Platonov Arts Festival

Platonov Arts Festival
Founders	Mikhail Bychkov
Headquarters	Russian Federation: Voronezh
Website	http://www.platonovfest.com

Platonov Arts Festival is an international arts festival, named after the Russian writer Andrey Platonov.^[1]

Platonov Festival is an annual cultural event, held in Voronezh at the beginning of June. For the past 4 editions (2011-2014) the festival has become the major cultural project in Voronezh region. Musicians, theatre companies, artists and writers from all over the world take part in this cultural event. The 4th festival edition (5–15 June 2014) included projects from 18 countries - UK, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Israel, India, Spain, Lithuania, Mali, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Haiti, Portugal, Poland, Slovakia, Belgium, Azerbaijan, Russia.

The Artistic Director of the Festival ^[2] is Mikhail Bychkov, also known as a theatre director and founder of the Voronezh Chamber Theatre (1994 – present).

Program

Platonov Festival presents works in fields of Classical Music, World Music, Theatre, Street Theatre, Exhibitions and Literature.

All festival events are divided into 3 programs:

Main program includes masterpieces with artistic values recognized at various festivals and by professional critics.
Actual art program is a platform to showcase creative experiments and search for new artistic means. The festival program is composed by the Expert Council.
Platonov program consists of works based on Platonov’s literary heritage, or devoted to the Platonov’s work.

Besides the traditional formats for the majority of arts festival (concerts, performances, art exhibitions, meetings with writers), there are special projects in the festival program:

Street theatres parade – one of the brightest festival projects, a pageantry. Russian and foreign theatre artists, acrobats, dancers, stilt-walkers, musicians and clowns take part in the procession along the main street of Voronezh city – Revolution Avenue (Prospekt Revolutsii).

Platonov Club – literature project of the festival, which unites scholars, writers, translators, philosophers from Russia and abroad. During round-tables and meetings of Platonov Club new books on Platonov issues are presented, club members discuss influence of Platonov’s ideas on contemporary art and philosophical process, analyze his heritage in the context of modern culture and discourse and raise other related issues.

During the festival Book Fair, which works 3 days in one of the city squares, a lot of independent publishing houses present and sell their books of different genres – modern prose and poetry, children's books, albums and art books, memoirs and biographies, intellectual literature and non-fiction books, originally illustrated conceptual publications and much more. Meeting with famous Russian writers, poets and literary critics are held within the Book Fair working days, children’s tent provides interactive games and workshops for the very young readers.

Open-air concerts in the castle park in Ramon – fashionable festival events, gathering more than 500 people in the yard of Castle of von Oldenburg family, also known as Princess Oldenburg Castle, historical neo-gothic manor estate of the 19th century that used to belong to the Russian branch of von Oldenburg house.

At the Festival Night, whose goal is to attract to Platonov Festival as many people as possible, all exhibitions are free till the very late hour, city venues host simultaneously several festival concerts, performances and special festival projects.

Public Readings gather lot of Platonov lovers at the open stage of Soviet square, among them there is not only the governor of Voronezh region, well-known politicians, scientists, businessmen, artists, actors, but also festival guests and citizens of Voronezh that apply for participation via internet. One by one they read pieces from Andrey Platonov writings. The whole marathon lasts several hours.

Free events segment includes various open-air concerts and shows of Russian and foreign companies, free workshops, lectures, open rehearsals and other educational events.

Participants of the festival

Within Classical Music part Mikhail Pletnev performed twice – first time as a conductor with his Russian National Orchestra (2013), second time with a recital (2014). For the 4 editions the festival hosted concerts of Yuri Bashmet and Symphony Orchestra of New Russia, Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica, Ensemble of Soloists of the Berlin Philharmonic, Chamber orchestra CHAARTS from Switzerland, The Studio for New Music ensemble, The Borodin Quartet and The Kopelman Quartet, famous soloists - Mischa Maisky, Boris Berezovsky, Julian Rachlin, Frederick Kempf, David Geringas, Viktor Tretyakov, Sergei Krylov, Alexander Knyazev, Vadim Repin, Daniil Trifonov, Sergei Nakariakov, Maria Meerovitch, Alina Ibragimova, José María Gallardo Del Rey and others.

