"Snow Show" by Vyacheslav Polunin: reviews. "Snow Show" by Slava Polunin: description and features of the performance

Summer 1987. On tour in Anapa, a few hours before the performance, the “Litsedei” went to the beach right in clown outfits and makeup.

Fans, crazy with happiness, rushed to their idols for autographs, but they, not paying attention to anyone, silently marched to the sea. In their hands are sticks supporting a blue silk cloth above their heads - their own “sky” measuring 40 square meters. m. They entered the water in an orderly row, just like Pushkin’s 33 heroes, only instead of uncle Chernomor there was Vyacheslav Polunin. There's a commotion on the beach. But the clowns, without stopping, continue to go into the sea: the water is already up to their chests, up to their chins... A few more seconds - and only blue silk remains on the water. A minute passes, then another, five - there are no “Litsedeev”!

As Polunin later said, to prepare the stunt, scuba tanks were laid on the bottom of the sea. Having plunged into the water, the artists put on masks and remained at the bottom. And the sunbathers, having recovered from the first shock, began to act: some ran to look for rescuers, others began to dive themselves. Probably ten minutes passed before the clowns began to move back: first the “sky” rose on sticks, then heads appeared... The “actors” came out onto land. There was applause.

Born from trash

There's a snowstorm outside. December 1980 in Leningrad turned out to be cold and snowy. Vyacheslav sits at home and peers intently into the mirror. On his face there is either an evil grin, or universal sadness, or scary mask. Traveling through the looking glass, Polunin is looking for new image. The day before he called Central television and stated that he had an amazing miniature that should definitely be included in the “New Year's Light.” The editors immediately invited him to filming.

Polunin lied: he didn’t have a new number - he just really wanted to participate in Ogonyok. Until now, when speaking on TV, for example in the program “Around Laughter,” he showed only pantomimes that brought a smile, but were quickly forgotten. And he was looking for an image that the audience would not be able to forget.

He recalled how, at age 10, he was amazed to see the silent film "The Kid" with . I sat spellbound in front of the TV and only the third time I heard my mother’s stern: “It’s time to go to bed.” Click - and along with the light, the little man in big boots disappeared from the screen. He wanted to grab him and leave him with him, but blackness was already looking at the boy, reflecting himself, frozen in front of the TV, and half of his mother standing next to him. The boy went to his room, lay down on the bed, but for a long time could not sleep.

When I grew up, I watched all the films with the participation of the great artist more than once. And now Polunin wanted to come up with something in the same spirit: funny and sad.

Vyacheslav's gaze was attracted by a bright spot. In the mirror, he saw a yellow jumpsuit hanging on a hanger behind him - loose, straight, without much embellishment. The waist was to be emphasized by a wide black belt. I remembered: my wife brought it from familiar designers, hung it up and, admiring it, joked:

Your friends will see it and burst with envy!

Polunin stood up and tried it on himself... His fantasy began to work further: he needed white makeup. Ovals above the eyes will create the effect of raised eyebrows. Something is still missing. On the dressing table is an imported deodorant with a red cap. He put it to his nose and smiled, looking in the mirror: here he is, the long-awaited new hero.

The next day, the “yellow man” of Slava Polunin appeared on the stage of the Lycedei Theater. And from the audience some child shouted: “Asisyay!” I liked the word. It will come in handy, the clown decided. He had already begun to think about the future interlude.

“I like to have different things lying around the house, this kind of rubbish,” admitted Vyacheslav. - Eisenstein also said that every thing contains meaning. It was just in those days that an old telephone lying in the corner caught my eye. And I suddenly thought that this means of communication actually separates people. And then the idea came to mind about a man who calls himself, pretending to have an animated conversation. These could be his memories of the past, and unfulfilled dreams...

Thumbnail " Phone conversation" Polunin and took him to Moscow on the Ogonyok.

Since then, Asisyai and I have been inseparable,” admits Polunin. - He is the me I would like to become.

At the registry office with backpacks

Can you sign us up right now? - asked a guy with a huge backpack on his shoulders, looking into the office of the registry office administrator.

