raud (NUKU theatre)
Lighting: Anton Andrejuk
Choreographer: Olga Privis
Video Director: Viktor Marvin
Operator: Nikolai Alhazov
Animation: Martin Yakush
Dramaturges: Karin Lamson, Mari-Liis Lill, Jelena Tšitšerina and Laura Kalle (Ugala Theatre)
Musical ensemble on stage: Modulshtein
Cast: Natalja Dõmtšenko, Aleksandr Žilenko, Dmitri Kordas, Jekaterina Kordas, Aleksandr Kutšmezov, Viktor Marvin, Jelena Tarasenko, Eduard Tee, Sergei Furmanjuk, Leonid Ševtsov, Jelena Jakovleva and other students from the Russian Theatre’s Studio
Journeys. Songs of Terra Mariana
Author and director: Tiit Palu
Composer: Kara-Lis Coverdale (Canada)
Choreographer: Ruslan Stepanov
Production dramaturge: Deivi Tuppits
Costume design: Mare Tommingas
Set design: Silver Vahtre
Lighting: Margus Vaigur (Theatre Endla)
Video design: Carmen Seljamaa
Sound: Feliks Kütt (Theatre Endla)
Cast: Külliki Saldre, Marika Barabanštšikova, Piret Laurimaa, Tiit Palu, Merle Jääger, Margus Jaanovits, Reimo Sagor, Jaanus Tepomees and dancers Endro Roosimäe, Alain Divoux, Matteo Tonolo, Archie Sladen, Walter Isaacson, Brandon Alexander, Maria Engel, Tarasina Masi, Yukiko Yanagi, Sayaka Nagahiro and Mirell Sork.
From colleagues in Lithuania and Latvia, it was expressed that Estonian theatre and culture more generally seems to have thoroughly processed its atrocious past, and be well on the way to developing new futures: "Your suffering is already passed" as Lithuanian dramaturg and critic Monika Jasinskaite stated. This is relative of course - for me it was interesting that national identity was deemed an important project at all, especially one worthy of such huge public investment in culture. The strange nature of some of the collaborations was commented on by a colleague from Nigeria, Michael Anyawu, who proposed that they were quite strange and imbalanced. The absence of Baltic German histories was noted by another colleague, London-based academic Mischa Twitchin, who suggested there was a total erasure of history between 1914 and 1939. The general popular appeal was noted by many critics as a shortcoming of the festival, in that it meant a forgoing of experimentation, especially in light of the 100 years of Estonian Independence celebrations. A country is only as independent as its artists, perhaps.
Two performances to write about today (a little later than I should be writing, but hey, it takes me a while to get home from Estonia). The first, To Come/Not to Come. Estonia in 100 Years from Estonia's Tallinn-based Russian Theatre, is a gamified choose your own adventure into the future. The second, Journeys. Songs of Terra Mariana is a juxtaposition of operatic monologue and choreography eximining the period of the 1920s, and forms a (very) loose pairing with Kadri Noormets work on the opening day of the festival, Journeys. Promised Land.
To Come/Not to Come. Estonia in 100 Years
Estonia has a quite large Ethnic Russian population - about 25% of people speak Russian as a first language and 66% speak the language. In recent history, this has not been a recipe for a very stable relationship with Russia, whose territorial incursions on the basis of ethnicity have included South Ossatia, Crimea, and, more recently and continuing, the Donetsk region of Ukraine (although the state still claims to be hands-off on that one, it made the same statements about Crimea... but was at very least an extremely enthusiastic participant). Estonia seems different, with its ethnic Russian population forming a respected and valuable contribution to cultural life, even if Russian language is declining in popularity among the rest of the country.
The Russian Theatre's contribution to the festival takes a fairly unique voting system (unfortunately all in Russian) to control the narrative, which can be voted on live through visiting a website. Audience vote their preferred future, with the actors playing out that scenario for a future Estonia. The scenarios themselves are repetitive in format, beginning almost unanimously with a projected news broadcast (Viktor Marvin) from a futuristic TV host, who explains the situation that was the result of the vote. Then there's a dinner party, where different beverages are served and certain protocols and rituals take place. Then there's a celebration or event, which takes the form of musical spectacle.
Photo: Gabriela Liivamägi
The scenarios follow familiar themes with regard to speculations about the future: environmental crisis (where humans attach themselves to plants in space suits to keep their oxygen), technological utopian (where we develop an artificial sun to make the temperature always comfortable), and multiculturalism (where the news broadcaster switches languages between sentences). One scenario has humans with both sets of genitals. It's not supposed to be particularly imaginative, just following different threads of today - and the important thing is that these scenarios have a connection with discourses of the present day.
There are apparently 44 different scenarios that the actors learn. I actually don't believe this - the dramaturgy was just a little too neat. Plus, the 5 scenarios we saw (not including the last, which is always the same) were so design heavy, that a further 39 distinct options would completely blow any budget. Still, the theme of choice is present to the audience as a metaphor for democracy, free will and the future, and is not entirely unsuccessful in this sense. Estonia has emerged as a techno-dystopian/Utopian state with the founding of Skype and booming tech industry fuelled by Finnish investment and cheap labour.
