Avant-Garde Performance Across Borders: The Transnational Oeuvre of Ivan Vyrypaev

• In Event: Reclaiming Voices in Soviet and Post-Soviet Culture

Abstract

The work of Ivan Vyrypaev presents a formidable case study for scholars of post-soviet art, literature and performance. The playwright and director started his career in Irkutsk in the early 2000s by establishing the experimental Praktika group, later relocating to Moscow, where he also made the critically acclaimed films Oxygen and Euphoria. While already a rising figure in the world of Moscow avant-garde theatre, he started working in Warsaw towards the end of the first decade of this century, directing his own plays and also bringing fresh adaptations of Russian classics by Gogol and Chekhov to the Polish public. Productions such as July (2009) and Delhi Dance (2010) became highlights of the Warsaw stage, ushering Vyrypaev to international fame. The plays explored the psyche of a murderer in the depths of Siberia and the (im) possibility of human communication, respectively, through innovative aesthetic and directorial choices.

In my paper, I will trace the writer’s trajectory from early experiences in Irkutsk and Moscow through the early Warsaw period to contemporary interventions. Lately, Ivan has been rewriting Moliere’s Don Juan for a theatre in Toulouse and staging Mahamaya Electronic Devices around Europe. This latest play explores the connections between transnational identity, refugee experience, language and multimedia form. Vyrypaev’s work, as a whole, exemplifies the new frontiers in the study of Eastern European literature, performance theory and diasporic literature. His plays and adaptations take inspiration from the work of Anton Chekhov and Konstantin Stanislavski but also the Soviet underground scene of the 1970s and 80s. Since 2022, his return to Russia is unlikely, as he renounced his citizenship and is pursued for criticizing the invasion of Ukraine. The political dimension has thus been amplified and Vyrypaev rises to the task, drawing on the legacy of Russian and European avant-gardes. Finally, the reception of his work in Poland and beyond illuminates the question ‘Slavic’ solidarity (between Russian, Poles, Ukrainians, Belarussians) in the age of the resurgence of imperial violence.

Author

• Alex Strzelecki, Yale U