The woman looked at him in amazement, at the shyly smiling girl next to her, and at the other tourists standing a little further, by the window. “We have been together for a long time, but now we want to formalize the relationship,” said Slava Polunin. - True, there’s not enough time, about half an hour. We have a concert tonight.

Are you artists?

Yes, we are clowns,” he replied.

The administrator smiled:

So are you just joking?

But the girl answered seriously:

No. If we don't do it now, we'll never have time...

Slava and Lena left the registry office as husband and wife.

... Lena Ushakova’s colleagues immediately nicknamed her Fuji because she looks like a Japanese woman. Clown-ballerina - fragile, graceful. It was impossible not to fall in love with her. So Polunin couldn’t.

He was already married then. They lived with Galina for several years, without being separated for a day, because she also worked in “Litsedei.” But when the marriage began to crack, Galina left the team. But Lena remained, becoming for Polunin over time, as he himself says, “both his left and right hand.”

Lena joked for twenty years, saying that she would not forgive me for our “wedding in half an hour,” Vyacheslav laughs. “And I kept promising that one day we would celebrate it properly.” And on the eve

On New Year's Eve 2005, the "Litsedei" went to the Hawaiian Islands. They gave two concerts a day. But the nights were ours! It was there that I arranged the wedding celebration. The entire theater, about 15 people, gathered on the endless beach and had fun until the morning. Lena dressed up in a white dress, as befits a bride. And I bought a suit. The first in life.

He still pays for Blue Canary

Dad, how did you come up with this number? How?! - an admiring Polunin follows on the heels of one of his artists, Robert Gorodetsky, asking again and again: - No, how did that come to your mind?!

The team nicknamed Gorodetsky “Papa” just because of his age. He is already 43, he is 10 years older than Polunin and sees many things differently. While going through records at home, Robert came across an old disc. The inscription read: “Maria Koseva and Nikola Tomov, “Blue Canary” (translated from English as “sad canary”).

An old song written in the early 1950s by musician Vincent Fiorino, the Bulgarian duo sang in bad Italian, inserting English words into the chorus.

Gorodetsky found out what they were singing about later, when experts tried to translate:

The sad canary waits in vain

That the one who has gone far will return to the nest...

And at that moment he was hooked by music. When the chorus sounded - “Blue, blue, blue canary”, a picture appeared before my eyes: two clowns singing, playing along with themselves on small accordions. The third one stands between them with a net - why not? - and looks around in amazement... Sitting down at the table, Robert quickly sketches the picture that has arisen in his imagination and sketches costumes. “Gorodetsky, you are a genius!” - Polunin told him the next day. The number was included in the program, then it was shown on TV. The year was 1983.

Slava still pays me very good royalties,” Gorodetsky once said.

Burn all clothes immediately!

On April 25, 1986, the “Litsedei” went to Kyiv. They discussed the plot all night short film“In case of fire, call 01,” which they decided to film between concerts.

And on the morning of the 26th, rumpled and sleep-deprived, they stepped onto the platform. The artists drove around the city, settled in a hotel, and then went to the theater and rehearsed until the evening. No one had any idea that an accident had occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant some hundred kilometers away.

The next morning, dressed in firefighting gear, they went outside to film the first scene of the film. There were surprisingly few people on the street. And some woman, not paying attention to the makeup, seriously asked:

So, sons, did something explode here too?

Having heard about the accident at some station, the artists were not particularly worried - anything can happen. They realized that the situation was really serious only when they returned to the hotel and the tour organizer began to beg not to cancel the concert. “Yes, many residents have already left,” he said, “but others have remained. And the tickets for the performances were sold out a long time ago!” No one could yet imagine the full scale of the tragedy. The “actors” remained in Kyiv.

