August 2008
"Wheels of Life" by Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre at Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2008
Performance devised and lit by Sergey Jakovsky (director’s début)
Music by Alexander Knaifel (Russia), Brian Irvine (Northern Ireland) www.brianirvine.co.uk/ , Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni (Republic of Venice), as well as Russian, Jewish and Scottish folk tunes
The Scotsman ***** http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/features/Theatre-Review-Sharmanka-Kinetic-Theatre.4424583.jp
The List **** http://www.list.co.uk/article/10997-wheels-of-life/
Three Weeks ***** http://edinburgh.threeweeks.co.uk/review/4184
Fringe Review ***** http://www.fringereview.co.uk/fringeReview.php?showName=Wheels%20of%20Life
Fest **** http://www.festmag.co.uk/article/43843-wheels-of-life
Audience gave us 4.9 out of 5
Pictures at http://flickr.com/photos/sharmanka/sets/72157606205927275/
May 2008
Sharmanka Travelling Circus at Gloucester Museum (till 06.09.08)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sharmanka/sets/72157605717551681/
Feb 2008
Pictures from PhantasieMechanik exhibition @ Phaeno http://www.flickr.com/photos/17458814@N05/sets/72157603914943862/
Press about PhantasieMechanik
Time Magazine http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1714784,00.html
De Welt http://www.welt.de/welt_print/article1708468/Maschinen_erzhlen_Geschichten.html
Jan 2008
Sharmanka will take part in PhantasieMechanik Exhibition at phaeno
Opening on Saturday 23rd February at the spectacular phaeno Science Centre in Wolfsburg, Germany, this exhibition promises to be one of the best kinetic sculpture exhibitions in recent years.
Spread over 10,000 square feet in Zaha Hadid’s acclaimed new building, more than 70 exhibits will come to life and share their stories. There will be works from Cabaret Mechanical Theatre, as well as fantastic American kinetic sculpture Arthur Ganson, and American artist Norman Tuck, maker of artistic science machines.
Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre will be represented by seven large kinemats – “Noah’s Ark”, “Tower of Pisa”, “Forget me not”, “Orient Express”, “Time of Rats”, “Last Eagle of the Highlands” and “Rag-n-Bone Man”
Wolfsburg is an hour from Berlin by the ICE train, there is a very frequent service, (and phaeno is a few minutes from the station).
Exhibition will run for four month ( till 29.06.08).
Info in German http://www.phaeno.de/mechanik.html
Dec 2007
Sharmanka has received one of “Awards for All” National Lottery Fund, which allow our Travelling Circus to entertain Glaswegians through the dark season. The installation is to be found in Glasgow Merchant City, in the windows of temporary vacant shop at 62 Ingram Street, opposite Albion Street. 10 min performances starts every 30 min from 5.05 pm till 9.05 pm. It will keep working for two months.
Nov 2007
First night of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame at Theatre-Workshop, where Sharmanka made a set of kinetic objects and Sergey Jakovsky designed the light.
Sept 2007
The sculpture of Colmcille (which means St.Columba-the-Dove) has been installed at An Tobar Art Centre in Tobermory (Isle of Mull). The metal bits incorporated in the sculpture are made by Bryony Knox http://www.bryonyknox.com/home.htm . Special thanks to The Workshop of Tim Stead http://www.timsteadfurniture.co.uk/ for prompting a beautiful dye for the oak.
"Sharmanka Travelling Circus" exhibition at An Tobar was extremely popular with locals and with tourists from all over UK, as well as from USA, Canada, Australia etc. Entries in the visitor book include comments like these: "Magic - dreamlike and nightmarish", "It gives one renewal hope for the human race", "Best couple of quid I have spent in a long time", "Amusing & disturbing, marvellous & memorable", "Best thing I have been for years, need to spend all day in the room", "Bizarrely brilliant & strangely surreal - absolutely inspired", "Just getting better - been three times now", "Outrageously great!"
At the workshops, led by Sally Pattrick - young artist from Edinburgh - children made their own paper automata and mechanical puppets, based on corkscrew. We have been really impressed by small exhibition of their works.
July 2007
Sharmanka Travelling Circus exhibition at Croydon Clocktower attracted 12,000 visitors in 12 weeks. As a museum officer wrote to us, "the comments are overwhelmingly positive – words such as magical, inspired, amazing, brilliant, wonderful, extraordinary, melancholy, poignant, are repeated regularly. A local Design & Technology teacher commented that it was essential viewing for DT teachers"
Travelling Circus is now back to Scotland, performing in An Tobar Art Centre on Isle of Mull till 1 September
Meanwhile An Tobar has offered Eduard to make a piece from the old oak, which fall few years ago during a storm in unique oak woodland on Mull and was donated by Forestry to Art Centre. Possibly, in one of his previous life Eduard would be happy to use this oak to carve a dozen figures for some gothic cathedral - but at the moment only small part of the majestic oak will be used to carve a figure of the Mull and Iona guardian - St.Columba with his symbol, a dove.
