Student Spring of KIU is an unforgettable event for every creative student, a holiday in which the brightest talents of our University are revealed. This is part of the Russian Student Spring, which swept the country with a whirlwind of creativity, freedom, positive, love, new ideas and discoveries. Its results have not yet been summed up, but it is already clear that the plastic performance "Ladder Up Leading Down", which was staged at KIU, is one of the best in the country. This Student Spring passed on one plastic, without words, but its scope speaks for itself.
The theater begins with a hanger, and Student Spring begins with preparation, which involves a large team of RU.STEM actors, directors, artists, decorators, technical specialists, stage workers. The process is led by the KIU Youth Policy Department. For each concert, unique music is written, large-scale scenery and incredibly beautiful costumes, a unique video sequence and animation are created. Students from all faculties are involved in the process. All this is a huge work that unites a large team of students and university staff, or simply the KIU family.
The fruits of this labor can be seen even before the concert: in the hall of the recreation center "Saidash", where the concert was held, one could meet fantastic creatures in unusual costumes, as well as a magnificent installation by the authorship of a graduate of KIU, a teacher of the design department, Laysan Idrisova: a boat with a girl sitting in it against the backdrop of sea waves. And even the three theatrical bells were unusual and turned into voice announcements about the three chakras, the vibration of which informed the audience that the concert had begun.
“The graduates who took part in the Student Spring confess to me that the Student Spring is a dream. Rehearsals are being dreamed up, - said the rector Asiya Timiryasova, addressing the audience and participants with an opening speech. - Today in the hall there is Sulima Larisa, who was the vice-rector for educational work at our University until 2013, and every spring she calls me and asks: when is the date of the Student Spring? And wherever she works, she always sets aside time in her work schedule for this event. And today she is here too. I wish all of us to experience all those incredible emotions that the Student Spring gives!”
He found himself in the midst of impressive scenery, specially prepared for Student Sring: massive structures that framed the screen, and the very staircase that appears in the title. Where does it lead? The audience will find out at the very end.
The leitmotif of the performance was the long journey of the hero to his dream, to the top of his abilities. “For the sake of achieving his own dream, a person pulls himself together, performs actions aimed at making the “magic” come true […] But, the problem is that a person, due to all the diversity of his inner world, cannot always to recognize these signs…”, says the brief description of the play. Was the hero able to recognize them and reveal his abilities? This was watched with interest by the audience throughout the show. It was absolutely impossible to break away from the perfprmance, and from time to time the audience themselves became participants in the action.
The performance is not in vain called plastic: every moment of it is saturated with plasticity and grace of the creative teams of KIU: the Mix Style dance theater, the Brooklyn dance project and the Calypso fashion theater. Signs, symbols, metaphors and hidden meanings combined in a bizarre dance and did not let go of the attention of the audience until the end of the action. Everyone could find something of their own in the performance.
Here we have winter in the form of a snowfall of thousands of sparkling pieces of paper, followed by autumn and streams of rain falling on the audience from the rotating umbrellas of the dancers. And in the next fragment, the Mix Style participants launch an impressive paper ship, which, like waves, sets off on a journey through the hands of the audience, making them involved in the mystery of creating the performance.
A note of lightness and humor was introduced by the unexpected appearance of a “woman from the beach” with a cart of pies, the image of which is probably familiar to everyone. And then the mystery continued. Adversity fell upon the hero in the form of Fear, Pain, Depression. And only after all five of its stages did Acceptance finally come to the hero. It was one of the most memorable moments of the performance. Under the loud, goosebumps music of the composer Almaz Mukhametzyanov and the choir of the Viva collective, a whirlwind of human emotions and feelings fell on the stage, which were portrayed by the beautiful participants of the Calypso fashion theater.
While the performance was going on, the audience lived with the hero all his life, rejoiced, worried, rethought a lot and did not notice how time passed. It was not just a performance, but a collective experience that both the participants and the audience remembered for a long time. The stairway to heaven led us to a magnificent end to the performance, a philosophical finale that made us think about many questions.
The "Ladder Up Leading Down" is encountered on the path of everyone, but people climb it again and again, go to the goal, despite defeats and difficulties. Well, the success ladder of KIU students has already led them to great results and, quite possibly, will lead to the Grand Prix at Student Spring. Thanks to the students, thanks to the organizers, thanks to the directors Ildar Valeev and Roman Bogdanov! The current Student Spring was a success at the highest level and never went down!