“We had a full house on the first evening,” Leonid Leikin, an artist from “Litsedeev”, tells TN. - On the stage of the theater where we performed, there were “pockets” for decorations, with locked doors leading from them to the street. The audience, who were unable to get tickets, broke into these exits and found themselves on stage. Polunin decided not to kick anyone out - he seated them around the edge. That's how we performed every night. They checked clothes and shoes for radiation - the instruments beeped and crackled. We were recommended to drink red wine. That's how they were saved. Having returned to Leningrad, we came to the hospital to get checked. And they told us: all the clothes you were wearing there must be burned immediately.

Instead of an anniversary - a funeral

1987 Saint Petersburg. Every evening he comes to the performances of “Litsedeev”. And then, waiting for Polunin at the service entrance, he sneaks behind him like some kind of spy. A graduate of the veterinary institute, bald, awkward, one day he will finally decide. He would come to the Litsedeev studio and show excerpts from their own performances: he knew them all by heart. Polunin will not only take him to the theater, but even let him live with him.

His wonderful wife Lenochka allocated a place in the hallway of their cramped apartment,” Anvar Libabov recalled. - I slept on the chest.

On April 1, 1987, Libabov was solemnly accepted into the staff of the clown troupe. And exactly a year later, on April 1, 1988, together with other artists, Anwar took part in the funeral.

...The brass band of the Leningrad Military District played. Three coffins stood vertically on the stage. Artists came out of each one, played their roles - the best numbers of the “Litsedeev”! - and “went to bed” back.

This is how the mime theater clown celebrated his 20th anniversary in an unconventional way. Shortly before the anniversary, Polunin quoted Stanislavsky’s words to his colleagues that every theater dies after 20 years of existence. And he announced preparations for the funeral.

After the performance, we carried the coffins along the street; they contained various newspaper publications about us, posters, announcements, all sorts of waste paper,” Libabov continues to tell TN. - They set it all on fire and floated it down the Neva. It turned out spectacular!

Main teacher - granddaughter Mia

- Mia, come here! - Polunin calls his five-year-old granddaughter in a mysterious whisper. - Look! He pulls the string, the room plunges into twilight, and the moon rises to the ceiling, into the starry sky. Then he touches another string - and the sun rises. Mia claps her hands: her grandfather is a wizard!

By communicating with children, you can discover a lot for yourself, Polunin is convinced. For example, he once spied the sketch “No” (“Niz-zya!”) from his son when he was talking with his toys. And the first performance of the “Litsedeev” - “Dreamers” - was staged after whole year I watched the kids playing on the playground. When his children Dima, Pasha and Vanya were little, he and his wife first tied them up backstage during the performance. But none of his sons liked it. And then Polunin decided: let them crawl around the stage! And the children became part of the performance. Spectators were delighted when the little people chased balloons, climbed into the arms of adult clowns or... fell asleep.

For his only adored granddaughter, Polunin created a magical room in his four-story workshop near Paris. There are two doors leading here: one large, for adults, the second is small, it is embedded in the large one, but opens with its own key. The clown brings toys from all over the planet to this room. You can play here for hours!

He turned an old mill into a workshop several years ago. There is also a “Nostalgia” room here. Old photographs hang on the walls. And everything - every cup, every door handle - is covered in lace that Elena knitted. And the toilet in the workshop is a travel room. Suitcases are painted on the walls, maps hang on which arrows mark the countries where the Polunin family visited. When you open the toilet door, a locomotive whistle sounds.

Before the age of 50, Polunin managed to travel all over the world. Then he told his wife that it was time to settle down and choose the city in which they wanted to live. But it didn't work out for them. They have an apartment in St. Petersburg, a theater center in Moscow, an official office in London, and an apartment in New York. And in France - a workshop and... Mia.

I have never seen her cry, she laughs all the time. She thinks that all people live like this in the world,” says Vyacheslav. - In this Mia is my teacher.

Grandfather and granddaughter often walk alone. And now they are walking through the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, and he says:

Do you know that I only sleep on a magic pillow? It has a handle, like a suitcase, and when I fall asleep, I always hold onto it tightly. What if I dream that I am flying? And then I definitely won’t fall or hit myself!

Mia laughs:

Grandfather, will you give me such a pillow?

He answers:

Of course, I have four of these!..

