Choral exercise for four actresses "Hamletmachine: Assembly Instructions"

June 6 and 20 7:00 PM

Four actresses interact as parts of a single mechanism, exploring the fragmentary nature of Heiner Müller's text. The text becomes an "instruction" that first unites, then destroys their interaction. The exercise focuses on voice, movement, and collective plasticity, revealing the conflict between personal identity and collective machine dynamics.

Heiner Müller's play Hamletmachine fits perfectly into the context of an exhibition analyzing the decomposition of language, identity, and time. The works of Edward Kienholz, which inspired the exhibition, reflect fragmentation and dehumanization, where the body becomes an object of violence and social critique. Just as Kienholz used found objects to create artistic commentary, Müller's text becomes a "found instruction" for the deconstruction of a classical narrative.

The choral exercise conveys several motifs of the exhibition:

The body as object and instrument: The actresses, embodying mechanisms, transform their own bodies into symbols of decay and reconstruction.
Dehumanization: The phrase "I want to be a machine..." becomes a central image, symbolizing the rejection of the human in favor of the functional.
Fragmentation of time: The structure of the action reproduces frozen moments that assemble into a single, yet non-functioning, mechanism.
Political and personal violence: The text and the actresses' movements demonstrate internal and external conflicts, emphasizing the loss of hope and humanism.

The choral exercise invites viewers not only to observe the process of "assembling" the text but also to experience it as an act of interaction with history, body, and time.

Serafima Tomoshevskaya is a theater and film director, screenwriter, and researcher of stage movement, nominee and laureate of theater festivals. She has experience collaborating with leading museums and cultural institutions. Her works explore cultural-communication systems, biomechanics, and plasticity.

Actresses: Sasha Rangult, Veronika Dzova, Marina Galamdinova, Irina Sherstennikova

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Public Program for the Exhibition “Bad Script”

The public educational program combines theoretical reflection, collective practices, and performative readings to reveal the main paradox of the exhibition: how art interacts with literary myths while remaining their hostage. Through lectures, a reading group, art mediations, and curatorial tours, participants will explore the disintegration of language, the power of clichés, and the birth of new forms on the ruins of old narratives. The program won't provide answers but will raise questions together with the viewer: if everything around us is text, then who is the author? And is it possible to break free from the script when even rebellion becomes a quotation? One of the program's culminating points will be a performative reading of Alexander Tsikarishvili's play "A Cataract of Prejudice" performed by Pyotr Skvortsov (actor at the Praktika Theater, Inside Theater, Meyerhold Center, musician) with sound accompaniment (Alexander Tsikarishvili).

May 15 – June 29

Pyotr Skvortsov Reads the Play "A Cataract of Prejudice"

Imagine Leningrad, where cracks in the asphalt lead to parallel worlds, and factory horns blend with the blues riffs of Robert Johnson, who sold his soul for a guitar solo. This is the world of Gena — a young dreamer in a Gautier jacket, whose life crumbles like an old portrait of Lenin in the Petrogradskaya metro station. After a quarrel with Natasha, he flees through the labyrinthine city: past the drunks by the poplars and the "electric spiders" of streetlights — until he finds himself in the canteen of the "Danger Signal" factory. Here, among sticky oilcloths and the fumes of papirosy, a meeting awaits him with Meph. Meph, balancing between the roles of devil and jester, offers Gena a deal. Absurdity here is the language spoken by walls layered with time, a stray poodle asking a mute question, and even a glass of water turning into Georgian chacha.

May 23
7:00 PM