Svetlana Ozerskaya

Director, theatre teacher, one of the founders of the project of hand movement Hand Made.

Founder of the theatre project Krugly God [All Year Round] – the project of like-minded people which with time has been shaped into an independent group with its own repertoire, predominantly in the genre of puppet theatre.

Svetlana is one of the directors of the project Museum + Theatre in Anna Akhmatova Museum at the Fountain House (St. Petersburg), bringing together history, literature, and theatre art. In the framework of the project they create interactive exhibitions, productions for the entire family based on the works of world children’s classics, as well as productions, dedicated to Anna Akhmatova and key figures of the 20th century literature.

Svetlana is a participant and winner of awards at numerous theatre festivals.

The principal productions:

Picnic – 2002, SOVA [OWL] Group

The Magic Flute – 2004, St. Petersburg Children’s Philharmonic

A Circus in the Palm of a Hand – 2007, Hand Made

How the Crane Proposed to the Heron – 2009, Theatre Project All Year Round

Thumbelina – 2014, Hand Made, theatre of hand movement

A Little Night Music – 2017, Puppet Theatre, Ryazan

The Little Prince – 2010, project Museum + Theatre

Peter Pan, or the Second Turn to the Right, and Further Straight until the Morning – 2014, project Museum + Theatre

Brodsky in Alphabetic Disarray – 2015, joint project of Anna Akhmatova Museum at the Fountain House and Hand Made Theatre, the project of hand movement

The Odyssey of Odysseus – 2016, project Museum + Theatre

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“… it goes without saying that our target audiences are groups of secondary school students, but we are always happy to see their parents as well. One of our main principles is to create productions, which not only children, but adults as well might find interesting. The meaning of the humor, which we often add to our stories, may not be fully understood by children. However, they think in images and laugh at those moments, when, as it seems, they should not be able to understand. In any event, even if we choose the material, which is totally aimed at children, we still try to make it deep and multilayered.”
Nina Astashkina, ART1
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“Puppet theatre is a very special kind of theatre, because, working on every piece, you not only work with a specific author, but also interpret your own inner world. When your actors are people, you have in mind their physical parameters, their characteristics as actors, their types. Here there is a totally different story. The puzzle is put together inside you, and then the production starts living its own separate life. Perhaps my motivation is in formulating that very system, which you are talking about. However, if I speak up right now, it will lose any meaning. The words, which are pronounced, lose their meaning in general.
I work with other notions, I live by means of another language. The language of images, symbols, music, gestures.”
Nina Astashkina, ART1

Profile

Name: Ozerskaya Svetlana Vilyevna

Date of birth:12.1968

Education: SPbGATI, puppet theatre directing, class of professor I. A. Zaikin, 1999.

Career: Accomplished graduate studies at SPbGATI. Until 2014, I had worked at the department of puppet theatre as senior lecturer.   In 2007, in collaboration with Andrei Knyazkov, we organized a theatre of hand movement HAND MADE with a group of SPbGATI graduates. I am the general manager and director of this theatre.

In 2009 I organized a theatre project All Year Round. Since then, I have participated in the projects of Anna Akhmatova Museum Christmas in the Fountain House, the project Museum + Theatre.

In 2015, in the framework of city events, dedicated to the 75th anniversary of Joseph Brodsky, a special joint project between Anna Akhmtova Museum at the Fountain House and the theatre of hand movement HAND MADE was created:  production Brodsky in Alphabetic Disarray (New Stage of the Alexandrinsky Theatre).

Favorite authors, subjects, stories: I fall in love with the material I am working on at the moment. In my opinion, without falling in love with the material, without the feeling that this is your principal and last production, it just will not work out.

Favorite traditional system of puppets/ texture: I love working with shadow puppets, they are gentle and ephemeral.

Does a performance need text? It consists of text, because this is a story. However, text is not necessarily equal to words.

Is the expression ‘puppet theatre’ still relevant today? When I am working on a production, I do not think about that. The material itself dictates, which theatre means should be used.

What, in your opinion, is the difference between puppet theatre in Russia and the West? There is no difference. There are always good and bad productions.

How can collaboration and cultural exchange be useful? They help us to widen our outlook. It is interesting to meet people, who speak the same theatre language as you. However, it is more interesting to encounter those, whose view of theatre is different.

Mass Media Feedback:

“Illuminating Stories about Magical Transformations is perhaps not the most puppet story of all the productions of All Year Round. It is, as they like to say now, a synthetic production: the actors are not hiding behind the folding screens, the audiences are either entertained with flash-animation, or involved in the mysterious atmosphere of shadow theatre. In fact, during the entire course of action, there is not a single puppet on stage, and actors are animating the scarce props: at their will, sticks and cabbage, apples and a scarf are turned into a boy, or an old woman, or a bird, or a princess. No object is tied to a particular image for the entire performance: if a cabbage suddenly becomes an ugly head of an evil sorcerer, in a few minutes it is again just a cabbage.”

Viktoria Cheremukhina

"St. Petersburg Theatre Journal"

“Because of the versatility of puppet genres, the production is perceived as slightly split-up, made up of pieces, separate numbers, although the whole performance is based on openly operating the puppets, participation of actors-puppeteers in the action and their comments, addressed directly to the audience and each other. This method works very well…”

Maria Smirnova-Nesvitskaya about the production "The Magic Flute"

"St. Petersburg Theatre Journal"

“In the literary basis of the production — excerpts from Brodsky’s autobiographic prose, connected rather emotionally, than chronologically. The performance is based on the symbiosis of the genres of movement-based theatre, drama theatre, and shadow theatre. Actor Andrei Shimko tells the story of a poet. His full-fledged partners here are actors of Hand Made theatre, who, with the help of their hands, build all the necessary sets: the recognizable vistas of Petersburg, Venice, the static and dynamic figures of people, trees, houses.”

About the production "Brodsky in Alphabetic Disarray"

ART1