World Music part, which was added to the music program of the festival in 2014, included concerts of Rokia Traore^[3] (Mali), Alim Qasimov (Azerbaijan), Huun-Huur-Tu (Tuva), Cristina Branco (Portugal), Mostar Sevdah Reunion (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Marlene Dorcena (Haiti), Dr. Lakshminarayana Subramaniam (India) and trio Loyko (Russia). Some of the artists had their first performance in Russia within Platonov Festival. Besides these main music lines one can enjoy popular bands of different genres within special festival projects like the Festival Night, pre-party or afterparty. For the past festival editions such bands as Morcheeba (UK), Gabin (Italy), Brainstorm (Latvia), Zdob și Zdub (Moldova), DakhaBrakha (Ukraine), Kakkmaddafakka (Norway), Alisa Apreleva (USA), Art Ceilidh (Russia), freak cabaret band Silver Wedding (Belarus) and AVIA (Russia) took part in these events. Quite a number of local groups performed at the festival open air venues.

In the Theatre Program, Platonov Festival hosted performances of Philippe Genty, Eimuntas Nekrošius, Alvis Hermanis, Mindaugas Karbauskis, Rezo Gabriadze,^[4] Lev Dodin, Rimas Tuminas, Sergey Zhenovach, Susanne Andrade, Victoria Thierrée-Chaplin, Yuriy Butusov, Anton Adasinskiy, Amit Lahav, Ivan Vyrypaev and others. Some foreign productions had their premieres in Russia at Platonov Festival – «Miranda» by Oskaras Koršunovas Theatre (Lithuania), «A Piece on Mother and the Fatherland» of the Polski Theatre from Wroclaw (Poland), cabaret-show «In the CROCODILE bar» directed by Ralph Reichel (Germany), «Happiness» Theatre on Pechersk (Ukraine), monoperformance «GO!» by Polina Borisova (France), «Untitled» by Slava Daubnerova (Slovakia).

The Art of Dance as part of Theatre Program at the past festival editions was presented by performances of such choreographers as Nacho Duato, Jiri Kylian, Jorma Elo, Ohad Naharin, Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak, Russel Maliphant, Josef Nadj.^[5] Productions «Daphnis and Chloe» and «The Rite of Spring» (The Grenoble National Choreographic Centre, France), «Oyster» (Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak Dance Company, Israel), Russell Maliphant’s «Still Current» was presented for the first time in Russia within Platonov Arts Festival.

The Street Theatre Program featured French performance «Duo for a dancer and excavator» ^[6] (Association Beau Geste), shows of PAVANA theatre from Netherlands and Tall Brothers from Moscow, production «Planet Lem» (Teatr Biuro Podróży, Poland) and the street theatres parade along the main city avenue.

The Literature Program featured Alexey Varlamov, Viktor Erofeev, Zakhar Prilepin, Yevgeni Grishkovetz, Dmirty Bykov, Pavel Basinskiy, Marina Moskvina, Vera Pavlova, Sergey Gandlevskiy, Lev Rubinstein, Vladimir Sharov, Evgeniy Vodolazkin, Denis Dragunsky, Grigory Kruzhkov and other writers, poets, critics and both Russian and foreign scholars.

The Visual Arts Program presented exhibitions from the collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery, Polytechnical Museum, Radishchev Art Museum in Saratov, The Kursk Deineka Picture Gallery, State Central Theatre Museum named after A.A. Bakhrushin, Museum «Moscow House of Photography / Multimedia Art Museum», private exhibitions of Alexander Deineka, David Borovsky, Irina Zatulovskaya, Yury Petkevich, Leonid Tishkov, Emil Kapelush, Lazar Gadaev; exhibitions of graphics, uniting the works of Platonov illustrators: Kirill Sokolov, Nik Popov, Alexander Antonov, Mikhail Verkholantsev, Svetlana Filippova, the big exhibition of Russian avant-garde that united pieces from 5 museums.

The Platonov Award in Literature and Art

The Platonov Award in Literature and Art,^[7] established by the Government of the Voronezh region, is annually conferred on Russian and foreign cultural figures for their significant contribution to cultural heritage of Russian Federation, for creation of outstanding works of literature, theatre, music, visual arts, and for innovative development of humanistic and cultural traditions. The amount of the Award is 500 thousand rubles.

Platonov Award laureates

Boris Ekimov (2011), Russian writer (born 1938)
Lev Dodin (2012), Russian theatre director, artistic director of The Maly Drama Theatre – Theatre of Europe (born 1944)
Mikhail Pletnev (2013), Russian pianist, artistic director and chief conductor of the Russian National Orchestra (born 1957)
Aleksandr Petrov (2014), Russian animator and animation director (born 1957)

References

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