Photo: Gennady Usoev, ITAR TASS, RIA Novosti

Vyacheslav Polunin

Zodiac sign: Twins

Family: wife - Elena, actress; children - Dmitry (29 years old), technical director of the Polunin Theater, Pavel (28 years old), musician, Ivan (23 years old), artist of the Polunin Theater; granddaughter - Mia (5 years old)

Education: Graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Culture. Krupskaya, variety department of GITIS

Career: in 1968 he organized the “Litsedei” mime theater. In 1991 he became an artist with the Canadian Cirque du Soleil. In 1993 he assembled a new troupe. Organizer of the "Mime Parade" (1982), the All-Union Festival of Street Theaters (1987), the First All-Union Festival "Congress of Fools" (1988), the European festival of street theaters "Caravan of Peace" (1989). Staged 30 show performances: “Dreamers” (1969), “Loons” (1982), “Diablo” (1999), “SNOW Show” (2000), “Castles in the Air” (2007), etc. Starred in the films: “ Only in the music hall" (1980), "Unprecedented" (1983), "How to become a star" (1986), "Hello, fools!" (1996) and others.

National artist Russia. For the show “Living Rainbow”, Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain awarded him the title “Honorary Resident of London”

Vecheslav Polunin Career: Clown
Birth: Russia, 12.6.1950
The Western press called the Russian clown Vyacheslav Polunin “the best clown in the world”, “the best clown of the era”, he received different countries the most prestigious theater awards, including the Edinburgh Golden Angel, the Spanish Golden Nose, and the Laurence Olivier Award. In his homeland, Russia, in 2000 he was awarded the Triumph Prize.

Born June 12, 1950. Father - Polunin Ivan Pavlovich. Mother - Polunina Maria Nikolaevna, trade employee. Wife - Elena Dmitrievna Ushakova, actress, works together with her husband. Children: Ushakov Dmitry; Polunin Pavel, studies at music school in St. Petersburg; Polunin Ivan, plays on stage with his parents.

They speak of him as a genius, his performances are called classics, and he has passionate fans all over the world. All this now, when he turned fifty.

It all started in childhood, in the small town of Novosil, in the Oryol region. During lessons, he thought about his own things and rarely listened to teachers. He has retained this to this day: he always thinks about his own things, although over the years he has learned to pay attention. Especially - auditorium. He hears everyone’s breathing in it, because his performance changes depending on this breathing.

The intermittent, excited breathing of the audience can provoke the most unexpected unplanned outburst. And then he can go straight to the viewer. Or, like a bolt from the blue, an incredible, huge break will hang over the hall. It is permissible to write treatises about Polunin’s pauses, because all his wisdom is in them. In a pause, he - the mime - can say everything that is not allowed to be expressed either in words or in actions.

He was often kicked out of school lessons for being inattentive and constantly making the whole class laugh with his hilarious antics. In the 2nd or 3rd grade, he saw the movie “Baby” with Chaplin for the first time. But my mother did not let me watch it to the end: the movie was on television late in the evening, and she turned off the TV. He cried until the morning. And after a few months he was already walking around school in huge shoes, with a cane, and a Chaplin-like gait. And then he began to fantasize all sorts of things and manifest them. First in the yard of friends, then at regional competitions. Despite the fact that he spent some of his lessons in the schoolyard, he graduated from school and went to Leningrad with the secret hope of entering the stage institute.

Maria Nikolaevna was not delighted with this choice; she wanted her son to become an engineer. It was not possible to enter the stage institute, in his own words, because of “some sounds that he could not pronounce.” I had to train as an engineer.

But an engineering career did not materialize. Vyacheslav dropped out of college and entered the Leningrad Institute of Culture, where he later began teaching. His Leningrad period of time was marked by the creation in 1968 of the first group with beautiful name"Actors" and independent studies the then new art of pantomime.

The passion for pantomime did not arise easily as a tribute to fashion. Her smooth movements replaced the often very definite, and due to the fact that at that time almost meaningless word. When everything and everyone was subject to censorship, when every word had to be suppressed, pantomime remained free. All this, including failure in the entrance exams to the stage institute, provoked Vyacheslav Polunin’s interest in the silent art of mimes.

