Art factory on Vydubychi

GogolFest opened on September 13 on Inzhenerna Street, in the experimental mechanical plant with the performance Neither God, Nor Caesar, Nor Tribune presented by Kyiv bands DakhaBrakha, Dakh Daughters, and a band from Belarus Port Mone. The performance includes elements of theater and circus, music and video projection.

Continuing the theme of theater, Ukrainian-American director Virlian Tkach with the troupe Yara Arts Group will present his play on September 19. The play Captain John Smith is dedicated to the adventures of the famous traveler and adventurer of the 16th century from England. John Smith traveled to various parts of Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and even to Ukraine: Smith fled from Turkish captivity across the Black Sea, after that he spent a short period of time in our country. The play is based on the fragment from the book The True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captain John Smith in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. Along with Smith’s text, the audience will get a chance to listen to Ukrainian ballads performed by American singer and bandurist of Ukrainian origin Yulian Kytasty, modern poems by Bob Holman (actor starring as John Smith), and ironic songs by Susan Gvang, who plays all the women he loved. The production also includes video clips by Mykhailo Shraha from New York and Volodymyr Kliuzko from Kyiv.

The music part of the festival will be the center of attention. Cinema performance Kolo Dzyhy. Khlib (Dzyha Circle. Bread) (September 13) consisted of the premiere of the restored copy of the film Khlib (Bread) directed by Mykola Shpykovsky in 1929 and a performance of Port Mone as tapers – Belarusian musicians made original accompaniment especially for this film screening. Khlib had a dramatic history: it was banned on the third day after its premiere and for many years it was abandoned, however, it is hard to overestimate its importance in the history of Ukrainian cinema.

An international concert “River Map” featuring Ukrainian band DakhaBrakha, bands Karbido (Poland), and Metamorphosis (the Czech Republic-Austria) was held on Saturday September 14. The underlying theme of the concert was the river, the water element. It is interesting how such different musicians performed together on that night: ethnographic DakhaBrakha, experimenters from Karbido (let’s remember that together with Yurii Andrukhovych they created a poetic, musical, and visual trilogy “Moonshine-Cinnamon-Absinthe”), and string quartet Metamorphosis, which combines classical instrumental music with rock.

The project will continue with a disc recording in 2014. Andrukhovych will also make his own presentation: on September 21 the premiere of literary and musical performance Albert of the Highest Form of Execution will be held. Along with Andrukhovych (text, voice) the production will be presented by Uliana Horbachevska (voice), Mark Tokar (contrabass, voice), Kyiv eccentric artist Anatolii Belov (graphics), and a visual assistance group CUBE. The author of the project idea is Olha Mykhailiuk. Andrukhovych told that the play Albert was staged based on his story that will someday become a part of the collection of stories about the most outstanding sinners of all times. The story is focused on life of Albert Vyrozemsky, swindler and thief. To avoid the death penalty he agreed to sell his soul to the devil, but the agreement signed by blood did not work for some reason, and one day in fall of 1641 he was publicly burned in the middle of Lviv Market Square. The story of Albert is presented in the spirit of medieval morality play, leaving unanswered questions in the end that become the signs of hope.

Living legend of Moscow Experimental Theater Sergey Letov together with Ukrainian actors Yurii Yaremchuk, Serhii Radzetsky, and Dmytro Radzetsky participated in the Russian-Ukrainian project Fin de Siecle (September 15). On September 19 favorite bands of Kyiv audience – “Hrozovskaia Band” and our new stars freak-cabaret Dakh Daughters (read an interview with them in The Day’s issue No.49 from August 28, 2013), will perform at the festival.

Academic program is just as good as the modern music. Solo project “Piano Music of the 20th and the 21st Centuries” was presented on September 14. Volodymyr Lavrynenko (Ukraine-Switzerland) performed compositions by Paul Hindelmith, John Cage, Sviatoslav Luniov, and Oleksii Retynsky. On the next day, one of the main musical events of the GogolFest took place – concert of music of the famous Russian composer Eduard Artemyev with the Ukraine’s State Academic Symphony Orchestra (conductor – Mykola Lysenko).

On September 16, the concert “KRAPLYNY: minimalism +” featured the Phiorx chamber orchestra (with Myroslava Kotorovych as the leader and soloist), Kyiv Classic Accordion Duo, Ukrainian composer and cellist Zoltan Almashi and Susanna Chakhoian, a soloist at Ukraine’s National Opera House, who performed works by Philip Glass (USA), Heitor Villa-Lobos (Brazil), David Macor (Netherlands), Zoltan Almashi, Boris Alvarado (Brazil), and Yasuo Sueyoshi (Japan).

Perhaps the most interesting solo concert is scheduled for September 19. The Kyiv-based pianist Yevhen Hromov has selected for the “Ritual in memory of Oleksandr Nesterov (Meditatio 1)” a top-class repertoire: plays by Karlheinz Stockhausen (Germany),  Leonid Hrabovsky (Ukraine-USA), Morton Feldman (USA), John Cage (USA) and Gyorgy Kurtag (Hungary-France). The avant-garde line will be continued on this day by the Duo Nostri Temporis ensemble – Dmytro Pashynsky (clarinet), Ihor Yermak (flute), and Oleksii Shmurak (piano) – who will play works by Sofia Gubaidulina, Olivier Messiaen, and Giacinto Scelsi. The program will also feature the Kyiv Soloists National Chamber Ensemble (conductor Volodymyr Sirenko and soloist Myroslava Kotorovych), a fixture of such events. On September 22, they will play Dimitri Shostakovich and Viktoria Poliova.

Autumn is the time for the Molodist Film Festival, but GogolFest will have its own cinema program. It will offer short films from the Molodist Festival and a selection of documentaries from Docudays, trash films by UPV Art-Group, social advertisement videos and six films produced by the Ukrainian Cinema Association. Feature films will include Kredens (Pantry) by Valentyn Vasianovych (Ukraine), Serce na dloni (featuring Bohdan Stupka), The Constant Factor and Cwal, all directed by the eminent Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Zanussi (he will attend the festival in person), as well as documentaries by Jacek Slawuta (Poland).

GogolFest Almanac is a praiseworthy innovation of the festival. From August 15 until now, more than 30 directors who responded to the proposal have been working to make their own films on the festival’s premises. The filmmakers were not bound by any specific genre or topic. The best of these fresh films will be shown in the Cinema section.

GogolFest will close on September 22.