| Сountries: | Russia |
| City: | Moscow |
TERRITORY Festival, celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, remains true to its traditions and things it is valued for. TERRITORIЯ is for those who are ready for new forms of art and unexpected mixtures of genres and theatre methods. It is a means of crossing the borders between various trends in contemporary art, between different cultures and nations. Throughout it’s ten years, the festival has been working to prove that there should be no place for prejudice or discrimination in the present-day world. This year - despite all difficulties - the festival must remain a TERRITORY of personal and creative freedom.
TERRITORY is a festival as well as a school. Our main participants are students and young actors from all over Russia and neighboring countries. They are given a chance not only to attend performances and discuss them with their creators, but also get priceless first-hand experience and be revealed to a few professional secrets. Directors, actors and choreographers will give master classes, workshops and lectures every day throughout the festival. The students of TERRITORY get to meet: the renowned French artistic director of La Colline National Theatre in Paris- Stephane Braunschweig, the prominent Swedish director - Sofia Jupiter, true legends of the German-speaking theatre Christoph Marthaler and Michael Thalheimer, the Artistic Director of Electrotheatre in Moscow - Boris Yukhananov, the leader of SOUNDRAMA Studio - Vladimir Pankov, film director Aleksey German Junior, eminent choreographers Karine Pointies (France), Tero Saarinen (Finland), Rachid Ouramdane (France), Art Directors of TERRITORY - Evgeny Mironov, Chulpan Khamatova, Roman Dolzhansky, Kirill Serebrennikov, Andrei Urayev, and Vasiliy Tsereteli.
Evgeny Mironov - one of the Art Directors of TERRITORY festival is quoted in saying:
“For me the most important thing throughout all these years has been the fact that TERRITORY is both, a festival and a school. By that I mean it is a school for the audiences, the organizers and participants. To my mind, the basic thing here is the educational program the festival provides for students and budding actors. This program is supposed to teach them to be open to everything new, to not be afraid of the unknown and to keep moving forwards. I’ve been lucky to work with directors of all kinds; they come from various schools and cultures. At times it was hard to work out a common language together, but my curiosity and interest in other aesthetic worlds have always gained the upper hand. This year the main program of the festival zeroes in on time and memory – the two basic notions for man. It is common knowledge that people do not choose the time in which they live. Now we live in a contradictive and dramatic age and it is crucial to remain true to ourselvesf. The festival should teach to do just that.
This year TERRITORY festival revolves around the notions of time and memory. It is thus no surprise that contemporary dance is prolific in the festival line-up, as it is no secret that in contemporary culture a human body often turns out to be more objective and truthful than the spoken word.
TERRITORY also takes special pride in Rachid Ouramdane’s other production, Tenir le temps. The performance premiered 1 July 2015. It was performed by the Lyon Opera Ballet company within the framework of the dance festival in Montpellier, France. The Russian premiere is to take place on 5 October 2015, and will feature The Ballet of Moscow Company. Rachid Ouramdane stages a performance about catching time and pausing the moment.
Another example of a fruitful cultural dialogue is - Paradise Lost, made by a French choreographer Karine Pointies for the Dialogue Dance Company from Kostroma. The production investigates childhood that is gone and that winged swing of memory that can carry you back to the lost paradise of your youth.
Gogol-Centre actors will be looking for happiness and an answer to one of the eternal questions ‘Who is happy in Russia?’ Following the example of the Russian XIX century poet, Nikolai Nekrasov, theatre director Kirill Serebrennikov sets off on a journey around the present-day Russia in search of somebody who is happy and, what is most important, for the one who is free. It is quite a timeless query in itself.
Several years ago TERRITORY discovered and presented a Finnish choreographer Tero Saarinen, who has since become one of the leading contemporary dance gurus. This year Saarinen is presenting his most recent production Morphed, featuring only male dancers. Tero Saarinen is going to turn 50 soon, he is marking 30 years on stage and 18 years of his own Company – all this gives a good reason to start exploring - through the prism of dance – the inconsistency of those feelings that are experienced by pretty much every man during a lifetime. Through this research, one may reach the level of generalizations pertaining to all humans.
The issue of time is also studied in Fragment of Eternity, a special project of TERRITORY and the long-term partner of the festival, Moscow Museum of Modern Art. Within the framework of an exhibition by the French artist, Laurent Pernot, amongst his video-installations, video projections and art objects, a Russian choreographer Anna Abalikhina will do a performance which echoes the theme of the exhibition – memories, oblivion, the pain of loss, the immediate life of a man amidst nature, attempting to grasp eternity.
The Three Sisters is the latest work of Timofey Kulyabin. The show opened at the Red Torch theatre in Novosibirsk on the 11th of September, and is set to premiere at the festival on the 9th of October. The sisters will never leave for Moscow, Natasha will dominate the sisters’ household, time will inevitably keep slipping away, while the three sisters are left to their memories, solitude, and the desire to understand “why we live and why we suffer”…
A special project on the festival’s line-up is a collaboration with the Contemporary Art Centre ‘Garage’- a retrospective of the most exciting performances from all over the world shown at the festival in the past 10 years.