The then “Actors”, led by Polunin, worked happily in the field of eccentric comic pantomime. They were invited to big concerts and, moreover, on TV. All free time Vyacheslav spent time in libraries, where he was seriously engaged in self-education. He still spends every free minute with a book. A trip to the book market is a single ritual.

Among these books there are a huge number of art albums, because painting, sculpture, architecture, design, graphics, caricature are the most important food for his imagination. And this invention gives birth to its own pictures on stage, which have nothing to do with imitation and repetition.

The turning point for Vyacheslav was New Year- 1981. He called the editorial office of New Year's Light and stated that he had an impeccably new issue. True, there was no number at this moment yet, but there was a premonition, a premonition. There was a guess that we needed a newly created character, unlike anyone else. This is how Asisyai was born - a mini, naive and timid man in a yellow jumpsuit with a red scarf and red shaggy slippers. He was born just when the Polunin miniatures received recognition, and their author himself received various prizes, covering the second place at the All-Union Variety Artists Competition. I was born because an irresistible need arose to break through to something new, unknown, unusual.

From that moment on, movement towards the unknown, sometimes seeming unreal, became the norm for him, the answer to many, sometimes terribly difficult situations in life and creativity.

In 1982, Polunin gathered approximately 800 pantomime artists from all over the country in Leningrad for the now legendary Mime Parade. In 1985, at the festival of youth and students, within the framework of which a pantomime and clownery workshop was organized, he brought clowns to Moscow from the then inaccessible West, among whom were the titled “King of Fools” Django Edwards from Holland and the shockingly respectable and caustic - Franz Josef Bogner from Germany.

V. Polunin became the organizer of the All-Union Festival of Street Theaters in Leningrad (1987). More than 200 of its participants, including children and critics, were marooned on an uninhabited island in the Gulf of Finland. From this island, boat trips were organized to different parts of Leningrad and the region, during which actors of plastic and clown theaters mastered the difficult art of street comedians.

In 1988, “Litsedei”, which created five performances during its existence - “Dreamers”, “Loons”, “From the Life of Insects”, “Asisyay-Revue” and “Catastrophe” - celebrated the 20th anniversary of their theater own funeral, believing Stanislavsky, the one who said that the theater was dying after 20 years of its existence. On the occasion of the funeral, the initial All-Union “Congress of Fools” was convened, during which it was discussed in detail whether the considerable reformer of the scene was right. The funeral took place in its entirety: first, speeches at the coffin, or rather, coffins; then a funeral procession through the streets and, in the end, a festive rafting of burning coffins along the Neva.

In 1989, a wonder happened, whose name was “Caravan of Peace” - european festival street theaters. It was a unique scenic town on wheels, one that plied the roads of Europe for six months. Polunin's efforts made it possible to implement this project, which had no equal either before or since...

Then the “Academy of Fools” was created, which began a grandiose plan to revive carnival culture in Russia, the traditions of which, it turns out, were preserved in Polunin’s homeland. Vyacheslav spent the first period of the project at his own expense. For the second period there was no more money, and then he left Russia to tour the world. These tours have been going on for more than seven years.

Today Polunin lives in London, where he rents a huge house. But his core home is in the car, in which not only his family and his friends and colleagues travel around the world, but also a library and a video library that a thorough collector might envy. His books and films live in the same trailer-car, the scenery and props are based, and the workshop is equipped. You always have with you a small TV with a VCR, a fully equipped office, one that can be deployed anywhere.

The Western press called the Russian clown Vyacheslav Polunin “the best clown in the world”, “the best clown of the era”, he received the most prestigious theater awards in different countries, including the Edinburgh Golden Angel, the Spanish Golden Nose, and the Laurence Olivier Award. In his homeland, Russia, in 2000 he was awarded the Triumph Prize.

