"Current year will be a year of premieres" — the creative manager of the «Ob-Ugrian peoples’ theatre» Olga Alexandrova answers the questions of our correspondent
— The «Ob-Ugrian peoples’ theatre» is 3 years. Tell us about your progress and achievements?
— The repertoire of our theatre consists of two large parts: performances and concert programs.
Nowadays we have the performance «Following the sun, looking after the world» and also the concert programs which consists of tunes on national musical instruments, songs and dances of the Khanty and Mansi peoples. We had rehearsals during all previous year and this year we shall perform our new concert program «Songs and dances of Ugra land». This is the second concert program and we shall show the new turns. New actors, new possibilities are appeared. We often include speech genre into our concert programs. The second concert will be better, bigger and many-sided. It should be so, because the group grows from day to day, new experience appears. The actors get acting technique because of everyday practice in the theatre.
I want to tell in details about the choreographic compositions «Khanty legend» and «Spirit of fire» (choreographer — A. Telyatnikov), which we performed at the end of last year. The author’s choreography gives a chance to show all beauty of these tunes, dance motions and national plasticity on the base of traditional dance elements. Besides reproduction of national dances we set artistic, creative task and we have got turns with their own plot and dramatic art, in one word we have got mini-performances. This is our big achievement as we can show such compositions with honor on federal and world level.
As we planned during the theatre creation we should professionally present the culture of aboriginal nations. Last year we took part in numerous festivals in Khanty-Mansiysk with new turns: in the international festival of Finno-Ugrian nations, in the festival of television films «Golden tambourine», in the cultural program of World Chess championship, opened the meeting of ministers of Arctic soviet countries, at the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug — Ugra.
In 2005 we took part in the first international theatre festival of indigenous peoples in the Barents Euro-Arctic region in Petrozavodsk city. We became the laureate of this festival and created the regional association of theatres. We also got the diploma of the open competition of rare musical instruments performers «Cup of Russia», which took place under the patronage of the regional Department of Culture.
In the current year another turn «Dance with horeys» (stage choreographer — Faina Ishtimirova) from our new concert program was presented. A new suite is also appeared here, which shows instrumental traditional culture of the Khanty and Mansi peoples not as separate turns, but it has arranged already by the head of a musical department Sergey Kocharin and performed with the help of the author’s instrumentation.
It is worth saying, that the last year 2005 was very productive but not very effective. We did a lot of work, but we haven’t released the performance based on the pictures of the Khanty painter Gennady Raishev «I came into this world to see the sun» because of technical problems not depending on our will.
The fact is that not long ago the theatre got a new stage in the House of International Friendship, which is needed to be equipped with light and sound. Nevertheless there were rehearsals of the performance during the year and it is ready. It is necessary only to gather all parts and release the performance with light and sound on this equipped stage.
— What changes has happened with the creative troupe of the theatre?
— Our theater troupe became bigger. The number of actors is 14 with me. Four new creative and musical gifted actors have come, all are Khanty. Two of them have graduated the musical department of the pedagogical college and have choreographic education, one girl has graduated the musical department and another actor has graduated the choreographic department of the Center of art for gifted children of the North. These basic educations give them a chance to work in the theatre and in future they shall study and receive the higher education.
I am glad, because we need national workers. I can compare the forming of our troupe with making of national decorations, as though we gather glass beads, which are the essential of the national costume. Every our actor is like a bead, which forms creative pattern, ornamental pattern of our troupe.
Now we can do a lot of things, which we couldn’t do earlier, because we have more skillful actors and musicians. For example we have prepared the literature and musical composition «Rowan-tree feast» on the occasion of the anniversary of the Mansi poet Andrey Tarkhanov. We didn’t do such things earlier, because it was necessary to study speech technique, good reading and scenic motion. We can do it now because of curriculums on speech and acting technique, which I lecture in Ugra State University at the department of the Ob-Ugrian philology on specialization «Acting technique in a national theatre»
— What creative plans have your troupe in this year?
— The main thing for us now is to create the repertoire. To have two or three performances it is very good, but we want to have four. A big holiday is expected for us. We are going to release a premiere after premiere. We shall perform a new concert program, the play «I came into this world to see the sun!», the play for children based on the Khanty and Mansi fairy-tales and the New Years play.
As I said we shall perform the new program «Rowan-tree feast» on the occasion of the anniversary of Andrey Tarkhanov. We have begun to prepare a new literature and musical composition on the occasion of the anniversary of national poet Yuvan Shestalov, which will take place in 2007.
In 2005 besides other tours we made tours devoted to the regional program «Resistance of usage and circulation of drugs». We performed a lot of concerts in Surgutsky and Nefteyugansky district.
In the currant year 2006 we also made the same tour in Nizhnevartovsky district. In September of 2006 we are going to Beloyarsky district with concerts. There are a lot of the Khanty and Mansi peoples of the North in these two districts. They are our main spectators, who are waiting for us and want to see us. We have to present our concerts to the aboriginal nations that they had a chance to see the growth, perfection and new, qualitative and spiritual level of their traditional culture, which we have transformed. I think it have to raise the national self-consciousness and will help the spiritual and creative growth of the aboriginal nations. There is serious educational and constructive mission in it. Unfortunately we can perform only our concert programs as it is impossible to perform our plays in country club-houses, because of difficult technical equipment such as light and sound of the performances. But it is only the beginning and we hope that the situation will change and we shall have a chance to perform our plays.
