The Black Man show program.
Performed once at the show tournament "Russian Challenge".
Choreographer: Betina Popova.
Music: melodeclamation by Sergei Bezrukov, excerpts from Sergei Esenin's poem "Black Man".
Image: demonic alter ego of a suffering man.
It was a real tough task, and he pulled it off, I insist on that. Folks, if you have a little idea of what Russian poetry of the early 20th century is, how complex a phenomenon it is, you can put a lifetime monument on ice for one attempt to realize, penetrate and interpret it.
This time Andrei had been looking for ideas for a showcase number for the contest for a long time, and his fan club suggested him to put a number to this song. Betina Popova liked this idea. A hurried staging of the number in a few days began.
At the general run-through both the number and the props (huge mirrors) were criticized, and Andrei was almost excluded from the number of participants. In order to save the situation, the team had to urgently buy an ordinary mirror in a hypermarket and urgently redo the whole number. They spent most of the night on the ice and left around 1 a.m. And it was this hastily prepared number that we saw on the show.
If I didn't know the backstory, I would say that Andrei's performance was very cool. And knowing the back story, I admire him even more. I was present at the stadium and waited for this number, roughly knowing its content - and I was blown away by it. No one has ever performed so professionally, beautifully and thrillingly before him, he literally crushed his opponents with his powerful and beautiful skating.
In this program Andrei begins to reveal himself as an actor in a new way. He perfectly creates an image, keeps in tension, playing the suffering and tormented protagonist, then sticky and dangerous (and in this case not even attractive) ironic evil alter ego, the inner voice humiliating the hero. The emotion of anger was played worse, Andrei is too calm and restrained for that, but this emotion of realization, when the hero realizes that all this time he was fighting with himself - one of the most amazing moments of his acting career, if you can call it that.
Though no. That sardonic and ironic chuckle at the words "appearing smiling and simple is the highest art in the world" is the peak of his acting career so far. What a shame no one was able to capture it in a photo! Ok, take that creepy face.
At that moment I realized that the Black Man had displaced the Mouse King in my ranking, because I never thought that Mozalev could be so frightening.
Of course, I find it totally insulting and unprofessional that the jury did not recognize this number with any of the prizes. But unfortunately, I can't include it in the top three either. After all, it was a hastily staged number, which, unfortunately for me, we will not see again. But I won't forget it, I promise! This program is forever in my heart.
Let's consider that according to the American custom I awarded this number with an additional medal, as they award the player who took the 4th place in the competition.
Well, it seems that we have finished the show programs, it's time to move on to the competition programs. As you can easily guess, there are three of them and they took all three places on the podium. You want the details? Come back tomorrow, I will tell you everything and introduce you to the bronze medalist.