V. Polunin has many new ideas and plans in his head. This includes working together with I. Shemyakin on the play “Diabolo”, and the hope of creating, with the support of the capital’s mayor’s office, the International Theater Olympiad in 2002 in Moscow. “We’ll invite folk, street, square theatres, mimes, circus performers, jugglers,” Polunin dreams, “and we’ll do something like this. Let’s say, we’ll slaughter and roast on a spit over a huge fire... a bus, an auto unit - this is a monster of the 20th century. I I love that there is a crazy, reckless existence, endless improvisations..."

IN Lately Vyacheslav Polunin traveled frequently from London to Moscow. The fact is that Vyacheslav Ivanovich’s long-standing dream of creating his own cultural center under the auspices of the "Academy of Fools" is close to implementation. The Moscow leadership decided to allocate funds for this. Apparently, the time is not far off when young talents will be able to learn the wisdom of clownery special system Polunina. Of course, the beloved Asisyay and other famous clowns will constantly perform here.

Polunin is working extremely hard and cannot catch his breath. But he can exist in pleasure - both on stage and outside of it. He can be tough, calculating, invulnerable, but only because in essence he, like any natural artist, is vulnerable, not very adaptable, and timid. He is a gentleman creating a celebration.

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The artist Slava Polunin, according to his parents' plans, was supposed to grow up to be an engineer, however, without lasting even a year at the institute, he began to master the art of pantomime - a couple of years later, his alter ego, the clown Asisyai, became perhaps the most famous mime and clown in Russia. Polunin took the art of pantomime and clownery extremely seriously: in 1968 he created the Litsedei clown theater, in 1982 he assembled the Mime Parade of more than 800 artists, and a few years later he brought the main mimes and clowns to the USSR Western world, and then organized the All-Union Festival of Street Theaters, gathering more than 200 artists on a desert island near Leningrad. At the zenith of his fame, he was not afraid to bury the “Litsedeev” on a grand scale - literally putting coffins on stage - and switched from pantomime to clownery. During his life he staged more than 30 performances, including the Snow Show, which was staged around the world with phenomenal success. He likes to get involved in seemingly unrealistic projects and dreams of not missing a single holiday.

Nickname

The city where I live

planet Earth

Birthday

Where he was born

Oryol Region

Who was born to

at Ivan and Marya's

Where and what did you study?

love of nature - in the forest;

clowning - among animals, drunkards, crazy people, children, and also in the theater library;

perseverance - from my mother;

analysis - at the economic institute;

success comes from the mistakes of others;

patience - from time;

fun creativity with friends - in a theater studio;

something about everything - at the Institute of Culture;

scope, passion and sadness - in Russia;

to be happy today and now is in India;

the art of living - in France;

live excitedly - with my granddaughter

Where and how did you work?

started with a scrap on asphalt concrete, and then always on stage and always with pleasure

Academic degrees and titles

official ambassador Andersen in Russia,

President of the Academy of Fools

What did you do?

created five theaters, staged 30 performances, traveled to 48 countries, appeared on stage 7,000 times to see 1,000 happy people every evening

Achievements

became joyful and happy

Public affairs

I consider theater a social activity

Public acceptance

Important events life

First created and invented

clown Asisyaya;

clownery theater in Russia;

"Any-Byaki" - new system training;

Blizzard and many other theatrical images;

Academy of Fools;

moving street theater festival “Caravan of Peace”;

I am developing the concept “Modern carnival, or Theatricalization of life”

Displayed on clean water

ship of fools

Successful projects

I consider all projects successful, even if they failed or have not yet taken place

Known for…

famous

I'm interested

with a bunch of friends and family, get involved in an unrealistic project, carry it out, swear that you will never do it again... then all together in the forest, on the lawn with beer and crayfish, think about the next, even more unrealistic one

Well, I don't like it

boiled onions and gray life

Dream

achieve everything, go everywhere, try everything and not miss a single holiday

And generally speaking…

I am a happy man. I have been lucky and have been lucky all my life. I was lucky that I was born on this planet, at this time, in this country, among these stupid and wise, quiet and passionate people.

