"We trust in the creation of horizontal connections"

At the end of January, the artistic director of the Center. Vsevolod Meyerhold was appointed the founder of the "POST Theater" Dmitry Volkostrelov. The director of the director was taken by Elena Kovalskaya, who has been the post of art director of Tsim for the past seven years. Colta.ru talked with Volkostroilov and Kovalskaya about how it was good in Tsim - and how it would become even better.

Dmitry Volkostrelov:
"I still have to figure it out in many ways"

- What does it mean to you? It seems to me that this is a very difficult process - the formation of a artistic director from the director. The director always knows exactly what the theater should be, and what should never be-and the artist still has to be much more flexible.

- It seems to me that you said everything correctly, and I agree with everything. So far, it is difficult for me to determine what it is - "to be a artist." I am called the artistic director of the " POST Theater", but this is not entirely true: I am one of the participants in this group, this theater. And in the center of the name Meyerhold is a completely different story, and everything works completely differently: in Tsim, as you know, there are no troupe, but there are residents and there are their own products. In this situation, perhaps a more suitable name for my position is the curator. Yes, of course, I will have to form a different look, another optics, and it will not be easy, because for some time I worked as a director and only a director. I still have to figure out in many ways.

- Is it clear already how you and Elena Kovalskaya be shared by powers?

- It is not yet clear, we are only in the process of finding out how this will happen. And not only with Elena Kovalskaya, but also with Katya Alekseenko, who also works in Tsim. We trust in the creation of horizontal connections and the adoption of collegial decisions.

- In recent years, have you monitored what was happening in Tsim? Do you plan to adhere to an existing course-or will you still have to break it somehow?

- I definitely don't want to break anything. Breaking is generally some kind of stupid idea. In the Tsima situation - even more so. Naturally, I followed everything that happened there in recent years, and it seems to me that Zim has a very interesting agenda, very important topics are raised - modern, today's. Therefore, I do not think that it is necessary to somehow sharply change the direction that already exists. This is not my task. In Tsim, everything happens interestingly and great, so there is no need to change something, only if something is added so that it becomes a little better. That's why I agreed: firstly, there is no troupe in Tsim, and secondly, this is a place that lives already so interestingly, and there is no need to break and build something.

- What will happen next with the " Post " ? Everyone is worried.

- With the Poster Theater, everything will be fine, I hope. Of course, I will combine the artistic leadership of Qim and work in my native theater. Before that, I worked a lot in other places, on the one hand, and on the other hand, maybe this will be a new experience for us, because we think about the residence of the POST Theater in the Meyerhold center. I hope that this will benefit all of us: both the " POST Theater" and Tsim. But the " Posta Theater" continues to be for me, probably, the most important thing that is.

We trust in the creation of horizontal connections and the adoption of collegial decisions.

-Are there any plans already-and is it possible to share at least part of them?

- Not yet, unfortunately. You understand how it all happened: a proposal for cooperation with Qim received just two weeks ago. It happened as everything happens with us. If we lived in some ideal world, it would have happened somehow differently. Perhaps there would be a situation of some open competition, people would write applications, and so on-this is how we were taught at the school of the theater leader. But here, for a number of reasons, everything is arranged in the usual way: at first there is an appointment, and then you begin to figure out what to do with it. Now we are just at this stage of “analyzing”, especially since Tsim has a flashed program until the end of the season and everything is in its place, so it is impossible to say something new and clearly determine what will happen or Xiak. So far we are just thinking about the next season. We live in a world in which you always urgently need to extinguish a fire.

- How much time did you have to make this decision?

- It was accepted almost immediately - after I talked with Elena Kovalskaya, when I realized how everything would be arranged, which we are talking about. Because I, like many, thought that Elena Kovalskaya would become the Kim art artistic and continued to do what she did there-but, unfortunately, it did not happen.

Elena Kovalskaya:
"For Qima, we need the" Theater of Post "and its vision of the theater"

-Until now, you have been the art director of Tsim, now you become just a director. What will this change in the structure of Qima - and for you personally?

