© 2021 ГАУК НСО НДТ «Старый дом»
630009, г.Новосибирск, Большевистская, 45
Тел.: +7 (383) 266-26-08
630009, г.Новосибирск, Большевистская, 45
Тел.: +7 (383) 266-26-08
About the Festival
The Novosibirsk State Drama Theater «Old House» has been implementing artistic projects that explore new texts and various methods of creating theatrical performances for many years. The Festival of Actual Theater is a natural continuation of this strategy and has become a prominent brand born within the «Old House» space, which is now an integral part of the city's life and the Russian theater community.
We, the GRAVITY team, continue to introduce you to theaters operating within different artistic and organizational systems - both state-funded and independent, associated with contemporary art. Additionally, we strive for maximum engagement of the city's space in the theatrical experience.
We, the GRAVITY team, continue to introduce you to theaters operating within different artistic and organizational systems - both state-funded and independent, associated with contemporary art. Additionally, we strive for maximum engagement of the city's space in the theatrical experience.
Gravity.
Organizes chaos.
Organizes chaos.
We preserve the best from our past festival experience and complement it with the vision and ideas of new members of our team. The format of Chaos has transformed into the following state. We have tried different methods of communication and work (previews, art residencies, training, conferences, intellectual marathons, etc.), set different goals for ourselves, and now we understand which formats are most interesting to us, which tools are useful and meaningful, and which topics are currently important for the festival.
Gravity determines our form and content.
The goals of GRAVITY are active involvement and unity in the festival movement of contemporary theater for audiences, curators, performers, directors, actors, choreographers, composers, artists, critics, and people of various professions. With our community, we want to continue to speak, watch, listen, participate in projects and events, create these projects and events, share experiences, and realize what is relevant in reality and art.
FESTIVAL // 2023
A NEW NAME, A REFRESHED PHILOSOPHY, ENDURING VALUES
A NEW NAME, A REFRESHED PHILOSOPHY, ENDURING VALUES
«GRAVITY» was the new brand of the «CHAOS» festival, which had been founded at the «Old House» theatre in 2019. The main task of the festival in 2023 had remained unchanged – to acquaint the audience with the best contemporary theatres working in different artistic and organizational systems: state and private, dramatic and physical, as well as those connected with the ideas of contemporary art.
That year’s festival had presented more than ten landmark productions from across Russia, three of which the «Old House» theatre had brought in partnership with the Russian National Theatre Award and Festival «Golden Mask».
We are aesthetically inspired by the idea of attraction between people, objects, and meanings. Our life is a series of games with gravity: we walk, fly, fall, jump, rise, catch, drop, notice changes in our bodies over time, hold on with all our might, break into pieces, gather ourselves bit by bit, feel irresistible attraction and desire, hold together, create different communities, remain part of this Universe and ourselves. The visual image of the festival was created with the help of designer Nino Chaghalidze, photographer Lesha Fokin, video operator Grigory Kalinin, and director Anton Fedorov.
The theme of the festival was art as the main resource of meaning and emotions.
Therefore, the festival’s off-program had included: conversations about theatre, conversations around theatre, conversations about the experience of history, about the experience of different people, conversations with scientists, joint actions with actors — all of this had given the opportunity to look at the context of our lives with different eyes, as at an eternal plot that had already been lived through by many generations.
The program 2023 included 10 performances:
– THE GOLOVLYOVS /
Nikitinsky Theatre
– THE IDIOT / Priyut Komedianta Theatre
–
ADAM AND EVE / Project «Vasilevadanceco»
– THE LAST TEA PARTY / Project by Kseniya Mikheeva
– THE PLACE THAT HAD NOT YET EXISTED / Project by Kseniya Mikheeva and the Theatre Union of the Russian Federation
– THE CHILD / Chamber Theatre
– HI, SASHA! / Theatre of Nations
– WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN SO LONG, DUDE? / Space «Vnutri»
– SAK-SOK / «MOÑ» Theatre
– MATTER / Context. Diana Vishneva
The festival’s off-program included 10 open discussions of performances, 3 dance workshops, 2 interactive walks with actors, 1 charity auction, 4 musical after-parties, 1 public talk on contemporary dance, 7 popular science lectures, 1 staged reading, 1 festival laboratory, and 1 intellectual game.
That year’s festival had presented more than ten landmark productions from across Russia, three of which the «Old House» theatre had brought in partnership with the Russian National Theatre Award and Festival «Golden Mask».
