Saint Petersburg - Send in the Clowns



Posters for the Clown Troupe!

 The first of my cultural events in Saint Petersburg was Chekov's "Three Sisters".

What an adventure (which my mom summarized on the other family blog...click here and here if you want to read about that experience).

But again, the most fabulous Alex and Evgeni suggested that we might want to experience a broad range of cultural events, so they helped us get tickets for an evening with clowns.

And not just ANY clowns! This was an evening of the most loved sketches by Licedie (which is how I think the Russian term for it is written?)... this is the comedy group which includes Slava Polunin et al, famous for such events as Slava's Snow Show.  For those of you who have seen Cirque de Soleil's "Allegria" show, you will recognize him as the clown who did the sketch where he is dancing with a coat, and then walking through a manufactured snow storm.

Licedie's club for training clowns

While waiting for the show to start, we slipped into the night club area, where we watched 'baby comedians and clowns' (students in the comedy school) working on their routines, getting feedback from their teachers. That was fun!

And then, off to the show! It was all in a combination of Russian and 'clown language', which is to say 'pantomime and bodily humour'.


playing ball with the audience

You just didn't really need to speak anything but the tongue of pleasure and entertainment.

There was an absolutely hysterical sketch involving a bit of a play on Swan Lake (where the 'ballerina/clown' ended up losing all her feathers... and other body parts!)

Such a great contrast....Chekov and Clowns!

 




The grand finale