Ballet based on “The Overcoat”, the story by N.V. Gogol.

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The play contains the elements of physical theatre, modern choreography and clowning, as well as singing, biomechanics and Suprematist design. “The Ballet” is just an indication of the way of thinking and development of the image going through movement and dance.

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“The structure of the play is a sequence of episodes or scenes, although the director and the composer declared it to be threefold (in keeping with Gogol’s story)”. This sequence goes along with the clowning cut-off intermissions performed by Sergey Azeev and Ilya Del. This anecdotic pair, Gogol and Pushkin, are in a sense two wacky thugs in sportswear and inappropriate hats, are doing silly things and amusing the public as if in a marketplace theatre, on the edge of vulgarity. Here you can see Gogol breaking an egg against Pushkin’s forehead and viciously eating it all out, and Pushkin chewing Gogol’s sausage, and them both drinking Coca-Cola and burping thereafter. Kind of widely visualized quibbles. Partly it is a game against conveyor-type school education that makes classic authors look like a joke or like stone idols. On the other hand, it is an analysis of the consciousness that hosts these clichés.”

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“Kushnir’s music is really one of the actors in this piece. It is the voice ironic and sympathetic, humane and theatrical; it is the voice, that does not expose itself, but it is not faceless, to put it simply, it is a talented voice. It seems that it is music that represents the protagonist of the play that managed to find his own, a very correct way.” (St. Petersburg Theatrical Journal, Anna Barkova, November 2013). OVERCOAT. BALLET.

This is the tragedy of a little man, and it is an image of heartless bureaucratic machine, and discrimination, and gender equality. It is clowning. Two clowns, Pushkin and Gogol, are choking on their own tears, so invisible to the world.