SHARMANKA Theatre Performance
Part 2
Time of Rats
1991
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The mole is like Russia: a very strong but blind animal controlled by pretty clever rats enjoying themselves on his back.
Nickodym
1992
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Co-operation of genders.
Jock's Joke
1993
Dedicated to Jock Redburn, a chimney sweep from the Scottish Borders, with whom we share the same addiction: love for old scrap
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Victoria
1994
Dedicated to the memory of our best friend Victor Schvartz who reached his promised land - but too late.
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The figure of a crucified man in Jewish kippah comes to life in the centre of some kind of torturing machines amidst moving chains, swords, saws. It looks like a nightmare, a strange dance, or attempt to escape, to fly away - again and again he tries to rise his head, to release his hands, but the web of rusted iron still hold him firmly while the incredible clarinet of Giora Feidman sings "Jerusalem of Gold". This piece is dedicated to the memory of our best friend Victor Schvartz, who did reach his promised land - but too late...
He was a godfather of SHARMANKA - the idea of our co-operation belongs to him, and he not only brought me once to Eduard's den but made sure that this alliance would work.
He was a gifted mathematician, a dedicated lecturer, adored by his students, an art lover, a passionate reader, a little bit of a poet and a musician himself. Quite a common figure for Jewish intellectuals in Soviet Union, although, typically he never thought of himself as a Jew and not surprisingly: three generations had nothing except anti-semites to remind us where we came from...
He did not want to emigrate, but he had cancer and his doctor - one of the best specialists in Russia told us "It is too late anyway, but push him out, let him go because we don't even have pain killers to make the end easier for him".
So he left for Israel and there his pain was soothed and he was given another four months to live - just enough to look around and suddenly to discover who he was, where he belonged. He wrote some poems about it. A friend decided to make a little surprise and gave the poems to a magazine. They were published, but Victor never learnt about it - he died that very day.
The name of the place were he lived and where he was buried - Kfar-Saba - in Hebrew means "The village of Granddad".
Tatyana Jakovskaya
The Last Eagle of the Highlands
1994
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Dedicated to Mike
McGrady, who spent years studying the behavior of the Scottish
eagles, with whom we shared the same choice - to leave or not to
leave your homeland when you can't find enough space to spread
your wings (in the new Highland forests spruce trees were planted
too close to each other to get the most financial profit from the
wood).
"Banks and braes"..by Robert Burns is sung by G. Tait |
The Tower of Pisa
1995
To all those who try to keep their balance in an unstable world - an experience of a Jewish settlement.
Everybody has his own idea in which direction to push or to pull - but somehow we are still alive!
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La Strada (On the Road)
1996
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Who pulls the strings? or who is being pulled by strings? It is an old story, an old tune, a road without end.
Forget me not (Russian Troika)
1996
Dedicated to Maggy Lenert Stead who presented us with a funny piece of scrap, found in her vegetable garden. Maggy loves our native Russia in spite of her knowledge about its dark and dangerous side. But who knows where these three are heading...
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......And what Russian does not love fast driving? How could his soul which is so eager to whirl round and round, to forget everything in a mad carousel, to exclaim some times "To hell with it all! " - how could his soul not love it? .... Oh, you troika, you bird of a troika, who invented you? You could only have been born among a high-spirited people in a land that does not like doing things by halves, but has spread in a vast smooth plain over half the world, and you may count the milestones till your eyes are dizzy....Is it not like that that you, too, Russia, are speeding along like a spirited troika that nothing can overtake? The road is like a cloud of smoke under you, the bridges thunder, and everything falls back and is left far behind. The spectator stops dead, struck dumb by the divine miracle: is it not a flash of lighting thrown down by heaven? What is the meaning of this terrifying motion? And what mysterious force is hidden in these horses the like of which the world has never seen? ..... Russia, where are you flying to? Answer! She gives no answer....
Nickolay Gogol, Dead Souls
"Aurora", the Battleship of the Revolution
1997
Dedicated to George Wyllie, the wonderful man and sculptor, who created a beautiful giant Paper Boat - everybody's childhood dream - and provocatively stuffed it with question mark.
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The guns firing from the Cruiser Aurora in October 1917 was the signal for the start of the Russian optimistic socialist experiment which lasted 70 years and cost the lives of sixty millions. It is still there in the centre of St.Petersburg - a grey metal battleship standing at the river Neva pointing her guns at the Hermitage.
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The Crusader 2000 |
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Crusades... Religious wars... Pogroms... Civil wars... Terrorism... Genocide... Ethnic conflicts...
Could we ever stop? |
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Master and Margarita
2000
Dedicated to the memory of Tim Stead, the unique master of wood and artist of life, who said in his last speech at the preview of the Millennium Clock, that to understand something of the Russian madness you should read the novel 'Master and Margarita' by Michael Bulgakov.
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Noah's Ark
2000
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A search for a dry seems to be endless. Every creature try to help Noah - even those who are already dead....It is the biggest sculpture Eduard ever built (except for the Millennium Clock - but that was a team work).
Eduard Bersudsky:
"The history of the kinetic sculpture has begun 5 thousand years ago - when THE WHEEL was invented.
John Fletcher brought me from France the biggest wheel I ever had - still with French herbs on its spokes, - and a scull of a deer came from his deer farm in Auchtermauchty.
I have found two more wheels at the scrap yard belonging to other John - from Galashiels.
Scott from The Workshop of Tim Stead has presented me with two wheels from his motorcycle.
Clair and Charlie invited to their house in Balquihiddar - and we found there a scull of the lamb under mysterious circumstances.
Cassandra and Chris have brought from Edinburgh the old weather wind - flag, perforated by shots...
So the Ark built itself...
The beasts came themselves as soon as construction was finished.
The Ark was launched at last minutes of the second millennium."
| Rug-n-bone Man 2001 Homage to the traders of Barras Market in Glasgow
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Shaman 2001
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| Self - portrait with Monkey 2002
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The soundtrack is a famous Russian folk song of a lover, parted with his beloved girl and his country. It was recorded for us by Boris Axelrod (Axel), an artist, musician and philosopher, who was exiled from Russia in 70th. He lived - and recently died in Israel, in Tiberia, at the shores of Galilee Sea.
| Orient Express 2002 |
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Waterloo Bridge 2003
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