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The Russian Theatre Film Series - Book Publication

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The Russian Theatre Film Series book - published and available: It’s difficult to find an appropriate description of the book "The Russian Theatre Film Series". Essentially it is an account of an arts documentary series with all its pitfalls, successes, limitations and achievements. The three films which have so far been completed are " Meyerhold, Theatre and the Russian Avant-garde ", " Stanislavsky and the Russian Theatre " and " Vakhtangov and the Russian Theatre ". This book is part of the overall project - The Russian Theatre Film Series and is a milestone and a marker in this developing project. It is also a commentary on what it means to make an independent arts documentary film series in a foreign country namely Russia. Not so much from the technical point of view although there is plenty of technical aspects covered but more from the point of view of a kind of interior process. It is an expedition into the phenomenology of film-m

Biomechanics - Project - Book and Film

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As I come to the end of  The Russian Theatre Film Series   book already new horizons opening up. Yesterday completed the artwork fro the cover, so all that remains is to proof read the book one more time and check everything over for layouts and other things. I have been tantalizingly speaking to a publisher but still feel I should work at my own pace and within my own resources although it is always worth exploring all the publishing outlets which might be available. Already there are ideas percolating through with regard to  The Fairground Booth book and beyond. As always it is too early to write about this as the ideas themselves are appearing more as clues to developing work. One idea is to do another book about the theatre but only biomechanics. To make it more as an illustrated book with pictures but also text. The black and white tones will make I believe a very good visual impact. Working on this tonight - fleshing out a broad plan and outline with possible subjects to b

The Russian Theatre Film Series

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Front cover for the book "The Russian Theatre Film Series" Cover completed for the Russian Theatre Film series book. A large step forward as I was worried about how it might look. In the end I only spent 3 - 4 hours putting it together ready for printing.  The book weaves together the experiences of filming in Moscow and Russia on The Russian Theatre Film Series. How it came together, who were the main characters involved in the series and charts the pitfalls, the struggles and the joys of making independent films in a foreign country in this case Russia, Moscow.  Often I am asked how do you begin to make a film, where do you start. For many it is easy, you start and that's it. For others that first step seems like a mountain standing before them. This book attempts to answer some of those questions by re living the steps which it took to make this series. Not necessarily step by step but the book certainly travels a distance that most independent film makers ha

Screening of Tokyo Journey in Moscow

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The first public screening of  the film " Tokyo Journey " took place in Moscow on the 25th January 2017. It was with a certain amount of trepidation that I approached the screening partly because the film is not exactly standard fare and the audience was made up of mostly people involved in teaching and disseminating traditional Japanese culture and Japanese Culture in general.

Music, Blok, Gogol and "The Tempest"

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In an article by James David Jacobs about Shakespeare and music he writes "The Tempest stands at the crossroads of theatrical history: between the Renaissance and the Baroque, between the Elizabethan theatre of the imagination and the Jacobean spectacle, between the primacy of the word and the primacy of sensory entertainment". Similarly The Fairground Booth was written and performed at the threshold of a new epoch in 1906 in Russia. The common link between these plays is music. It's no coincidence that at the same time these upheavals were taking place in England, the art form known as opera was being born in Italy (the first operatic masterpiece, Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, was premiered in 1607.) And it is not an accident that  The Fairground Booth  appeared at the junction between two epochs and the beginning of what we understand as the modern era.

Tokyo Journey - live presentation

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Showing this short film to a live audience tomorrow in Moscow. Never expected to present it as such so a bit nervous how it will be received. Was at the venue today checking things out. Good sound - which is welcome as the soundtrack is important. The film was shot in Tokyo and since it has been released on You-tube I have re evaluated the film and re edited it slightly for this particular presentation due to the specifics of the presentation. I will blog about that later with pictures and possibly a video clip of the event. I have been worrying about it for several weeks now mostly about how I would present the film to the audience but all those problems seem to have been solved. The work that I put into this video is now starting to pay dividends in terms of new projects and ideas for films. All the practical experience on this film portended  a completely  new direction. Have also been working on much of the writing. The next book about the Russian theatre   is in the proof reading

Encounters with the Russian Avant-garde

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"Encounters with the Russian Avant-garde" is a book by Michael Craig which complements the series of six films made by Michael Craig and Copernicus Films about the Russian Avant-garde of the 1920s and 30s.  Click on link to purchase book:  http://ow.ly/Xxvl305ChZc Fully illustrated including stills from most of the films, it is not only an account or explanation but also an introduction or to be more specific an "encounter" with this exciting phenomenon. The title reflects an active relationship: firstly through the experience of living in Moscow for many years, plus a direct encounter with the buildings, the architecture and the very territory in which much of the avant-garde arose and to some extent still exists. Encounter suggests something more casual, unexpected and unstructured but also a sense of living in the avant-garde and being part of it. After all it was the intention of the Russian Avant-garde to connect with the real lived world and to ‘take art out
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Dostoevsky and The Fairground Booth Posted on   October 13, 2016   by   michaelcraig Planning an extra chapter about Dostoevsky and the Fairground Booth in the book  Blok, Meyerhold and the Fairground Booth   thefairgroundbooth.com . Its come about due to further research into the symbolist painters of the time who were involved with theatre set design and theatre in general in Russia and Europe: Benois, Somov,Golovin and more particularly Dobuzhinsky. He designed sets for  The Devil’s Play,  and an adaptation of Dostoevsky’s  The Devils . Dobuzhinsky also designed the frontispiece for Blok and Meyerhold’s play  The Fairground Booth. Dobuzhinsky’s illustration for the set of “The Devil’s Play” This chapter and section will give an extra depth to the discussion about The Fairground Booth. It will also serve one of my intention which is to put the play in the wider context of Russian and European literature. Attached are the frontispiece for  The Fairground Booth  and the set design for

"The Fairground Booth" and "Petrushka"

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This post is a fragment from a chapter of the book which will be published some time next year. The context is a comparison between the ballet "Petrushka" and "The Fairground Booth". Both share roots in the Russian fairground and the figures of the commedia dell'arte. To understand a play like The Fairground Booth which has no plot, no characters, no real sense of forward movement or natural time and broke from the traditions of realism and naturalism, requires an approach to Russian culture which moves beyond its surface reflections. When, as Bakhtin states, Dostoevsky's work embodies elements of carnival, (something which is not immediately associated with Dostoevsky), then it becomes clear why it is possible to find clues to the meaning of "The Fairground Booth" in works of literature as various as "The Brothers Karamazov" and The ballet "Petrushka" and vise a versa. For those seeking unadulterated cultural forms this approac