CPPM GUEST ARTIST
Sasha Pepelyaev
20.-25.11.2023
Open class
25.11.2023 19:00 EMTA black box
Sasha Pepelyaev is a director and choreographer. His first steps in theatrical arts were made while still in secondary school, where he attended drama classes. while studying chemistry at Moscow University, he started learn pantomime and spent all his free time in the studio – learning, performing, improvising and directing. after graduating from university, he continued his theatrical career in the Taganka theater and Moscow concert agency as a mime soloist.
in 1984, he became an artistic director at the mime studio of Moscow state university. the studio transformed into one of the first independent theatre studios in Moscow in 1987, during the beginning of perestroika. The company was called “poor yorik”. During this time Sasha entered the State Institute of Theatrical Arts, where he studied drama for four years.
In 1990, after closing down the “poor yorik”, he worked successively as a director and choreographer in a circus, on TV, and in drama theaters in Moscow and abroad. in that period he also visited west Europe, took different dance classes in Amsterdam and participated in various theatre dance projects.
in 1994, he started the project called “The Kinetic Theater” in Moscow, which led to the creation and performance of a string of experimental works. the project eventually became an intensive search focused on the definition of Russian contemporary dance. since the winter of 1995/96, the idea of combining postmodern Russian texts, contemporary dance and traditional Russian dramatic style continued in the company’s productions.
Workshop: The Third Eye
The workshop will focus on building a structure of visual-physical performance and methods that can be used. This will include initial concept, rough realisation, verification, modifications, analysis of available tools for those tasks, search for influences, affecting phases and patterns of the whole process. The creation of “sign” as a key element of visual communication, and the importance of “code” as a collection of homogeneous “signs”, which implement content and desired statement (or meaning) of the performance will be observed and, in a positive scenario, realized. Objects and environments will be inspected as building elements of “code”. Themes for improvisations will be suggested to participants and later stay as the basis for dramatic structure (“story”). They will be mixed and transformed by choreographic patterns, including elements of dance, acrobatics, contact improvisation, etc. The core idea of the workshop is to vary the scope of tools, available for creation and emphasise the visual content of stage production. A model of performance will be a goal, but not necessarily.
