Project “Up Above Moscow”, program Electronic Thursday

Moscow Department of Culture

Manege Association

“Silent Cinema / Live Music”:  Music by Alexei Borisov and Sergei Letov/ video Forward March, Soviet! (1926), directed by Dziga Vertov

One of the Electronic Thursdays at the Worker and Kolkoz Woman Center will be conducted in an unusual format “Silent Cinema & Live Music”. Composers Alexey Borisov and Sergei Letov will create an original sound design for the film directed by Dziga Vertov, Forward March, Soviet! (1926).

The large-scale documentary feature by a Soviet movie genius, in which he portrays the revival of the USSR after the military invasion and civil war, will get a live accompaniment of both digital and analogue electronics created by Alexey Borisov and avant-garde performance by Sergei Letov on the saxophones of the 1920s and vintage electronic and wind instruments. The unique language of filmmaking used by Vertov, the legendary “man with a movie camera”, and live avant-garde music will be brought together right in front of the audience to create a unique audio-visual piece.

Dziga Vertov’s work, Forward March, Soviet! (1926), was designed to become another executive report by the Soviet authorities on what had been done to turn around the destroyed economy and cultural institutions of the Soviet capital after the war. However, the outstanding filmmaker found his own approach to the official task set before him and created a true documentary feature about the revival of the Soviet people rather than report footage.

In his work, Dziga Vertov completely walked away from a newsreel-based and factual method of representation in addressing live material and instead committed every effort to the creation of a documentary and artistic portrayal by means of editing. Most of the footage was not staged but instead captured the actual facts of real life; however, these documentary images got transformed through the process of editing, which brought them away from the detail level and rendered them as generalisations and visual symbols, thus creating a unique and powerful movie language.

Sergey Letov is a Russian saxophone player and one of the most prominent figures in European free jazz and new improvisational music. Letov plays the saxophone, bass clarinet, flute, ethnic woodwinds and MIDI wind controllers as well as instruments he has invented himself. He has performed with many leading bands and musicians, including his brother Yegor Letov who led the band Grazhdanskaya Oborona (“Civil Defence”), Sergey Kuryokhin & Pop Mechanica, Alexei Borisov and Ivan Sokolovsky, Valentina Pomonareva, Rada & Ternovnik (“Rada & The Blackthorn”) among others. He has composed music for the productions of the Taganka Theatre, the Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre and other theatres in Moscow, Italy and Austria.

Alexei Borisov is one of the pioneers of the Moscow electronic scene and sound art, a composer and sound producer, member of several prominent bands, including Center, Night Prospekt, Volga, F.R.U.I.T.S., ASTMA, Rivushchie Struny and others. His musical interests span from the new wave and industrial to experimental electronics and noise. He organized international festival “Noise and Fury” at the Dom cultural center. Beside going on international solo tours, Borisov has worked together with many musicians from across the world, including Japanese noiser KK NULL, American Art Brut performer Jandek, pioneers of UK industrial The New Blockaders, legendary Finnish underground performer Pekka Airaksinen, Moscow’s free jazz saxophone player Sergei Letov, singer from Tuva Sainkho Namtchylak and many others.

Tickets are available in the box offices of the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman Center and online at voxxter.ru and the website of MEA Manege. The ticket price of 300 rubles includes admission to exhibitions on the day of the performance.

Media accreditation:
Manege Association | +7 (495) 645 92 76 | pr.manege@gmail.com

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