FUTURE THEATRE FESTIVAL 22 – 29 February, Moscow Future Theatre Festival:

• a discussion about the achievements and prospects of theatre in Russia as a modern, technologically advanced and highly competitive player in the global theatre industry

• what will be valued in future theatre: live acting or newest technologies? what will the dialogue between artists and audience be like? what changes will theatre spaces and its economy undergo? What kind of theatre do we need in future?

LECTURES WORKS-IN- PLAYWRITING DISCUSSIONS PROGRESS COMPETITION STAGED READINGS

TECHNOLOGIES LABORATORY PERFORMANCES Artistic Director Eduard Boyakov

Eduard Boyakov, director and producer, is now Artistic director of Moscow Gorky Art Academic Theatre (MHAT). He has created numerous theatre festivals in Russia, including the Golden Mask – the main Russian performing arts festival and national award. Eduard has produced and directed more than 50 performances for Bolshoi Theatre (Moscow), Mariinsky Theatre (Saint Petersburg) and others. He took part in co- productions with Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center, Barbican, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Holland Festival etc. February, 22

12:00-12:15 Opening Teaser Technological Showcase. Technologies in performances 12:15-13:30 Lecture Mediapoetry. The Letter in Digital Times 13:30-15:00 Discussion Text Machines 15:00-18:00 Opening conference The Future of Theatre 18:00, 20:30 Immersive Performance The Queen of Spades 19:00-21:00 Immersive Performance The Revenants 20:00-22:00 Opening ceremony. Multimedia Music and Poetry Concert I Will Lead You Away From the Past 22:00-23:00 Welcome Reception

Festival Program on February, 22-26. All the details about the theatres, speakers and performances below February, 23

15:00-16:15 Discussion Social Theatre and the Audience of the Future 16:30-18:00 Lecture Homo Videns 14:00-21:00 VR performance Forgotten Kiss 19:00-20:00 Discussion The Art of Media. Synergy of Technologies and Visual Means in Making Theatre 19:00-21:00 Immersive Performance The Revenants 21:00-23:00 Multimedia Concert Volga. Moscow Solstice

Festival Program on February, 22-26. All the details about the theatres, speakers and performances below Festival Program on February, 22-26. All the details about the February, 24 theatres, speakers and performances below 12:00-13:15 Discussion Street Theatre 13:30-15:00 Discussion Music and Neurophysiology: How Does it Work? 14:00-21:00 VR performance Forgotten Kiss 15:00, 16:30 Staged Readings TBD TBD Lecture Immersive VR Art Projects. Live Actors in VR 19:00-21:00 Performance Three Masks of the King

February, 25 14:00-21:00 VR performance Forgotten Kiss 19:00-20:00 Discussion The Art of Media. Interactive Technologies 20:00-21:30 Staged Reading TBD TBD Installation Show: Sculptures Coming Alive. Us 19:00-21:00 Performance Juvenile Sea 19:30-21:00 Discussion Theatre Spaces: Site Specific and Immersive Performances Festival Program on February, 22-26. All the details about the February, 26 theatres, speakers and performances below

18:00 Lecture Dehumanization of Theatre: Consent or uprisal? 19:00-21:30 Performance Berthrand’s Toys 19:00-21:30 Performance Small Tragedies 19:00-20:30 Staged Reading TBD Lecture and workshop Mediapoetry. The letter in digital times by Daria Petrova – mediapoet, artist, Mediapoetry 101 Festival cofounder and curator Lecture. A look into digital genres of mediapoetry. Literature in the Internet: sites, social media, poetry in Instagram, online-performances, text machines, geolocation narratives, video games, books as AR, spam-bots as literary characters. New digital genres. Workshop. Creating a media poem on Instagram. Discussion Text machines Code poetry: code as a means of artistic expression. Can software developers be poets and vice versa? The survey of experiments with text machines. Lecture Immersive VR Art Projects. Live Actors in VR A look into VR&AR solutions. 3D VR scenes & 3D360 video. Dramaturgy in 3D360 video. Interactive scenarios. Live actors in VR: filming, stage direction. Interactivity in VR: developing scenes in real time, amplification of audience immersion and participation effect. Lectures, discussions Discussion Theatre and contemporary art A discussion about cooperation between theatre and contemporary art and the influence of the contemporary art on the theatre: performing arts, new art practices, immersive theatre. New functions of the actor and the spectator.

Discussion Street theatre The history of street theatre, its main social functions, implementation of new technologies in street performances. Guests – directors, actors and curators of different Russian street theatres

Discussion Music and neurophysiology: How does it work? What happens in our head when digital art breaks into familiar audio- and visual content: what is our brain reaction to innovations?

Lectures, discussions Lecture Homo Videns by Evgeniy Fateev – a major Russian street art researcher, StreetArt Agency director, street art festival ”Stenograffia” organiser FAQ: how to read visual information? How not to be tricked by images and animated images? Discussion The Art of Media From academic drawing to digital art. Modern trends in multimedia stage design. VR and AR. Audio descriptions.

