New Perspectives on Russian Theater and Performing Arts I: Liberating Lost Histories: Reclaiming Revolutionary Theatre Innovators

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel reclaims the pioneering work of theatre artists whose innovations have, to varying degrees, been minimized, misunderstood, or repressed. Diego Fernandes Garcia Moschkovich illuminates the significance of Zinaida Sergeevna Sokolova, Konstantin Stanislavsky’s younger sister, her critical contributions to the acting system that is now known by his name worldwide, and her earlier role as founder of Russia’s first peasant theatre. Greer Gerni pairs the starkly contrasting approaches to revolutionary acting developed simultaneously before the 1917 revolutions by Alla Nazimova and Vsevolod Meyerhold. Dassia N. Posner reclaims the history of the Moscow Kamerny Theatre school and its founder, Alexander Tairov, whose visionary role in developing virtuosic, revolutionary actor-creators in the 1910s and 20s was ultimately repressed and forgotten.

Sub Unit

• Arts II: Music, Theater, Performance Studies

Chair

• Fiona Bell, Yale U

Papers

• 'People Understand You Better': The Life and Times of Zinaida Sokolova - Diego Moschkovich, U of Sao Paulo (Brazil)

• The Acting Innovations of Alla Nazimova before Hollywood and Vsevolod Meyerhold before Biomechanics - Greer Gerni, U of Missouri–Kansas City

• The Actor-Creator and the Kamerny Theatre School - Dassia N. Posner, Northwestern U

Discussant

• Alisa Ballard Lin, Ohio State U