Performance «Folk Communication»

A Live Broadcast of Symptoms of Fragmentation

Some feel butterflies in their stomach, others keep cockroaches in their heads, for some the squirrels come running, and for others the cuckoos fly away, but none of this matters compared to those who have bedbugs in their box.

The dramaturgical foundation of the performance is Oleg Bogaev’s play «Russian Folk Post», written in the 1990s about a man whose youth fell on the 1940s. Sadly, history has spun such a vicious circle that this story is no longer about the past, but about what is happening right now. And the most terrifying thing is that much of it reads like a forecast for a not-so-distant future.

The protagonist is lonely. His family is gone, his neighbours have moved away. His only connection to the outside world is an old television, which for many years has broadcast to him what a wonderful country he lives in. He even owns a medal for his contribution to this collective greatness. Yet the feeling of belonging is absent. It is hard to believe in a «bright future» when the present is bleak: meat patties once a month, unsweetened tea, and alien planets glowing in the night sky.

But any forecast is never a guaranteed outcome. Everything can change if each person makes a conscious choice. So where will you look: into the box or out the window?