Discussion Social Theatre and the Audience of the Future Documentary and non-acting performances. Does the theatre of future need an actor? New theatre formats – an upmarket story or an attempt to popularize theatre? What is independent theatre in Russia and how do theatre laboratories go into researching the cooperation of technologies and human sciences? What are media technologies for the theatre? Lectures, discussions Lecture Dehumanization of Theatre: Consent or Uprisal? by Alexander Dugin – Russian philosopher and social scientist

The history of theatre from antiquity to postmodernity. Object-oriented ontology: theatre and black psychology. The future of desacralization and conservative revolution: reflections on the theatre of the future.

Discussion Theatre Spaces: Site Specific and Immersive Performances Homo ludens in the theatre space. What is immersive or site specific theatre? Immersive shows VS live role-playing: cybertext and dramaturgy, technical equipment, spectator’s experiences, performative involvement. Is theatre space only a constructive element or does it have its own role? Can methodology of game studies be used in analysing immersive performances? Guests: authors of immersive shows and video games researchers. Lectures, discussions Performance Forgotten Kiss by TheaterVR/production centre Axiio (Helsinki) supported by Helsinki XR Center, Studio Pee, Mojö Söund Studiö. Director – Oleg Nikolaenko Russian and Finnish cooperated VR performance with ambient sound design based on a short novel by Russian classical author Alexander Kuprin. English version available.

Performances Immersive performance The Revenants by Viktor Carinha and Mia Zanette

Immersive show based on a play “Ghosts” by Henrik Ibsen. The action takes place in the ancient mansion in the center of Moscow at arm’s length from the audience. No stage, but four floors of an ancient mansion in the centre of Moscow. The audience puts on masks and becomes participants of the show. As a result of six months of secret rehearsals actors learned unique methods of interacting with the audience, and the house was filled with dozens of secret passages and doors.

Performances Immersive performance The Queen of Spades by Moscow Opera House. Director – Alexander Legchakov

Classical opera in the immersive format based on the short novel by Alexander Pushkin. The world filled with illusions of Piotr Chaikovsky and Alexander Pushkin. Each performance can be attended only by 54 spectators, which equals the number of cards in a pack. Instead of the stage you will move through the ancient mansion in the centre of Moscow, which was gambled away by one of Alexander Pushkin’s relatives long ago. The mansion will be filled with live music played by leading singers of Moscow theatres, a choir and an orchestra. During the show the audience is being followed by ballet dancers and Alexander Pushkin himself.

Performances Performance Three Masks of the King by Samara Academical Opera and Ballet Theatre. Choreographer – Yuri Smekalov Ballet performance about the human ability to wear different ”masks” in their lives, changing one by one, adapting to society, the status quo and the desire to be seen not as you are. A giant transforming mask at the back of the stage accompanied by live orchestra creates the universe of the ballet.

Performances Performance Juvenile Sea by Voronezh theatre studio ”Teatralnaya street, 17”. Director – Alexander Novikov

Performance played by children up to 18 years based on the terrifying short novel by Russian classical author Andrei Platonov. The story tells about the dream of building communism – dream and utopia of a great future which is never to come. Colorless submissive crowd and psychodelic movement which is to deliver the senselessness and hopelessness of life in the times of socialism. Discipline instead of intellect and fantasy, a will-less mechanism instead of a person. The performance reduces these concepts to absurdity so that you would not believe they could be real.

Performances Performance Berthrand’s Toys by Saint Petersburg theatre “blackSKYwhite”. Director – Dmitriy Ariupin The performances explores the borderline between reality and dreams. Sergeant Berthrand is the main character – the one who leads you through your dreams every night, pushing the thoughts into your mind.

Performances Performance Sculptures coming alive: Us by Saint Petersburg studio WowShow. Authors – Nikita and Ilya Somryakov The sculptures of the Russian Empire greatest cultural and political figures come alive thanks to technologies, their faces having being mapped. Nikolai Gogol, Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lomonosov, Peter the Great, Catherine I of Russia, Alexander Suvorov talk about important issues in the discourse of the great ancestors. The scenario of the show is based on original statements made by historical figures.

Performances Laboratory Workshops and lectures for professionals by directors, scenographers and actors.

Playwriting competition We have announced two competitions for the authors all around Russia: Historical Play and Russian Dream – in order to give young playwrights the possibility to find their way to the stage. Our readers will choose 4 best plays in each competition and directors will work with the authors and actors to produce the staged readings which will be shown during the Festival and afterwards may be taken into the theatre repertoire.

Multimedia Music and Poetry Concert Volga Band with its performance Moscow Solstice. Moscow world music ethno electronic group improvising and mixing the Russian song tradition with industrial, noise, techno and ambient. Venues Moscow Gorky Art Theatre Venues Red October Art Cluster Important Guests Opening panel Russian major fantasy and science fiction writer, the author of Night Watch, and Twilight Watch trilogy Grigoriy Zaslavskiy Russian theatre critic, head of Russian Academy of Theatre Arts – GITIS, member of Theatre Union of Russian Federation Committee Oleg Ivanov Russian scientist, expert, analyst of culture and cinema industry. One of the authors of the Strategy of State Cultural Policy. Associate professor at the Department of Design in Social Sciences Institute of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Strategic Solutions Lab expert. Head of the Centre for Culture Sphere Research at the Faculty of Philosophy at Lomonosov Moscow State University