Siberian Seasons in Tobolsk opened with a winter street performance on Bazarnaya Square
27 february 2023
Tobolsk’s Bazarnaya (Market) Square hosted the launch of Siberian Seasons in Tobolsk, a cultural program that opened on February 25 as part of the Shrovetide celebrations. The project is being implemented within the framework of SIBUR's social investment program, the Formula for Good Deeds, and the trilateral agreement between SIBUR, the Government of Moscow, and the Government of Tyumen Oblast.
The production of "How Tsar Peter Decreed to Celebrate the New Year in Winter", a performance reminiscent of a winter-time street circus show, was brought to Tobolsk from Voronezh by the Voronezh Academic Street Theater (abbreviated as VAST), Voronezh’s first independent street theater established at the initiative of the Platonov International Art Festival. Its team includes actors, musicians, artists, and dancers.
By carrying out large-scale and one-off events such as this one, our company has set its course on implementing a full-fledged cultural program, designed to run for the duration of the entire calendar year. The program will be fascinating given its intensity and diversity as it will include all sorts of events ranging from theatrical performances to creative laboratories, so that the residents of Tobolsk will be able to become more than just mere spectators but also direct participants of various cultural activities. It is expected that people will be flocking to our city specifically to take part in these Siberian Seasons that have a strong chance of becoming a trademark feature of our region, Elena Belskaya, Head of ZapSibNeftekhim’s Department of Government Relations and Socio-Economic Projects, commented.
The budding troupe’s new production is dedicated to the first Russian emperor and his reforms, including, specifically, Peter the Great’s chronology and New Year reforms. On December 20, 1699 (or the year 7209 according to the old "Byzantine" calendar), Peter I issued a decree No. 1736 "On Celebrating the New Year" moving the New Year’s celebration from September 1 to January 1 and ordering a transition to a new system of numbering years beginning not from the creation of the world, but from the date believed to be the date of birth of Christ. Peter’s subjects were prescribed to rejoice, congratulate each other, and decorate homes and streets, and "install decorations of trees and branches of pine, spruce and juniper in front of gates," whereas people of poor means were instructed to “put up at least one tree or one branch over the gates or over their home”.
The show put on by the VAST that is following the tradition of a street-type, fairground art expounds on the topic of Peter the Great’s reign, depicting him as a great nation builder and reformer. The troupe’s new show is done up in a graphic monochrome style, with the production’s artist Natalia Mikheyeva coming up with black-and-white imagery and costumes, in homage to the emperor’s famous drawings and passion for engineering, thus highlighting the key features of Peter the Great’s era marked by meticulous planning and drive for change. The aesthetics of a traditional Russian fairground performance used to style up this interactive performance full of mischief helped imbue traditional forms of the folk street theater with modern ideas making them easy to understand by viewers of any age.
Some elements of the show's design are based on the use of traditional Russian motifs, paintings and ritual symbols; others are reminiscent of Malevich's art and his images. The scenery is based on a pageant, or a wheeled wagon, a kind of a mobile stage that medieval theaters once used, or a carriage used as a set for staging a slapstick show, as well as on the use of a slide as an indispensable attraction and part of winter games and celebrations. The image of Emperor Peter was rendered as a large paper doll featuring a set of extendable arms and a retractable head. The show’s graphic style is additionally emphasized by its use of movement plasticity. The choreography of all movements, gestures, dances and active games was designed to look as if black and white paper figures of people have come to life and are now playfully telling their audience the story of how the tradition of celebrating the New Year in Russia came into being.
The show was curated and directed by Kamil Tukayev, an actor with the Voronezh Chamber Theater’s troupe, People's Artist of Russia. All the lines in the play had been pre-recorded by him and feature his voice.
Our show is a kind of a comic strip dedicated to Peter the Great, a story narrated in a sequence of scenes and vivid pictures, staged on a town square. Both Voronezh and Tobolsk have a close connection with the historical figure of Peter the Great, and this white wintertime street performance alludes to a seminal historical event of Peter the Great’s era, that of the construction of the white-stone Tobolsk Kremlin. This was the first time that we performed our play on the glistening white snow, on a really cold Siberian day, and we did it a total of three times including in the afternoon and in the early evening. All our shows turned out somewhat different, and each one of them was special. We are touched by the hospitality of the show’s hosts and by the responsiveness of the audience and we hope to be able to come back to your wonderful city again, a member of the VAST troupe noted.
A pure delight! We didn't even have the time to get cold: at first, we were jumping and stomping, and then the show’s performers engaged our entire town in a dance around the Christmas tree. Children laughed and danced along with the street performers. It was a wonderful performance to enjoy in the last days of winter, Arina, one of the spectators, shared her impressions.
It's great that they chose to tour with a street performance. This doesn't happen very often, especially in winter. It's a very interesting concept visually, where everything is expressed by means of the show’s costumes and its set including the changeover of the calendar under Peter the Great, and the link to other historical transformations such as the revolution, and suprematism in art. They used an unorthodox visual concept that we didn't immediately appreciate, it was simply beautiful! We enjoyed the production’s interactive nature with the actors engaging their audience. It was really a great choice because it was rather too cold outside just to stand there and watch the show, we all wanted to move around a bit more and to get more immersed in the process, and not just be mere spectators. And the music they used in the show, it was really wonderful, it made half of the performance, ambience-wise, Tatyana and Regina, the show’s spectators, noted.
The Siberian premiere of the "How Tsar Peter Decreed to Celebrate the New Year in Winter" play produced in the genre of a street theater show took place on Saturday, February 25, on Tobolsk’s Bazarnaya Square.
VAST’s street performance of the "How Tsar Peter Decreed to Celebrate the New Year in Winter" show was presented by SIBUR with the support of the Tobolsk City Administration and the Visit Tyumen project as part of Siberian Seasons in Tobolsk, a cultural program held on Tobolsk's Bazarnaya Square during the Shrovetide Festivities.