Tiraspol, 9 July. /Novosti Pridnestrovya/. From 2 to 28 June, Moscow hosted the annual International Summer Theatre School of the Union of Theatre Workers of the Russian Federation under the artistic guidance of People's Artist of the RSFSR Alexander Kalyagin. Ninety novice artists were lucky to take part in it. They came from 30 countries, including Denmark, Great Britain, USA, Armenia, Austria, Georgia, Turkey, Slovenia, Belarus, Pridnestrovie and many others. Actors from approximately 40 Russian cities also took part in the workshop.
A ticket to the world of dreams
At the very beginning, prior to attending school, the leadership of the Pridnestrovian State Theater had filed an application for actor Stanislav Kiorpek's admission. Then the young artist prepared a "serious" portfolio, including a video message, explaining why he should become a student of the school and a story of his creative life with photos from his performances.
Tight competition
As Stanislav Kihorpek told our reporter, he was not the only actor from Tiraspol to apply for participation in the workshop - there was also Vladislav Gres. "But, unfortunately, they invited only me. We were motivated by the fact that there was a very tight competition of 5-6 people per seat," he said, explaining that the organizers had been probably attracted by his outstanding appearance, high stature as well as slight rhotacism. They especially liked the latter.
What was taught
The pedagogical staff included leading specialists from the best theatrical schools of the country. The training program was an intensive three-week educational course and included master classes, training and lectures on the main professional disciplines: acting skills, stage speech, stage movement, contact improvisation, rhythmic, modern dance, make-up, fencing and stage combat.
There were also meetings with wonderful artists Igor Zolotovitsky, Veniamin Smekhov, Igor Yatsko and many others.
Pleasant surprises
The real surprise was a meeting with Yevgeny Mironov, who stopped by as if by accident. Although that meeting had not been planned.
"We [Russian-speaking] recognised him at once; the foreigners did not understand who came, but they were glad anyway. We ran up to him, hugged him, began to take pictures. After the excitement subsided, we talked about the profession and its pitfalls, how to keep individuality," Stanislav said.
The Dancing Plague "1518"
Each day began with a wake-up at 7:30 and ended with a rehearsal at 20:00. After that, everyone gathered at a big fire to share daily impressions and sing songs.
Within a single educational process, simultaneous work was carried out to stage a number of performances: dramatic, puppet, choreographic and street. There five of them.
Having gone through a kind of "interview" or, more precisely, casting, the Pridnestrovian actor got into a troupe working on a plastic show - "1518". It is also called " The Dancing Plague".
According to its plot, based on real events, at the beginning of the 15th century, French Strasbourg was gripped by a plague. About 400 people took to dancing for days without rest in the streets. Over the period of about one month, some of those affected collapsed or even died of heart attack, stroke, or exhaustion rather than the plague itself. It is still unclear why people began to manifest such strange behaviour.
The play "1518" exhibits the limits of physical expressiveness, endurance and resources of the human body and movement. It was shown in Zvenigorod, Kostroma and Moscow, and each time the audience welcomed the artists with a storm of applause.
"Our school is no worse"
At the end of the training, Stanislav returned to Tiraspol, to his theatre, where he is ready to undertake new projects with renewed vigour.
He realised that taking part in a festival or some kind of competition, you should never think that there are actors better and more professional than you.
"Our Pridnestrovian theatre school is no worse than in other countries. It is simply necessary to always be ready, versatile, be able to work with your body and use the skills you have acquired. And you'll bring it off! " he emphasised.
PS. For the first time in all years, the Pridnestrovian flag fluttered over the summer school.