The design and sound are nevertheless noteworthy. Visually, the show is excessive, producing a total reality out of futuristic costumes, robotic set-pieces, and cosmetics (set Aljona Movko, costumes Rosita Raud). The music (Aleksandr Žedeljov) is a kind of unsettling elevator music, presenting a reading of the future that's both banal and other-worldly. The actors are non-dramatic, simply executing their function. This continues right up until the slightly different ending, which present a reality TV game-show format where an ethnic Russian family tries to win the chance to stay in Estonia.
It all seems a little over the top, but it's not an unsuccessful experiment from director/choreographer Artjom Garejev, showing to an extent the problems of our choice of different futures, linking this with the problem of migration in Estonia through the ending. What will be the future of this family? What will be the future of us? Are they not interlinked?
Journeys. Songs of Terra Mariana
This is a show that deals with language. That's clear from the very opening, as the entire first half of the performance is dedicated to just one or two actors delivering monologues to a slowly evolving video backdrop (Carmen Seljamaa), which begins as a tree. One is by a young boy about a mother, and the mother stands beside him, almost expressionless, still, as he explains that "mothers are always young, and gorgeous, and beautiful". In this eternal moment, it's difficult to disagree. Behind them, the tree slowly blooms - as the boy explains that "a mother speaks to us in our mother tongue", returning to the subject of language. The actors leave the stage and another comes out, and this time, as the tree blooms fully into summer, the subject is love and creation, a discussion about the violence of the words "I love you", and some precise analogies about nature and language "We are plants whose sole purpose in life is to create words. We are the soil that feeds the sentences".
So it proceeds. And it's a beautiful requiem, in my opinion, shifting and evolving slightly as it progresses through the loss of winter ("the young man who took bites from my apple seed went to war and was lost", and "now only a small bit of apple is left. I am not worried - I know it'll last until the end") and emptiness ("I breathe from this picture. I have to breathe carefully to keep it from wearing out"). A common theme is the fragility, malleability, and disappearance of language, which can be used to declare independence and grow 1000 trees, or can destroy everything in a moment. There are also some subtle shifts in dialects which I lost - some actors adopting accents of different areas in Estonia, not time-specific to the 1920s (the period of research for the performance, in which significant language shifts apparently occurred in Estonia).
Photo: Maris Savik
The backdrop suddenly disappears, and gives way to a giant frame (Silver Vahtre), with the verbal poem also giving way to a choreographic poem (Ruslan Stepanov). This is less successful for me. Backed by hesitant, crawling music (Kara-Lis Coverdale), the dance participates in an experiment of extension, with moments stretched out until they cannot go further. The dancers clump into various clusters, pairs, and splits - and yet the result is somehow unnatural, sitting oddly in the space like the giant aluminum structure that towers over it. It's an other-worldly addition, repeating the subtlty and emptiness of the opening in the form of movement. Vignettes of movement and stillness flame and disappear into nothing, only to revive themselves and disappear again.
On the surface, it's difficult to see how the two halves of Journeys. Songs of Terra Mariana fit together, and indeed I'm reliably told this was a common complaint among Estonian critics. I'm inclined to be more forgiving, although I can only struggle for answers myself. Dramaturg Deivi Tuppits appears to create a kind of hesitancy, a common thread of birth and death serving as a metaphor for the creation of language through seasonal change and the passing of time. The result is a spectacle that presents language as a suggstion open to interpretation and influence, one which, having been born of violence, displays a fragility meaning it can disappear entirely at any moment, taking its struggles for existence with it.
Much like life, I suppose.
To Come/Not to Come. Estonia in 100 Years
Director and scenographer: Artjom Garejev
Composer and producer: Aleksandr Žedeljov
Visuals: Aljona Movko
Costume design: Rosita Raud (NUKU theatre)
Lighting: Anton Andrejuk
Choreographer: Olga Privis
Video Director: Viktor Marvin
Operator: Nikolai Alhazov
Animation: Martin Yakush
Dramaturges: Karin Lamson, Mari-Liis Lill, Jelena Tšitšerina and Laura Kalle (Ugala Theatre)
Musical ensemble on stage: Modulshtein
Cast: Natalja Dõmtšenko, Aleksandr Žilenko, Dmitri Kordas, Jekaterina Kordas, Aleksandr Kutšmezov, Viktor Marvin, Jelena Tarasenko, Eduard Tee, Sergei Furmanjuk, Leonid Ševtsov, Jelena Jakovleva and other students from the Russian Theatre’s Studio
Journeys. Songs of Terra Mariana
Author and director: Tiit Palu
Composer: Kara-Lis Coverdale (Canada)
Choreographer: Ruslan Stepanov
Production dramaturge: Deivi Tuppits
Costume design: Mare Tommingas
Set design: Silver Vahtre
Lighting: Margus Vaigur (Theatre Endla)
Video design: Carmen Seljamaa
Sound: Feliks Kütt (Theatre Endla)
Cast: Külliki Saldre, Marika Barabanštšikova, Piret Laurimaa, Tiit Palu, Merle Jääger, Margus Jaanovits, Reimo Sagor, Jaanus Tepomees and dancers Endro Roosimäe, Alain Divoux, Matteo Tonolo, Archie Sladen, Walter Isaacson, Brandon Alexander, Maria Engel, Tarasina Masi, Yukiko Yanagi, Sayaka Nagahiro and Mirell Sork.
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