Performance by Masha Kechaeva and Alexey Kokhanov. Festival Archstoyanie 2018.
Sound tracks:
Intro https://soundcloud.com/alexey-kokhanov/fly-funeral-part-1
Requiem https://soundcloud.com/alexey-kokhanov/fly-requiem-1
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfarffHVnGc
Performers: Vadim Elichev, Dima Fedotov, Anna Simakina, Alexandra Vsesviatskaya, Alexander Hitov, Anastasia Tretyakova, Evgenia Fomina, Anna Tsedik, Maria Livadina, Leonid Volkov, German Stroganov, Roman Karelin
Reflecting on rituals surrounding death and Slavic mythology, this 12-hour performance by Masha Kechaeva and Alexey Kokhanov invited visitors to take part in the funeral and wake of a two-meter-long fly.
The performance “Funeral of the Fly” was inspired by the rite “Funeral of the Insects”, practiced in different regions of Russia. In Slavic pagan mythology, people believed in the connection of between souls of deceased ancestors with insects. According to their beliefs, in autumn the souls of dead ancestors would manifest in the bodies of insects (or on their wings) and fly away to the lower worlds, and in the spring time they would resurrect and return back to their descendants.
FUNERAL OF THE FLY. July 28, 2018 (c) Julia B
For almost 12 hours, the procession with the body of the FLY passed through the territory of the festival Archstoyanie, making stops at pre-selected locations. Each of them was the venue of the ritual supporting the Fly on her last journey. The performers coexisted with the body of the Fly, which we called the vigil. This was expressed in the conduct of rituals: the dance of the shaman, illustrating the life of the Fly, the performance of the Requiem, the performance of the Trizna, the ritual lamentations.
PERFORMANCE ORDER July 27 - 28, 2018:
20:30 - 21:00 - Mourning Flies on a pedestal, the beginning of the procession.
21:30 - 22:30 - Football field - the main priest's dance - the biography of the Fly.
23:30 - 00:40 - Camp and washing of the Flies (all participants metaphorically wash the Flies' body and gently stroke it with fly swatters).
01:00 - 02:00 - Remote office. Requiem for a fly (buzzing and singing folk songs about flies).
02:30 - 03:00 - Music Alley. Summoning spirits. (musical improvisation on the festival object from metal pipes).
03:15 - 04:00 - Glade of fairy tales with tents - introducing the artists of the festival into the installation and interacting with the sounds of their objects.
04:20 - 05:30 - Scene. Reading-singing texts about flies - from the works of the classics (Apukhtin, Baratynsky, Pushkin, Lucian "Praise the Fly", etc.).
06:00 - 08:00 - Brains. Vigil and trizna (ritual taste of food).
08:30 - 09:15 - Remembrance of the dead and burial.