- I have the right to financial signature and responsibility for the economic and organizational components of our work. So my responsibility increases - and the price of the question in the choice of certain things. Dmitry Volkostrelov and Katya Alekseenko, who (like I had before) is the deputy director of Tsim, conspired that we would build equal confidence and partnership relations as possible: Dima as an artistic director, I, as a director and Katya Alekseenko as an executive director. That is, we will jointly make decisions of the artistic, financial, and organizational plan. We preserve a system of residents - independent companies, and the BlackBox Residence contest for individual young artists and researchers of the theater is also preserved: in the final of this competition, Tsim produces one of the works. That is, our procedures remain old, but when Dmitry studies our repertoire and he will have a vision of Qima, we will sit down and plan a new zim.

I think he is a wonderful curator - with a special vision of the theater and his knowledge from the inside. Also, the Posm theater will enrich the Posm theater, an independent company to which it belongs. Previously, we already tried to build relationships with the theater, but since then it was about tour that no one was ready to finance from the outside, we refused to represent the Posta Theater. I am glad that now we will not turn away and should come up with a way. I am sure that the Moscow public’s constant presence of the “ POST Theater” in Moscow will be good and joy.

Our exacting, smart, cool audience, if something has not been enough in Moscow, is the “Posta Theater” on our site.

- You are in Tsim since 2013. What did you manage to achieve during this time and where would you want Zim to move on?

- Mostly we managed to collect and unite the audience for a strange, unusual, searchater in which stars do not work. Typically, the modern theater in Russia, heading for the public, is forced to enlist the authoritative support of star artists, or bonuses, or financial assistance; Otherwise, he is facing a difficult life that, for example, leads an independent theater on the site “8/3” or “Theater. doc ". An example can be the form of organizing a modern theater in an electric theater or theater of nations (with stars of European directors and famous artists). We welcome any efforts to promote and develop a modern theater, but we have chosen a different path, namely, a dialogue with the audience itself. Once we made a discovery that the audience is not a fool, not a basting: it is better educated, I saw more, it feels thinner, we do not need to teach it, enlighten, lift it from my knees, develop and everything else, but we need to learn from it. That is, just conduct a dialogue with her. We are trying to build performances in the form of dialogue as communication. Our future contact with the Poster Theater is dear to me by the fact that it gives us both to us - those who make the theater - and the audience to open with this team new ways of perceiving reality. Our exacting, smart, cool audience, if something has not been enough in Moscow, is the “ Posta Theater” on our site.

- The appointment of Volkostroelov - it seems the best that could happen today with Qim, and what is there: this is a very important step for the entire Russian theater. How do you evaluate it?

- For the Russian theater or for Tsim? Tsim needs the " Pos theater" and its vision of the theater. It is unusual: the “ POST theater” practices those things that we have not passed during the development of the Russian scene, is, for example, John Cage or Elvin Lucier, that is, the practice of the European post -guard. Thanks to the " POST " Theater, we are passing these theatrical steps only now - and they are very important. This is about Dima (Volkostroelov. - Ed. ). As for the Russian theater as a whole: if you remember, Valery Fokin, with the support of the state, created the Meyerhold Center on behalf of the generation of theatrical workshops - the very first, still Soviet, associations of experimenters. Fokin created this site for the search - and in this sense we continue the impulse initially set by QIMU. Dima is a conscious and consistent experimenter, and we in Tsim joyfully welcome him. In addition, when Ryzhakov and I came to the QIM in 2012 with the educational project “The School of Theater Leader” , we had hope (in fact, there was an order from the Department of Culture) that we could prepare a new generation of directors - usually representatives of the independent sector - for the arrival of state theaters. After all, the Russian theater, in many respects beautiful, is extremely monotonous - since it is created on the conveyor of the repertoire model. All the diversity that is in our culture is created in the non -state sector. We wanted to marry a resource belonging to the state with a vision of the theater among independent people, with their energy and motivation. Then, when there was a conservative turn, changes in the country and in the world as a whole, our dreams seemed to us an illusion. But today we see that nothing disappears in vain - and what we wanted so much, in the end comes.