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May 2007
Sharmanka has been put on the map of Eccentric Britain (amongst forty five “uncommonly British tourist attractions“) in new book “Far from Sodding Crowd” (sequence of bestseller “Bollocks to Alton Towers” by Robin Halstead, Jason Hazeley, Alex Morris and Joel Morris). There are five pages of Sharmanka story and detailed review – one of the best pieces written about us. We are really impressed by the book itself – love its concept - and definitely go to explore some of the suggested destinations.
Also in this book - a piece of our reverend colleague Tim Hunkin with his “Under the Pier Show” http://www.timhunkin.com/ , and a poignant story of the beautiful ruin of St.Peter’s seminary in Cadross, which sad tale is to be depicted by our reverend friend Murray Grigor in his “Creative Scotland Award” project http://www.creativescotland.org.uk/ArtistDetails.aspx?ProjectId=86. Eccentric Britain seems to be a small place as you bump into your friends on every corner. But some Scottish places of interest are certainly missing - for the next edition of the book we would recommend John Blundall “World through Wooden Eyes” - http://www.theworldthroughwoodeneyes.co.uk/, and annual show of The Workshop of Tim Stead in Blainslie - http://www.timsteadfurniture.co.uk/ (put in your diary this year dates – 4 – 12 August)
The book is available for bargain price from http://www.amazon.co.uk/Far-Sodding-Crowd-Uncommonly-British/dp/0718149661/ref=pd_bowtega_1/203-0240727-3644715?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180097834&sr=1-1
Meanwhile Sharmanka Travelling Circus is drawing 1000 visitors a week in Croydon Clocktower. On the maintenance visit we were told about guards arguing over the turn to be on duty at Exhibition gallery… Hello, up there! Cut the middle man/woman chatting about “stakeholders” and “benchmarks”, listen to the museum assistants and front-of-house people – they are real “interface” between artist and audience!
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May 2007
Long time ago, at the very beginning of Sharmanka in St.Petersburg (then Leningrad) Eduard Bersudsky made a stage set for the last production of "Four Little Windows" - an amateur theatre studio, in which Tatyana Jakovskaya worked as a director for the previous fourteen years. It was summer of 1991, two months before collapse of Soviet Union. The name of play was highly appropriate - it was Samuel Becket's "Endgame".
Fifteen years later we are back to the same play - this time making stage set for Edinburgh Theatre Workshop http://www.theatre-workshop.com/aboutus.asp.
In August 2000, Theatre Workshop became the first professional producing theatre in Europe to include disabled actors into its main house production. Three years ago we saw their brilliant production of "Three-penny Opera", about which I wrote a review for "St.Petersburg Theatre Magazine" http://ptzh.theatre.ru/2004/37/72/ (sorry, text available only in Russian)
Somehow one day they phone us and offer to work together.
First night will take place 1 November 2007 in Edinburgh, than the show will tour Scotland from Peebles to Stornoway via Glasgow.
We would like to bring it to St.Petersburg, but at the moment it is just a dream.
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April 2007
Eduard Bersudsky made a donation box for Callender House in Falkirk - "Rusty the Magician"
The inspiration for this piece came from two sources:- a beautiful walk from Falkirk High train station through the woodland to Callender Park and Callender House, which we have done many times while "Rag-n-bone Man" worked at "Robot" exhibition there in 2005 and when "Sharmanka Travelling Circus" performed at Callender House last year, and fantastic collection of old industrial machinery, kept in so called "workshop" of the Falkirk Museums.
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Sharmanka Travelling Circus tour dates for 2007:
20 March - 23 June - Croydon Museum, ClockTower, Croydon
4July - 31 August - An Tobar, Tobermory, Isle of Mull
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December 2006
SHARMANKA GROTTO
In cooperation with Merchant City Heritage Initiative "Noah's Ark" has been installed for the festive season in the window of temporary vacant shop at 73 Trongate (next to the Tron Theatre and our St.Mungo-at-the-Tron). The kinemat performs every hour on an hour from 11am to 9pm
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September 2006
Sharmanka Gallery re-opened at the temporary address - 1Up 64 Osborne Street.
