Recovering Corpse de Ballet: Lidochka, in Memoriam

"Recovering Corpse de Ballet: Lidochka, in Memoriam." Lydia Ivanova (1903-1924)

Opening Reception Saturday July 24, 4pm. donations appreciated. Installation and paintings by Petr Shvetsov, readings by Polina Barskova and sound installation by Ernesto Estrella Cózar.
1917 Silent film by Russian filmmaker Yevgeni Bauer shown throughout the evening.
Painting unveiling at 7 p.m.
Caviar and Champagne opening reception to follow.
The reception is free, but donations are always welcome.
Parking available streetside in downtown White River Junction. Our neighbors have asked that we not park, or trespass upon their property. Please respect their wishes.

Last year Peter Shevtsov and his wife Suzy Katz presented a Marvelous exhibition of artwork, readings and artifacts related to the life and poetry of Alexander Pushkin. This summer the Russians are back with an exhibition and live presentation focussed upon Lydia Ivanova, a world famous ballerina who died in 1924. Was she the most beautiful woman in the world? Perhaps. You will see the world's largest painting of Ivanova hanging from the front of the Museum until the Fall; with an unveiling this Saturday night at 7 p.m. Essays and poems concerning her beauty, her fame and her tragic death will be read and Sounds will be installed in a weird, black lace covered box—stick your head in and listen! Of course there will also be a cabinet of artifacts from St Petersburg from the personal effects of Lydia Ivanova—her diary, letters from her lovers, dried flowers and other interesting items, and a 1917 Russian film will all be seen in our commodious rooms.

On June 16, 1924, a river boat "The Seagull" cruising the Neva river suffered an accident not far from the Gulf of Finland: of its many passengers, only one drowned—it was Lyidiia (aka Lidochka) Ivanova (1903-1924), a celebrated young star of the Mariinsky ballet. This mysterious accident marked several endings—it was experienced by many as the end of the Petersburg period of Russian culture, for which ballet stood as an ethereal and yet enduring symbol. By coincidence, her tragic death coincided with another fateful disappearance—that of the name of the city, Petrograd, Slavic version of the Dutch Petersburg, that was changed in 1924 into Leningrad. Lidochka's death also caused young dancer Georgii Balanchivadze, her ardent friend and stage partner, to seek emigration—which led eventually to the vital emergence of the ballet art in America in the skillful hands of George Balanchine. Inspired by this cluster of personal tragedies and cultural shifts, Petr Shvetsov has conceived of the art project "Recovering Corpse de Ballet: Lidochka, in Memoriam." His project seeks to reconstruct the experience of a loss that begot a generation of Petrograd art makers and art lovers for whom disappearance of a young brilliant ballerina signified loss of their own future and tradition, their identity and their city. Lidochka's watery death, horrific and mesmerizing, was interpreted by the poets, artists, and art critics as a sign of the new time—that of silence and silencing, that of art subservient to the state power. Biographies:

Polina Barskova:

In her homeland of Russia, Polina Barskova is considered a prodigy, one of the most accomplished and daring of the younger poets. Born in 1976 in Leningrad — now called St. Petersburg, as before — she began publishing poems in journals at age nine and released the first of her six books as a teenager. barskova has published 8 books of poetry in Russian and her first book in English translation, This Lamentable City (Tupelo Press) came out in 2010.
She came to the United States at the age of twenty to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, having already earned a graduate degree in classical literature at the state university in St. Petersburg. Barskova now lives in Massachusetts and teaches at Hampshire College.

Ernesto Estrella Cózar:

Ernesto Estrella was born in Granada, Spain, in 1974 and has been based in New York since 2000. Since 2007 he has been teaching at Yale University as a specialist in Hispanic poetry. As a poet he has been included in anthologies such as Inmenso Estrecho (2007) and Cuadernos del abismo. (2008). His book Boca de prosas (Mouth of Proses) will soon appear in press. Along with composer Marcelo Toledo, he is currently developing a poetry and voice lab in Berlin, aimed at the performative dimension of the poem. His piece "Horizon" has been described thusly: The dancing body is a horizon; it exists only as a reference, an empty tightrope pulled by a tense haze. Not an easy endeavor, learning how to look at it. While the skin searches its definition in the air. When the sound in its search defines the air.
http://www.teatroiati.org/view_event.php?id=67

Peter Shvetsov:

Mr. Shvetsov divides his time between St. Petersburg Russia and South Royalton Vermont. He works in painting, installations, and creates objects relating to history and the persistence of memory. He has exhibited at State Russian Museum, State Hermitage Museum (2004). His “Columbarium Project” was shown at the State Geological Museum, St Petersburg. And his work has been exhibited at "Nördlich Kunst/северное искусство/North Art" in Rensburg, Germany. Yugoslavia and other European venues.
Last year, 2009, Mr. Shvetsov installed a collection of relics associated with the live of Alexander Pushkin in the Main Street Museum's commodious front rooms, and was the host of a "Pushkin Party" featuring digital images, lectures and much reciting of Pushkin's poems in both English and Russian. At the same time exhibiting the largest painting of the poet in America on the front of the building here in White River Junction. In 2008 he installed "Pandora's Box" featuring flies, and two columns featuring human faces in the Main Street Museum. His work resides comfortably in various public venues, as well as the Main Street Museum, fi: the Russian National Library, the New York Public Library, the British Library, the Sakson State Library, Dresden, City of Odense, Denmark, Institute of Contemporary Russian Culture, Los Angeles, University of Iowa Library at Iowa City, the Kohler Art Library, University of Wisconsin at Madison to name but a few.
http://www.shvetsov.info/