We are aesthetically inspired by the idea of attraction between people, objects, and meanings. Our life is a series of games with gravity: we walk, fly, fall, jump, rise, catch, drop, notice changes in our bodies over time, hold on with all our might, break into pieces, gather ourselves bit by bit, feel irresistible attraction and desire, hold together, create different communities, remain part of this Universe and ourselves. The visual image of the festival was created with the help of designer Nino Chaghalidze, photographer Lesha Fokin, video operator Grigory Kalinin, and director Anton Fedorov.
The theme of the festival was art as the main resource of meaning and emotions.
Therefore, the festival’s off-program had included: conversations about theatre, conversations around theatre, conversations about the experience of history, about the experience of different people, conversations with scientists, joint actions with actors — all of this had given the opportunity to look at the context of our lives with different eyes, as at an eternal plot that had already been lived through by many generations.
The program 2023 included 10 performances:
– THE GOLOVLYOVS /
Nikitinsky Theatre
– THE IDIOT / Priyut Komedianta Theatre
–
ADAM AND EVE / Project «Vasilevadanceco»
– THE LAST TEA PARTY / Project by Kseniya Mikheeva
– THE PLACE THAT HAD NOT YET EXISTED / Project by Kseniya Mikheeva and the Theatre Union of the Russian Federation
– THE CHILD / Chamber Theatre
– HI, SASHA! / Theatre of Nations
– WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN SO LONG, DUDE? / Space «Vnutri»
– SAK-SOK / «MOÑ» Theatre
– MATTER / Context. Diana Vishneva
The festival’s off-program included 10 open discussions of performances, 3 dance workshops, 2 interactive walks with actors, 1 charity auction, 4 musical after-parties, 1 public talk on contemporary dance, 7 popular science lectures, 1 staged reading, 1 festival laboratory, and 1 intellectual game.
The Season of Movement (special program) // 2022
The main program of the next festival is scheduled for 2023. We chose "The Season of Movement" as its theme and tagline.
However, the preprogram of the festival has begun in autumn. It was intended to rent physical theatre performances in Novosibirsk. The idea of attempting to enter the lands unknown to the Novosibirsk audience so far was based not only on the desire to help change the direction that was still in the rental and information and communication vacuum but also on the very philosophy of the movement. There were teams here that are able and willing to work in the field of modern dance and theatre of movement, there were local choreographers who were well known to the Russian theatrical community, there were ideas that were waiting for implementation, but the audience was not yet fully established.
The "Season of Movement" team (art director Oksana Efremenko, curator Andrey Korolenko and ect) invited spectators to look at a dancing person because when a person is dancing, centuries of human history and social conventions all disappear. When a person is dancing, they only need the sky, the sea and a kindred soul. When a person is dancing, they are telling the truth about themselves and the world. When a person is dancing, the wise universe continues to exist.
The goals of the "Season of Movement'' were encoded as always in the visual image of the festival which was modified for the preprogram. The multidirectional lines of the minimalistic black and white scenery created by the St. Petersburg designer Nino Chagalidze look almost like drawn and suggest a scheme of an invisible dance of someone invisible. And it is the body of this invisible dancer which is fully capable to draw the contours of beautiful forms of the future world in its emptiness and chaos.
The preprogram was intended to warm up the curiosity and hint at the possibilities of the future festival. It lasted for three months. From October to December, the Season of Movement curators introduced viewers to theatre companies which were capable of telling stories using body language. The project announced a total of nine performances by dance groups from Novosibirsk, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Kazan.
However, the preprogram of the festival has begun in autumn. It was intended to rent physical theatre performances in Novosibirsk. The idea of attempting to enter the lands unknown to the Novosibirsk audience so far was based not only on the desire to help change the direction that was still in the rental and information and communication vacuum but also on the very philosophy of the movement. There were teams here that are able and willing to work in the field of modern dance and theatre of movement, there were local choreographers who were well known to the Russian theatrical community, there were ideas that were waiting for implementation, but the audience was not yet fully established.
The "Season of Movement" team (art director Oksana Efremenko, curator Andrey Korolenko and ect) invited spectators to look at a dancing person because when a person is dancing, centuries of human history and social conventions all disappear. When a person is dancing, they only need the sky, the sea and a kindred soul. When a person is dancing, they are telling the truth about themselves and the world. When a person is dancing, the wise universe continues to exist.
The goals of the "Season of Movement'' were encoded as always in the visual image of the festival which was modified for the preprogram. The multidirectional lines of the minimalistic black and white scenery created by the St. Petersburg designer Nino Chagalidze look almost like drawn and suggest a scheme of an invisible dance of someone invisible. And it is the body of this invisible dancer which is fully capable to draw the contours of beautiful forms of the future world in its emptiness and chaos.
