As a child, the word “Izmailovo” made me sad. That was the name of the hotel, which consisted of several buildings, simply named after the first letters of the alphabet. My mother worked there, two days after two, stayed on duty overnight, sat at a high counter and received foreign guests. Sometimes my mother had to take me with her, she led me from the Izmailovsky Park metro station, which is now called Partizanskaya.
“There’s always a wind rose here,– Mom explained, hiding me behind her back. So we went down the steps in the direction of the hotel, where, of course, it was warm, but the child was completely uninterested and had nothing to do. The main entertainment for me was the buffet. Not because of the food, but for a completely different reason. This catering establishment was located on a high floor. I could see a long way from the floor-to-ceiling windows, but I can’t even remember what. I looked down: at the same time, you feel both the fear of the possibility of falling and the pleasure of conquering heights.
All these memories were stirred up by the place where my friend and I agreed to meet. We were going to a dance show.
“Are you coming?” – my friend was asking me with voice messages. – Will you be on time or will I have to wait for you?
“On the spot,” she replied briefly. I usually don’t really make friends with time, I even have a hypothesis that it’s a conspiracy of all the clocks in the world against me. But in recent years, I’ve become more punctual, as I’ve decided to arrive half an hour earlier than scheduled. You don’t want to steal something that doesn’t belong to you, you won’t pay.
I was looking forward to it. The first musical “The Story at the Hotel” from these creators won me over in my heart. There was no single story in it, like in the comedy film The Grand Budapest Hotel, just a place where the guests settled in, and little stories happened to them. And a year later, next to the hotel from my memories, the premiere of the director and the first part of Egor Peregudov’s “The story at the hotel. Nostalgia.”
A friend warned: “This is not a continuation, but a completely new, separate action.” There is no doubt! How can you develop something that didn’t exist? According to the authors, the show was supposed to take us even further back in time, beyond the Gatsby era, to a place where everyone is silent, smiling and dancing. And if the first part, with the first sounds and the rustle of shoes, resembled a high-class reception, then the second opened up a universe of mute feelings.
My friend arrived on time, but in the lobby, clearly made in the USSR, the numbers of the lucky winners of the local lottery were shouted out. They probably gave us some branded products, but we didn’t have time to participate in this attraction of unprecedented generosity.
“I never win,” I told my friend. And we went to the gym, without haste and queues, while others were catching their luck by the tail.
Everyone took their seats, the lights went out and the music from the amazing Nat King Cole song “Autumn Leaves” started playing. I couldn’t resist comparing it with the first part, and what if they are there – the luxurious decorations have been replaced by graphic and minimalistic ones. The classic combination of black and white colors captured both the stage and the costumes of the artists. After the first incendiary scene in the lobby, an elderly couple danced onto the stage. This performance by the legends of Soviet and Russian dance sports, winners of numerous international awards, teachers Irina Solomatina and Gennady Gunko seemed to put everything in its place. They whirled in their rhythm of nostalgia, and the background was a fragment from an archive shot of a rare car driving along the road. The song “Le joli mai”, performed by Yves Montand, referred to the Chris Marker and Pierre Lomme documentary “Beautiful May”, released in 1963 and tells about the first peaceful spring. The car was replaced by a static black-and-white photo, and the 14 world dance champions took mops as a matter of course and danced around the hotel services. A comic musical number playing on glasses and various glass containers captured our attention and distracted us from the artists running off the stage.
Once again, the entire hall was plunged into darkness.
– What kind of entertainment do they have, hosting a TTM? – My friend was indignant.
“Are you swearing again?”
My friend did not catch my laughing intonation. After working in the theater, I understood the meaning of this abbreviation. ZTM – blackout in the whole hall, that’s all.
This time, the hotel has been turned into a game space, a kind of universal auction, where employees raffle lots among the audience. Madonna and her “Like a Prayer” were included, and artists in disguise appeared under it.
– How beautiful it is! – the young girl in the next row was delighted, beating time with her boyfriend. By the end of the number and the arrangement of the composition, strange structures appeared behind them, like huge cages with parrots curtained at night.
A voice, as in the program “Experts”, solemnly, from somewhere above, began to announce the lots. Such intangible substances as dream, time, imagination, affection, and self-care were at stake. Perhaps many of them could be combined, but each new lot revealed the nuances of the previous one, expanded and complemented it.
The new musical, like the previous one, is replete with world hits from different years, masterfully performed by actor and singer, winner of the show “The Voice”, one of the best tenors in Russia, Asker Berbekov, with live musical accompaniment by the GRAND BAND. There are also certain numbers that may well impress inexperienced viewers, such as a touching number playing with lights burning in the dark and dancing to the beat of a sentimental composition. And I remembered one of the rock concerts of my youth, when lighters were lit instead of phone flashlights, they were always taken with them, even those who did not smoke.
Bienvenido Grande’s rousing song “Oyeme mama” helped elegant laundresses dressed in bright costumes do the laundry. And then they were replaced by a plastic number called “Ocean’s Twelve”, the dancers portrayed robbers, masterfully bending under the beams of the alarm. An amazing kaleidoscope of numbers appeared before my eyes – except there were balls, and now the athletes were running and training to “Gelato Al Cioccolato”, as in the movie “The Human Orchestra” starring Louis de Funes, before I could blink, and the artists, waving fluffy, colorful boas, went to people, went down to the hall, to the music of Paul Mauriat, better known to our fellow citizens on the program “In the world of animals”.
More than 100 years ago, in the age of the birth of cinema, it was possible to transfer thanks to one number, where the main subject was a flying piece of translucent film, the direction of which was set by two artists. These manipulations reminded me of one of the first documentary short films made with a kinetoscope, invented by Thomas Edison in 1888. In that century, the dancer Maria Louise Fuller, better known by the pseudonym Loi Fuller, turned many heads. She came up with the number “Serpentine”, or “Snake Dance”. Loya’s costume consisted of “wings” on long spokes, fluttering due to a gust of air coming from the hatch from below. Plastic Loi raised her hands with strong expression, which delighted the audience. It was an innovative approach to choreography, far removed from classical dance. However, in a silent documentary with a running time of no more than a minute, Broadway dancer Annabela Moore starred with this dance. “Serpentine” was performed with long bedspreads, which were painted in different colors by electric spotlights. And to convey the dance features, the film film was hand-colored after shooting. The bows were arranged to the Queen band’s song “Don’t Stop Me Now”, which sounded like a victory anthem performed by Asker Berbekov.
“It was like swimming through the waves of films and associations,” I shared with my friend after the performance. And we trudged slowly through the rain to go home through the subway tunnels.
