The II International festival-forum

The II International festival-forum
«DIRECTOR’S SPACE»
8-14 OCTOBER, PERM, RUSSIA

About the festival
The II International festival-forum “Director’s space” will take place from October 8 to October 14 in the city of Perm, Russia.
The festival is held in Perm for the second time. It sees its aim in creating a united director’s community. It intends to become a space for dialogue between directors of the First League of the world theatre, as well as for those directors, who are at the very beginning of their career. The conception of the festival implies breaking the stereotypes, connected to the perception of the director’s profession, and the biggest myth of a self-sufficiency of that profession.
Through interaction among them and with the representatives of the most important adjacent professions, the participants will have a possibility to understand better the interests and the artistic criteria of their colleagues and, consequently, to understand better their own earmarking, to see their possible way of development. The programme of the festival includes the performances of productions, chosen by selectors-representatives of key theatrical professions (director, actor, critic, dramaturge, producer).

Hystory
«Director’s space» is one of the biggest theatrical projects of cultural development of Perm Region. The festival was created in 2007 and had become at once the venue for e serious artistic dialogue for Russian and foreign directors.
In 2007 the pilot project of the forum was started. It was an experimental 3-day festival, that had shown the necessity of a further expansion of the director’s creative space and of an introduction of new actors in it. In 2008 the I festival “Director’s space” had united round it the Russian and foreign directors. By the time, the main message of the festival had become obvious: the creation of director’s individualities, and of a united director’s community based on a mutual beneficiation.

Objects and missions of the festival
The project’s object:
creation of a united director’s community, as a space for dialogue between directors of the First League of the world theatre, as well as for those directors, who are at the very beginning of their career.
Missions:
to break the stereotypes of a self-sufficiency of director’s profession and to give the directors a possibility to help each other in in widening knowledge about the profession;
to support the young directors at the very beginning of their career;
- to establish closer inter-professional contacts, to take a closer look at the creative work of the most eminent figures of th world theatre.
- a dialogue of cultures of Russia and France, an interchange, a realization of a national identity and of a uniqueness of cultures.
The audience:
- a wide audience, interested in the art of theatre of Russia and of the world. Young and adult people, secondary school age children (production Pinocchio)
- audience of the special programme – dramaturges, actors and directors, journalists, Art Schools students, theatre and culture professionals.

French connections
In 2010 the festival «Director’s space» is included into the official programme of the Year of France in Russia. The interest is focused on the French theatre. It implies the participation of the French productions and the Russian productions of the French dramatic works.
The programme was worked out by the top-level theatre figures of Russia and France.
Apart from that, within the framework of the «French connections», with the participation of experts from Russia and France, there will be held lectures and discussions about the topical problems of professional theatre.
An important point of the programme is the seminar «Theatre and his Double in XXI», that deals with the heritage of the artist Antonin Artaud, author of the conception of the «theatre of violence», one of the greatest French directors and theatre theorists. In France, one of the main followers of Artaud is the well known choreograph Joseph Nadj. The festival will present « The Ravens » of Choreographic Centre of Orléans in his production. Moreover, an exposition « Antonin Artaud’s work: manuscripts, paintings, photos » will be presented in the hall of Perm Academic Theatre-Theatre. The materials of the exposition were prepared by the National Library of France.

Productions
The programme was worked out by the top-level theatre figures of Russia and France – by a Director, a Critic, a Producer, an Actor, and a Dramaturge.
actress Valérie Dréville’s choice – production « Our terror » (D’ores et déjà Company, production of Sylvain Creuzevault),
critic Jean-Pierre Thibaudat’s choice – production « Hiroshima, my Love » (Vidy-Lausanne theatre, production of Christine Letailleur),
producer Eduard Boyakov’s choice – production « Pinocchio » (coproduction : theatre « Praktika » of Moscow, the Meyerhold Centre, theatre « Scène-Molot », Compagnie Louis Brouillard and the French Cultural Center of Moscow with the assistance of Culturesfrance).
director Boris Milgram’s choice – the well known production «Requiem» (The Cameri Theatre, Israel, Hanokh Levine’s production),
director Dmitri Tcherniakov’s choice – production « Sonja » (New Riga Theatre (Latvia), Alvis Hermanis’ production).
critic Oleg Loevski’s choice – the production « The Life of Man» (Perm Academic Theatre-Theatre, Boris Milgram’s production).