I adore working until exhaustion, walking until I’m tired, looking until my eyes hurt, absorbing the endless kilometers of fields, forests, and mountains flying towards you. Dive into nature and get lost in it, enjoy the inexplicable and reckless riot of its imagination.

I tremble with pleasure when I see the amazing and unreal animals of Australia - all these platypuses and anteaters, kangaroos and koalas, who, like real clowns, all have a huge pocket and put their future there. And these riotous colors of everything around... And the incredible turquoise of a butterfly the size of two of your palms...

I envy and absorb tons of the energy of joy of life that meetings with Colombia, Cuba, Spain, Italy, Ireland give...

It delights and calms me enormous strength balance and tranquility of Siberians, Canadians and Australians.

A female beauty and the meekness of Tahitian women, whose faces do not leave Gioconda’s mysterious

Childhood

At the age of 3, at the encouragement of his parents, he joined the local gymnastics section. sports school. Three years later it became clear that in addition to excellent physical data, the boy was endowed with absolute musical ear and unique plastic. It was decided to transfer him to a choreographic school, where in a matter of months he became the best student.

The parents saw that their child had every chance of becoming an outstanding dancer, so they sent eight-year-old Seryozha to Kyiv choreographic school. His mother left with him, and his father was forced to work at a construction site in Portugal to provide his wife and son with everything they needed.

Ballet took up almost all the boy’s time and energy, so he never learned to get along with his peers. However, isolation and a certain detachment always helped him better convey the feelings of romantics and loners.

First steps to glory

Ballet is for the soul. Something good happens inside a person when he sees a dance.

And perhaps the most scandalous. His shocking behavior was discussed no less than his outstanding abilities. Sergei decorated his body with numerous tattoos, periodically drank himself into unconsciousness, and indulged in cocaine, for which he earned the nickname “enfant terrible of Russian ballet.” Although at the beginning of 2017 he admitted to journalists that he no longer drinks or uses illegal drugs, and every morning begins with hard work at the ballet barre.

Further career

Sergei Polunin starred in the video “Take Me to Church” by Hozier

In 2014, Sergei starred in the video “Take Me to Church” by the Irish artist Hozier. This track created a sensation in musical world, received tens of millions of views on YouTube and won a lot of prestigious awards. Filming in Hawaii made an indelible impression on the exalted young man, and he decided to gradually move away from ballet and switch to cinema.

Trailer for the film “Dancer” about Sergei Polunin

In 2016, the film “Dancer” was released on world screens, telling the story of the amazing success of Sergei Polunin, difficult path to fame and world fame and mental anguish tearing apart his contradictory nature.

Personal life of Sergei Polunin

Then Polunin repeatedly appeared in the company of the young ballerina Yulia Stolyarchuk, and after a while fans noticed the “Natasha” tattoo on his arm. Sergei dedicated it to the ballerina Natalya Osipova, whom he met at the La Scala Theater during a rehearsal of “Giselle.” Soon their relationship grew from a partnership into a love affair, and the artists stopped hiding their romance.

Sergei Polunin now

Polunin in this film appeared in the image of Count Andreni. The main difficulty, the artist noted, was gaining confidence - at first he could not believe where and in the company of what people he was. However, the young man managed not to lose control of his emotions and did an excellent job with his task, not without the help of director Kenneth Branagh.

At the same time, Sergei was filming the spy thriller Red Sparrow with Jennifer Lawrence, which will be released in the spring of 2018.

Evening Urgant. Visiting Ivan Sergei Polunin

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12/06/2010

Actor, director, clown, People's Artist of Russia Vyacheslav Ivanovich Polunin born on June 12, 1950 in the town of Novosil, Oryol region, into a family of trade workers.

While still at school, he was passionate about clownery, but did not receive a professional circus education. After school, Vyacheslav worked at a factory, then entered the Faculty of Economics of Leningrad state university. From the third year he went to the Leningrad Institute of Culture, where he simultaneously taught the art of pantomime.