In June of the current year we were invited to take part in the international folklore festival in Rovaniemi, North Finland, Lapland. The organizer of this festival invited us to take part in the festival. The governor of Lapland Hannele Pokka recommended inviting us, as she visited Khanty-Mansiysk for many times and knew creative potential of our group.
We enlarge our contacts and we understood the necessity of creation of our own web-site in internet. We are working at it now. With the help of the web-site we can communicate with our spectators and tell them about our creative life. We are going to make our site in Russian, English and partly in Khanty and Mansi languages.
When we release a performance for children based on the Khanty and Mansi fairy tails and New Year’s performance besides the performance based on the pictures of Gennady Raishev and new concert program, when we equip the second hall and our troupe increase it will be the best day in the whole life of the theatre. I think that in two or three years when we pass a logical phase we shall be able to say that the theatre has created already, that it is working and there are several performances in repertoire, that our actors are the first professionals, who have got a higher education. Recently a very important event has happened the technical project on construction of a new building of the theatre was signed.
— Tell us about your new performance based on the pictures of Gennady Raishev «I came into this world to see the sun».
— First of all I want to tell that you will judge about the performance after we release it. I think it will be a great holiday. Why? Because if you live in our region you should know the art of Gennady Raishev. So I consider that people who hadn’t a chance to see pictures of Raishev have missed a lot and deprived themselves in the spiritual plan. He is a painter of European level, he is a poet and a philosopher, our region is proud of him. I hope that thanks to these facts our performance will be cosmic and philosophic. It will be very beautiful and theatrical show with plenty of music and dances, with wonderful costumes, which were made according the painter’s pictures. I consider all these will give a special coloring and originality to the performance.
I think it will be a holiday for the good of our souls, a firework. Different experiments which is possible to do in theatre, in different genres based on traditional culture, mythology, folklore of the Khanty and Mansi peoples and author’s art of Gennady Raishev will be in our performance. It will be a kind of mosaic. Variety is in everything: in genres, in combination of traditional national music and classical instruments. This is an experiment. May be someone won’t understand it, but we see it in such way. I am a script writer, an actress and a producer of this performance. I hope that spectators will appreciate it at its true value.
Lyudmila Molchanova made costumes for our performance. She is candidate of historic sciences, specialist on folk costume of the costume modeling department of Udmurt State University (Izhevsk city). She is our painter and we cooperate with her during all these years.
Decorations of the performance are very unusual and interesting. It was maid by national artist of Russia, laureate of governmental prize of Russia Sergey Goryaev, who is working in our region for a long time and very productive.
We continue our work with possessors of traditional culture and ask them for help, advice, very often. They help our actors who pronounce texts in national language, sing songs in Khanty and Mansi languages with speech technique. At present their national teachers are Evdokiya Nemysova and Svetlana Denislamova. We work with other tutors too. The national artist of Russia Natalia Borisova teach vocal to our actors. I think it is a great fortune that we formed a very professional group of teachers. They are those professionals who will teach and educate our actors and musicians.
The «Ob-Ugrian peoples’ theatre» grows not only in creative meaning, but also grows its administrative staff, so all our offices are not enough for our big staff. We hope that our government will help us to receive one more room for our actors, where the actors can make themselves up and rehearse. We have a lot of problems which we try to solve.
— Olga, as far as I know in currant year you are going to celebrate the twenty fifth anniversary of your creative work. Shall we have a chance to watch your tremendous solo performances?
— A big professional way has passed. Unfortunately when I began to work with the «Ob-Ugrian peoples’ theatre» I have forgotten about myself as a creative person. I have stopped to perform on tour and show my solo performances. But thanks to this activity I became a professional person, an actress and a director in the west. I worked abroad for 10 years till I came to Khanty-Mansiysk. I was lack of time and vital energy here to create my solo performances, however this direction is forgotten undeservedly and will be renewed. I am going to show my solo performances on celebrating of the twenty fifth anniversary of my creative work and I hope that they will be claimed in future. I am going to create the solo performance based on the Ob-Ugrian culture in the near future.
Additional information:
The «Ob-Ugrian peoples’ theatre» was created in October of 2002.
The creative manager of the «Ob-Ugrian peoples’ theatre» is Olga Alexandrova. She was born in Udmurtia. She graduated Moscow State Institute of Culture, the department of the mass performance production and Moscow Academy of Culture, Art and Tourism Workers Retraining, the department of drama production. Now Olga Alexandrova is a student of the post-graduated course of Moscow Academy of Culture, Art and Tourism Workers Retraining, the department of the theory and history of art. She worked on probation in such theatres as Lenkom (Mark Zakharov) and the «Theatre of Young Spectators» (Genrietta Yanovskaya) in Moscow. Olga Alexandrova was the artistic director of the Youth Drama Theatre «Idnakar» in Izhevsk city. She took part in nearly 50 international festivals and projects in 15 countries of the world. She also produced two plays as a stage director in Finland and Norway.