The preprogram was intended to warm up the curiosity and hint at the possibilities of the future festival. It lasted for three months. From October to December, the Season of Movement curators introduced viewers to theatre companies which were capable of telling stories using body language. The project announced a total of nine performances by dance groups from Novosibirsk, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Kazan.
FESTIVAL // 2021
PHILOSOPHICAL AND AESTHETIC STUDY OF A MODERN HUMAN BEING
In 2021, the festival grew even bigger. The list of performances is important but it's not the main goal. The theatre and the festival can and should become a means for philosophical understanding of today's world.
We were inspired by the works of the philosopher Slavoj Zizek, by the tagline that he reimagined in his works "Be realistic, demand the impossible!" and his reflections on the challenges facing humans today. Our presence in the world is mostly evident in environment, ethics, information, and body. These were the topics that we wanted to research at the festival.
During the art residence at CHAOS - 2021 our invited curators along with the residents explored the topics of environment, ethics, body and information, prepared their own projects that we presented in various non-theatrical spaces in Novosibirsk along with the lectures of the renowned experts in respective fields: philosophers Mikhail Nemtsov and Alexander Sekatsky, cultural journalist Mikhail Saprykin, art critic Anna Velenskaya, and others.
The preview projects at the festival allowed the spectators to visit one mobile exhibition (environment), one installation opera (information), three dance performances (body), one reflection exhibition (body), and one Telegram play, to observe one marathon on Instagram (ethics), to attend four lectures and three concerts as well as to take part in recording of three public podcasts. A total of 30 participants took part in the art residency.
It is no coincidence that the chromosomes on the logo designed by Nino Chagalidze became a metaphor for the second wave of CHAOS. The theatre gives us an optical tool which allows us to see that people are very "delicate structures that occupy separate territories and are not noticeable individually. Every day, leaving the house, they are transformed into densely packed elements that can resist external influences, maintain their integrity and shape." One only needs to see that alienation does not exist.
We used the prisms of environment, ethics, information, and body to watch and discuss the performances at the 2021 festival.
Besides, it was a unique year for our team because the National Theatre Award and the Golden Mask Festival became our partners which allowed us to show in Novosibirsk the performances in different formats and styles from various locations.
In 2021, over 156 thousand people took part in the festival as spectators online and 5 thousand participated offline. There were 400 participants in the main program.
The program included 14 plays in the main program and 7 showcase plays:
– ZANOS / Praktika Theatre / Moscow
– DEMONS OF DOSTOYEVSKY / Theater on Bronnaya / Moscow /
– ARTYOM TOMILOV / Fifth Theater / Omsk
– BOTTOM FISHERS / Youth Theatre. A.A. Bryantsev / St. Petersburg
– ARTYOM TOMILOV / Fifth Theater / Omsk
– CHERNOBYL PRAYER / Nikitinsky Theater / Voronezh
– LE TARTUF. COMEDY /Taganka Theater / Moscow
– DAD WILL MEET ME IN L.A. / Youth Theater / Arkhangelsk
– NEXT / Tomsk Youth Theater
– COMMITTEE OF THE SAD DEITY / theater post / St. Petersburg
– DEAR MR. SMITH / Theatre PRIYUT KOMEDIANTA / St. Petersburg
– HORRIBLE DANCES /TRU Theater / St. Petersburg
– TIME OUT / Red Torch Theater / Novosibirsk
– REDUCTION OF THE WORLD / theater stage MOÑ / Kazan
– ANNA KARENIN / STARY DOM (Old house) theatre / Novosibirsk
During the festival we held one research conference, one meetup of independent theatres and various theatre institutions over brunch, and five lectures by renowned theatre critics, including Marina Davydova, Alyonа Karas, Nika Parkhomovskaya etc.
We were inspired by the works of the philosopher Slavoj Zizek, by the tagline that he reimagined in his works "Be realistic, demand the impossible!" and his reflections on the challenges facing humans today. Our presence in the world is mostly evident in environment, ethics, information, and body. These were the topics that we wanted to research at the festival.
During the art residence at CHAOS - 2021 our invited curators along with the residents explored the topics of environment, ethics, body and information, prepared their own projects that we presented in various non-theatrical spaces in Novosibirsk along with the lectures of the renowned experts in respective fields: philosophers Mikhail Nemtsov and Alexander Sekatsky, cultural journalist Mikhail Saprykin, art critic Anna Velenskaya, and others.
