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AkhePlaying with knives with St. Petersburg's 'Engineering Theatre' group
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Summer 1999 One or another man, both of whom immediately inspire respect with their tall stature and full beards, cut to a point reaching to their chests, frequently dart across the lawn at the Plasy monastery. Maxim and Pavel, from the Akhe performance group, were among others who participated with Miloše Vojtěchovsky's artists-in-residence program. Throughout their stay at Plasy, artists and residents from the United States and other English-speaking countries would meet in the monastery's large kitchen to pursue idyllic conversations on eternal themes such as art, their own art, the art of others, and the life of artists in general between cooking and eating. Pavel and Maxim stuff themselves with slices of bread and bacon and pass a hatchet and a hammer across the table to each other. They grasp the tools and balance their shafts knowledgeably. "ДА." Curtly and efficiently, they carry on a conversation in Russian as they continue their preparations for the performance. I don’t know Russian, but as a Slavic person, I can empathize and guess what they are talking about. In the same way that one can guess Slavonic meanings of the Russian theatre group, Děrevo, it's possible to guess the meaning of the simple and clear sentences of Akhe. Both Akhe and Děrevo theatre come from the same city, St. Petersburg, and during the Velvet Revolution, from 1989 to 1990, that generation celebrated its 30th birthday and its first great international successes. Even though the Děrevo and Akhe come from the same cultural environment and are very close to each other, it is immediately evident from any Akhe performance that Maxim Isaev and Pavel Semchenko are artists. And they don’t play in their performances, aren’t emotionally immersed in the plot, and don’t even feign emotion but their distinct personal presence on the stage realizes their scenic plans. A week later A performance of the Akhe group in the monastery grounds, in a small granary tower. The performance features about 20 participants. As it stands out in memory, Maxim lay in a coffin, suspended among lines. Pavel opens the performance by setting fire to the first line, allowing a suspended hammer to fall. It swings sketching a broad arc in the air and calculatedly slams with its entire mass upon a book fixed to a wall. The book opens, Pavel approaches it and rips out a page. He folds it up into a small square, stuffs it into his mouth, chews on it for a while and then swallows it. Then Pavel, by severing and igniting lines, begins to move the suspended coffin containing Maxim. As it gradually loosens, it falls changing its angle each time. Pavel, one by one, very rapidly, slashes or burns the other lines holding the coffin. As the coffin falls, it inclines variously, shifting position and rolling about in the air, as if influenced by Maxim’s weight, until in the end the coffin flips bottom up and Maxim tumbles from it onto the ground of the improvised stage space, right in front of the audience. |
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Article added on Wed 9th Jun, 2004 [last updated Wed 9th Jun, 2004]Share this page 
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