In 1968 at the Palace of Culture. Lensovet Polunin created a pantomime studio, from which the Clown Mime Theater "Litsedei" eventually grew. By the beginning of 1971, the core of the future theater was formed. In 1974, the first performance was released, in 1975 - the play "Litsedey". Since 1981, the theater has operated on the stage of the Youth Palace in Leningrad. During its existence, the following performances were created: “Dreamers”, “Loons”, “From the Life of Insects”, “Asisyay-Review”, “Catastrophe”, the musical miniature “Blue-Blue-Blue-Canary”, 15 programs were released.

Among the programs created by Polunin: “Carnival”, “Baden-Baden”, “Night on Bald Mountain”, “Dreamers”, “Catastrophe”, “Diabolo”, “Snow Action”.

A milestone year for Polunin was 1981, when on the television “New Year’s Light” he performed a new number “Asisyai”, portraying a small, naive and timid man in a yellow overalls with a red scarf and red shaggy slippers. His business card became the number “No”.

In 1982, Polunin gathered about 800 pantomime artists from all over the country for the “Mime Parade” in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), and in 1985 he organized a Pantomime and Clowning Workshop in Moscow, dedicated to the XII International festival youth and students, the opening of which, at the invitation of Polunin, was attended by the most famous clowns in the world, including Django Edwards from Holland and Franz Josef Bogner from Germany.

In 1987, Vyacheslav Polunin organized the All-Union Festival of Street Theaters in Leningrad, which brought together over two hundred actors from plastic and clown theaters.

In 1988, having celebrated its twentieth anniversary with its own funeral, on the occasion of which the first All-Union “Congress of Fools” was convened, the Litsedei theater ceased to exist.

In 1989, on Polunin’s initiative, a unique project “Caravan of Peace” was launched - a theater on wheels, which ran for six months circus performances in European cities.

In 1990, a united theater was created European countries"Wall".

Polunin founded the "Academy of Fools", which began a grandiose project to revive carnival culture in Russia. In 1993, he organized the first festival of women clowns in the world with the typically Russian name “Fool Women”.

In 1993, he left Russia to join Cirque Du Soleil in Canada. Since 1994 he has lived in England, where he works at the Hackney Theater in London, although, by his own admission, in English does not know. He leads the life of a traveling clown, has visited countries that have a very deep cultural tradition associated with clowning, comedy, fairgrounds, folk theater. Communication with the whole world enriched Polunin’s work.

Vyacheslav Polunin also acted in films, including without clown makeup: “Only in the Musical” (1980), “The Never-Never” (1983), “And Then Bumbo Came” (1984), “Four Clowns under One Roof” (1985 ), “How to become a “star” (1986), “Kill the Dragon” (1988), in Eldar Ryazanov’s lyrical comedy “Hello, Fools” (1996), “Hoffmaniad” (2009).

In 2001, he organized a clownery festival in Russia as part of the Third Theater Olympiad - “Ship of Fools”.

In 2003, Vyacheslav Polunin brought his play “Snow Show” to Moscow, which attracts full houses in any city and on any continent.

In January 2010 in Children's musical theater them. Natalia Sats took place anniversary performance"Snow Show"

Vyacheslav Polunin - People's Artist of Russia (2001), winner of the second prize at the All-Union Competition of Variety Artists (1979); laureate of the Lenin Komsomol Prize (1987), laureate theater awards: Edinburgh "Golden Angel" (1997), Spanish "Golden Nose", Laurence Olivier Award, national independent award "Triumph" (2000), laureate of the Tsarskoye Selo Art Prize (2000), laureate of the K.S. Stanislavsky Prize and many other most high theater awards.

For his show “Living Rainbow”, Vyacheslav Polunin was awarded the title “Honorary Resident of London” by the Queen of Great Britain.

Polunin lives in London, where he films big house. But his main home is in the car, in which not only his family and his friends and colleagues travel around the world, but also a library and a video library that a serious collector could envy.

Vyacheslav Polunin is married and has three sons.

In 2010, the Paulsen publishing house released a photo album in Moscow famous photographer Vladimir Mishukov "Full Moon", dedicated to Vyacheslav Polunin.