The preview projects at the festival allowed the spectators to visit one mobile exhibition (environment), one installation opera (information), three dance performances (body), one reflection exhibition (body), and one Telegram play, to observe one marathon on Instagram (ethics), to attend four lectures and three concerts as well as to take part in recording of three public podcasts. A total of 30 participants took part in the art residency.
It is no coincidence that the chromosomes on the logo designed by Nino Chagalidze became a metaphor for the second wave of CHAOS. The theatre gives us an optical tool which allows us to see that people are very "delicate structures that occupy separate territories and are not noticeable individually. Every day, leaving the house, they are transformed into densely packed elements that can resist external influences, maintain their integrity and shape." One only needs to see that alienation does not exist.
We used the prisms of environment, ethics, information, and body to watch and discuss the performances at the 2021 festival.
Besides, it was a unique year for our team because the National Theatre Award and the Golden Mask Festival became our partners which allowed us to show in Novosibirsk the performances in different formats and styles from various locations.
In 2021, over 156 thousand people took part in the festival as spectators online and 5 thousand participated offline. There were 400 participants in the main program.
The program included 14 plays in the main program and 7 showcase plays:
– ZANOS / Praktika Theatre / Moscow
– DEMONS OF DOSTOYEVSKY / Theater on Bronnaya / Moscow /
– ARTYOM TOMILOV / Fifth Theater / Omsk
– BOTTOM FISHERS / Youth Theatre. A.A. Bryantsev / St. Petersburg
– ARTYOM TOMILOV / Fifth Theater / Omsk
– CHERNOBYL PRAYER / Nikitinsky Theater / Voronezh
– LE TARTUF. COMEDY /Taganka Theater / Moscow
– DAD WILL MEET ME IN L.A. / Youth Theater / Arkhangelsk
– NEXT / Tomsk Youth Theater
– COMMITTEE OF THE SAD DEITY / theater post / St. Petersburg
– DEAR MR. SMITH / Theatre PRIYUT KOMEDIANTA / St. Petersburg
– HORRIBLE DANCES /TRU Theater / St. Petersburg
– TIME OUT / Red Torch Theater / Novosibirsk
– REDUCTION OF THE WORLD / theater stage MOÑ / Kazan
– ANNA KARENIN / STARY DOM (Old house) theatre / Novosibirsk
During the festival we held one research conference, one meetup of independent theatres and various theatre institutions over brunch, and five lectures by renowned theatre critics, including Marina Davydova, Alyonа Karas, Nika Parkhomovskaya etc.
FESTIVAL // 2019
ARTICULATING THE IDEA OF CONTEMPORARY THEATRE
In 2019 over 6 thousand people took part in the festival as spectators or participants.
The program included 13 performances:
– IDIOT / Theatre Stary Dom (Old House) / Novosibirsk / Director Andrey Prikotenko
– CHAPAEV AND VOID / Theatre PRAKTIKA / Moscow / Director Maxim Didenko
– CRIME AND PUNISHMENT / Theatre PRIYUT KOMEDIANTA / Saint-Petersburg / Director Konstantin Bogomolov
– YOUTH ALIVE / Theatre TRU / Moscow / Director Alexander Artyomov
– RUSSIAN A. ABC / Theatre TRU / Moscow / Director Alexander Artyomov
– INDIVIDUAL AND ATOMIC PROPOSITIONS by the mathematical formula of a British mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell / Creative Laboratory UGOL / Kazan / Director Vsevolod Lisovsky
– ZOSHCHENKO ZOSHCHENKO ZOSHCHENKO ZOSHCHENKO / Theatre-festival BALTIISKY DOM / Saint-Petersburg / Director Andrey Prikotenko
– I AM 30 YEARS OLD / GOGOL-CENTRE / Moscow / Director Vasily Zorky
– WELL TEMPERED LETTERS / Theatre post / Saint-Petersburg / Director Dmitry Volkostrelov
– DJ PAVEL / Theatre post / Saint-Petersburg / Team: Kseniya Volkova, Dmitry Volkostrelov, Dmitry Korobkov, Ivan Nikolaev, Maksim Petrov, Dmitry Renansky, Alyona Starostina, Aleksey Platunov
– MISS JULIE / Theatre LUDOWY / Poland / Director Radosław Stępień
– THE INSULTED AND INJURED / Staatsschauspiel Theatre / Dresden / Director Sebastian Hartmann
– MARAT/SADE / Klockriketeatern, Sirius Teatern, Teater Mestola / Finland - Sweden / Director Juha Hurme
The program included five public talks, two public lectures and eleven open discussions of the performances with the audience. Sixteen critics and experts engaged in various educational formats, including Marina Davydova, Oksana Kushlyaeva, Anton Alekseev, Katya Kostrikova, Olga Nikiforova, Kristina Matvienko, Eric Soderblom, Hunter Wei Gao, Elena Malchevskaya, Zhanna Zaretskaya, and others.