Details about Trongate103 project at http://www.trongate103.com/
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December 2005-September 2006
During the tour Stornoway - Falkirk - Inverness - Thurso - Kingussie "Sharmanka Travelling Circus" was visited by more than 25,000 people
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Wed 8 February - Saturday 11 March 2006
"Noah's Ark" performs at New Territories Festival at Tramway, Glasgow
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15 November 2005
Exhibition
"Movement and Shadows – The Magic of Sharmanka Theatre"
at the Royal Museum, Chambers Street, Edinburgh
2 December 2005 – 15 January 2006
Kinetic sculptures: Self Portrait, Crusader, Time of Rats, Titanic, Rag-n-Bone Man, Master and Margarita, Orient Express, Noah's Ark
Performances every 30 min from 10.15 am to 4.15 pm
New sculpture " Tree of Life" will be exhibited in the main hall and work every hour.
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at the Main Hall of the Royal Museum
28-30 December 2005 at 2.30 pm
DEREVO Theatre performs with "Tree of Life" and "The Millennium Clock". (It is actually a pan as "Derevo" is Russian for "tree") The project funded by Eduard's Creative Scotland Award.
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SHARMANKA Kinetic Circus on tour
An Lanntair, Stornoway, 9 December 2005 – 28 January 2006
Callendar House, Falkirk, February – May 2006
Swanson Gallery,Thurso - 2 June – 2 July ,
Museum and Art Gallery, Inverness -14 July - 6 August
The Iona Gallery, Kingussie, 18 August – 11 September
The exhibition will feature set of middle-size kinetic sculptures built by Eduard Bersudsky in 2003-2005.
Supported by the Scottish Arts Council National Lottery grant
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Rag-n-bone Man at “ARTBOTS”
Dublin, St.Michael and St.John Church,15-17 July,2005
Our “Rag-n-bone Man” has been chosen to be part of this international artistic robot contest. For more details and directions see http://artbots.org/2005/
We did not win the main prize - staffed ArtBot - it went to the real cockroach driving Martian-style vehicle. But we met a lot of crazy people like us and audience was delighted. It was very useful experience in any sense - now we know much more about what's going in the fields around us and who is our potential collaborators and audience. Walks along Liffey River helped us to survive +30 Celsius, and to see Book of Kells in Trinity College Library was a revelation perfectly timed (help with The Druid's Clock project)
This trip was made possible by support of the generous friends of SHARMANKA. Thank you, Arkady, Brian, Abby and Walter!
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20.03.2005
Eduard Bersudsky is one of ten winners of “The Creative Scotland Awards -2005”
The Scottish Arts Council
Creative Scotland Awards, funded through the National Lottery, support the
nation’s leading artists to experiment and realise imaginative ideas in a major
creative project.
Eduard's project is " The Druid Clock" – a collaboration with Russian theatre
company, Derevo in which bodies of dancers interact with his kinetic sculptures
to create a new performance that examines Scotland’s ancient heritage and
Northern mythology related to the forest.
More at http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/latestnews/1001807.aspx
The awards were presented by Richard Holloway, Chairman of the Scottish Arts Council, at the spectacular reception at The Hub in Edinburgh (the headquarters of The Edinburgh International Festival)
Eduard had mastered an elegant bow and "thank you", the rest of his speech was read by Tatyana:
" Nine years ago some tabloids criticised the Scottish Arts Council for awarding a Lottery grant to a couple of Russian emigrants one of whom hardly speak few words in English. I am afraid they will curse you again as I still have not mastered your language. My only excuse is that all these years in Scotland I was busy as I never was in my previous life in Russia.
I would like to use this occasion to express my gratitude to the Scottish Arts Council for my Creative Scotland Award. It will give me a fantastic chance to work with the old friends and compatriots - Russian dance theatre "Derevo", also exiles from St. Petersburg. Based in Germany, this company is well known all around the world for their incredible performances. Every year they come to take part in Edinburgh Fringe, and to collect some "First Fringe" and "Best of the Fringe" awards. We have been dreaming about this collaboration since we met each other 15 years ago -but there never was a producer crazy enough to invest money into such risky business.
This grant will send us on the wonderful journey following a spiritual path, shared by ancient tribes of Northern Europe from Scotland to Russia. Their close ties with nature, their beliefs in the spirits of forest are relevant today - and Scotland is one of the very few places when we can still hear an echo of their steps. (But for this project I will have to master some Gaelic, rather than English!)
I admire this ancient, beautiful and generous country, that is not afraid to be supportive of strangers and eccentrics, - truly CREATIVE SCOTLAND!"
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