Requiem
production of Hanoch Levin
The Cameri Theatre, Israel
Director’s choice – Boris Milgram
An icon during his life, Hanoch Levin (1943-1999) was Israel’s most esteemed playwright.
Cult writer, provocative dramaturge and director, breaker of a peace, he was a living classic.
The production “Requiem” is based on three stories by Anton Chekhov : ‘Rothschild's fiddle”, “Misery”, and “In the Ravine”.
“Requiem” is a tragic play, focused on death - the deaths of a couple of old peasants, the sorrow of a young mother and the bereavement of a wagoner.
The play has won six Israel Theater Academy Awards for 1999/2000: Best Play, Best Playwright, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Costume Designer and Best Lighting Director.
It has also met with great success and appreciation abroad, at the Greek National Theater (Athens), the Festival of Theatrical Forms (Expo 2000, Hanover); the European Festival (Budapest), The Dramatyczny Theatre in Warsaw (Poland), The Freie Volksbuhne Theater Berlin (Germany), The International Sibiu Festival, The National Theatre in Bucharest (Romania) 2004, Chekhov Festival in Beijing (China) 2004, National Theatre of Turkey- Ankara and Istanbul (2006).
In autumn 2010 spectators of Perm will have a possibility to see it as well.
Saturday, October, 9, (12:00; 19:00), The Perm State P.I. Tchaikovsky Opera and Ballet Theatre
Levin has the unique ability of presenting on stage, the great truths of humanity. He is able to condense into one or two phrases--much as in poetry--ideas that are noble and universally human.
ELEFTHEROTYPIA – 23.5.2000

Our Terror
production of Sylvain Creuzevault
D’ores et déjà Company, France
Actress’ choice – Valérie Dréville
Theatre d’ores et déjà, directed by Sylvain Creuzevault, presents a new collective creation “Our Terror”. It is a production about notable days of 1793-1794, when the revolutionary ideals lead to the terror in the name of fidelity to those ideals.
This is a meaty production, that has absolutely no ponderousness. It makes the best use of the principles of acting as of the basis specific character of the dramatic genre, and its capacities to affect the spectators
The director Silvain Crezevault affirms, that “Our terror is not « la Terreur » of the French revolution; our terror is made up of our discordant and violent voices, so beautiful that we are unable to sense them without blushing, smothered voices which call out and die without ever being listened to. Our terror is not here to heal but to rupture a seething ulcer”.
Monday, October, 11 (13:30; 20:00), Perm Academic Theatre-Theatre

Hiroshima, my Love
production of Christine Letailleur
Vidy-Lausanne Theatre, France
Critic’s choice – J.P. Thibaudat
“Hiroshima, mon amour” – is a sentimental drama, or rather a story of a short love affair, of unfaithfulness.
“She” is a French actress, she came to Japan to act in a film about Peace. Making the film will be over soon and she’s heading France. To come back to her husband and children. She is 32.
“He” is a Japanese architect, also married. He is the head of the family, he’s about 40. They met somewhere, somehow, it doesn’t matter, a strong and sincere desire arises between them; now they’re lovers and they will have to part in only 24 hours…
Marguerite Duras, synopsis to Alain Resnais’s movie “Hiroshima, my Love”, 1959.
Wednesday, October, 13 (19:00), Theatre «Molot-Stage»
Thursday, October, 14 (13:00), Theatre «Molot-Stage»
«Margerite Duras was, surely, a writer of Love, a fighter for women’s freedom and a passionate defender of women’s right to pleasure».
Laure Adler, “Margerite Duras”, Gallimard, 1998

Pinocchio
production of
Joël Pommerat
coproduction of “Praktika” Theatre of Moscow, Meyerhold Centre, Compagnie Louis Brouillard et Centre Culturel Français de Moscou, Institut Français de Saint-Petersbourg, International “Big Break” festival, Theatre “Molot-Stage” of Perm. With the assistance of Ministry of Culture of Russian Federation and Culturesfrance.
Producer’s choice – Eduard Boyakov
Pinocchio is a production of a well-known French director Joël Pommerat, awarded The Moliere’s Prize in 2008, 2009 and 2010.
The plot of the fairy-tale by Carlo Collodi is well-known to every school child. It’s widely used in cinema and theatre, but the text often remains intact, probably out of respect for the author. Joël Pommerat, who works only with his own texts and creates the play during the staging, rewrites the story of Pinocchio and revises the adventures of the marionette, making the language of the play more modern, and the action – more dynamic.
The main character, a marionette young boy with a soft heart, encounters the harshness of the adult world. Pinocchio plays off the contrast between the serious austerity of “the real”, and luxury of phantasmagoria. The production is very complex in terms of stage technologies. Freely adapted from the original, the play becomes some kind of a pretext for a childhood imagination to measure up agaist the harshness of the “adult world”…
Joël Pommerat – dramaturge and director, one of the main theatre discoveries of the recent years in France, inventor of the original alchemy, that forces the text and the scenic space, the plot and the image to interact in a new way.
Thursday, October, 14 (18:00; 21:00), Perm Academic Theatre-Theatre

Sonja
production of Alvis Hermanis
The New Riga Theatre, Latvia
Director’s choice – Dmitri Tcherniakov
The short story “Sonja” by Tatiana Tolstaya, seems not to suit for staging, but it has opened a special side of Russian literature for Latvian spectator – an observant and metaphorical, ironical and sympathizing, sad and full of grotesque narration.
Sonja is an impressionistic miniature about a lonely woman, whose fate has played a mean
trick on her, which at the same time has become the biggest happiness of her life. It is a story about a woman with a “horse’s face” and a big heart. The character created by T.Tolstaya combines huge contrasts: ugly appearance and very sensitive inner world, hard life and delicate soul. The director Alvis Hermanis have entrusted a male actor to reveal these
opposite poles.
The production “Sonja” was performed on many venues of the world.
Sunday, October, 10 (17:00; 21:00), Theatre “Molot-Stage”