We established the spectators' club which helped people communicate at the festival. When the project came to an end, the participants prepared their reports they delivered at the final conference and jointly created the "Manifesto of the Modern Spectator".
One of the important components of the festival was the art residence, where choreographers, screenwriters, performers, and artists studied. Under the guidance of director Mikhail Patlasov and playwright Alina Shklyarskaya, they created independent final projects which shared the idea of "The Evolution of Beauty". The projects were presented and discussed with the audience in the local IKEA and on the stage of Theatre STARY DOM (Old house).
Contemporary theatre is much closer than we think: it is everywhere, it is around us every day. It is in our commute, in the corporate culture of our offices, in the shopping malls and parks, in casual conversations in restaurants and cafes, in fitness fashion, in any of our daily gestures. That is why every month during half a year before the festival, the CHAOS team offered the audience to find a theatrical gene in a variety of social spaces familiar to present-day people and presented five independent preview projects, one mobile installation and one street art object which connected theatre, science, contemporary visual arts, digital technologies, fitness, music and everyday culture.
The program included 13 performances:
– IDIOT / Theatre Stary Dom (Old House) / Novosibirsk / Director Andrey Prikotenko
– CHAPAEV AND VOID / Theatre PRAKTIKA / Moscow / Director Maxim Didenko
– CRIME AND PUNISHMENT / Theatre PRIYUT KOMEDIANTA / Saint-Petersburg / Director Konstantin Bogomolov
– YOUTH ALIVE / Theatre TRU / Moscow / Director Alexander Artyomov
– RUSSIAN A. ABC / Theatre TRU / Moscow / Director Alexander Artyomov
– INDIVIDUAL AND ATOMIC PROPOSITIONS by the mathematical formula of a British mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell / Creative Laboratory UGOL / Kazan / Director Vsevolod Lisovsky
– ZOSHCHENKO ZOSHCHENKO ZOSHCHENKO ZOSHCHENKO / Theatre-festival BALTIISKY DOM / Saint-Petersburg / Director Andrey Prikotenko
– I AM 30 YEARS OLD / GOGOL-CENTRE / Moscow / Director Vasily Zorky
– WELL TEMPERED LETTERS / Theatre post / Saint-Petersburg / Director Dmitry Volkostrelov
– DJ PAVEL / Theatre post / Saint-Petersburg / Team: Kseniya Volkova, Dmitry Volkostrelov, Dmitry Korobkov, Ivan Nikolaev, Maksim Petrov, Dmitry Renansky, Alyona Starostina, Aleksey Platunov
– MISS JULIE / Theatre LUDOWY / Poland / Director Radosław Stępień
– THE INSULTED AND INJURED / Staatsschauspiel Theatre / Dresden / Director Sebastian Hartmann
– MARAT/SADE / Klockriketeatern, Sirius Teatern, Teater Mestola / Finland - Sweden / Director Juha Hurme
The program included five public talks, two public lectures and eleven open discussions of the performances with the audience. Sixteen critics and experts engaged in various educational formats, including Marina Davydova, Oksana Kushlyaeva, Anton Alekseev, Katya Kostrikova, Olga Nikiforova, Kristina Matvienko, Eric Soderblom, Hunter Wei Gao, Elena Malchevskaya, Zhanna Zaretskaya, and others.
We established the spectators' club which helped people communicate at the festival. When the project came to an end, the participants prepared their reports they delivered at the final conference and jointly created the "Manifesto of the Modern Spectator".
One of the important components of the festival was the art residence, where choreographers, screenwriters, performers, and artists studied. Under the guidance of director Mikhail Patlasov and playwright Alina Shklyarskaya, they created independent final projects which shared the idea of "The Evolution of Beauty". The projects were presented and discussed with the audience in the local IKEA and on the stage of Theatre STARY DOM (Old house).
Contemporary theatre is much closer than we think: it is everywhere, it is around us every day. It is in our commute, in the corporate culture of our offices, in the shopping malls and parks, in casual conversations in restaurants and cafes, in fitness fashion, in any of our daily gestures. That is why every month during half a year before the festival, the CHAOS team offered the audience to find a theatrical gene in a variety of social spaces familiar to present-day people and presented five independent preview projects, one mobile installation and one street art object which connected theatre, science, contemporary visual arts, digital technologies, fitness, music and everyday culture.