The Life of Man
production of Boris Milgram
Perm Academic Theatre-Theatre, Russia
Critic’s choice – Oleg Loevski’s
“The Life of Man” in version of Boris Milgram is an original artistic system of signs-symbols, where everything is interrelated and predetermined. The production is based on the human’s course of life from birth to death, mystically predefined by a wandering force.
For a “universal model of a human life” the authors of the production were looking for a convenient and free form. The genre was determined as an “ART-OPERA”, or an opera of all ARTs. For a director it’s a possibility to “play” with one of the most synthetic genres of art and its shticks: choir scenes, recitative, ensemble, orchestra scenes… The legendary saxophonist and master of jazz improvisations Vladimir Chekasin had created an incredibly energetic story of arguing and repeating melodies.
Apart from the opera form the production “The Life of Man” absorbed forms of drama, choreography, moments of eccentricity, circus and even fine arts.
Tuesday, October, 12 (18:00), Perm Academic Theatre-Theatre

The Ravens
directed and interpreted by Joseph Nadj
National Choreography Center of Orléans, France
The production is performed within the framework of the Antonin Artaud’s day
Joseph Nadj runs in his production into the whole net of questions about time and its essence, or rather about how time, memory and tradition unite, about how time defines our attitude to the past. This time, he finds food for thought in short stories and plays by Anton Chekhov.
The plot is based on the drama sketch “The Swan Song” by Anton Chekhov.
The main character is Vasili Svietlovidov. He’s sitting in a dark and empty theatre. He feels lonely and unhappy. Tonight it was a benefit evening in his honor. He’s about to fall asleep in a drunken blur. Svietlovidov reviews his private life and his career, remembering passages of old plays. In the desert theatre, in the dark, the black stage seems to be some kind of a primitive space, empty and full of souvenirs, where flashes of the past appear, and where he can return through his own experience to the bases of his art.
Myriam Bloedé
Friday, October, 8 (19:00), Perm Academic Theatre-Theatre
Saturday, October, 9 (19:00), Perm Academic Theatre-Theatre

Antonin Artaud’s day
An important point of the programme is the seminar «Theatre and his Double in XXI», that deals with the heritage of the artist Antonin Artaud, author of the conception of the «theatre of violence», one of the greatest French directors and theatre theorists. In France, one of the main followers of Artaud is the well known choreograph Joseph Nadj. The festival will present « The Ravens » of Choreographic Centre of Orléans in his production. Moreover, an exposition « Antonin Artaud’s work: manuscripts, paintings, photos » will be presented in the hall of Perm Academic Theatre-Theatre. The materials of the exposition were prepared by the National Library of France
Friday, October, 8 (12:00), the opening of the exposition, dedicated to А. Artaud
Saturday, October, 9 – Antonin Artaud’s day

LABORATORY
«Young art direction and professional theatre»
The aim of the laboratory is to support young directors in the very beginning of their carrier. Students of art direction department of the Art High Schools will work for a couple of days in Perm in order to present a «work-in-progress» production. This will be the first time they will work not with their classmates, but with professional actors.

DISCUSSION
«Director’s vocabulary: theme and variations»
Within the framework of the festival a discussion «Director’s vocabulary. Theme and variations» with the participation of directors, dramaturges, philosophers, composers, musicians will be held. The subject of the discussion is interpretation as a key element of creative work of a director.

Festival’s partners:
The festival is held with the support of:
Ministry of Culture of Russian Federation
Ministry of Culture, Youth and Communications of Perm Region
French Cultural Center of Moscow
Embassy of France in Russia
Culturesfrance
Alliance Française de Perm
Ministry of Foregn Affairs of Israel
The organiser of the festival – Perm Academic Theatre

Festival’s partners

Festival’s partners

I Festival-forum «Director’s space»
Perm, 2008
Productions of the festival of 2008:
«Zhivago» (production of Boris Milgram, Perm Academic Theatre-Theatre);
«A story about the seven who were hanged (production of Mindaugas Karbauskis, Tabakov Theatre, Moscow );
«The Storm» (production of Ehrenbourg, Pushkin Drama Theatre of Magnitogorsk);
«The Game of Truth » (production of Victor Shamirov, production company “Independent Theatre Project", Moscow);
«Sizwe Banzi is dead » ( production of Peter Brook, Theatre des Buff du Nord, Paris).
The five productions have been seen by more that 5000 spectators.
Altogether more that 300 people took part in the festival. Amoung them: directors, theatre professionals, actors, students of Art Schools. A well-known director Peter Brook, dramaturge, the general secretary of theatre “Rond Point” of Paris Jean-Daniel Magnen, composer Vladimir Chekasin (Lithuania), director Adolf Chapiro (Latvia), a popular actress Inga Oboldina (Russia) came to the festival as guests and moderators.

I Festival-forum «Director’s space»
Perm, 2008

I Festival-forum «Director’s space»
Perm, 2008