The multi-award winning international sensation Slava’s Snow Show returns to the UK this autumn, touring to The Lowry in Salford. A combination of theatrical clowning and stunning visual spectacle, Slava’s Snow Show is performed by a world-renowned company of clowns led by Slava Polunin, artistic director of the St Petersburg Circus – in our opinion, it’s an absolute gem of a show.

Northern Soul has teamed up with The Lowry to give away tickets for a group of four to this remarkable show. So, to be in with a chance of winning, then simply sign up to the Northern Soul newsletter (details of how to do this are on the right-hand side of the page) and send an email to emma@northernsoul.me.uk with the title ‘Slava’s Snow Show.’

Closing date: October 19, 2017

Winners will be picked at random and notified by: October 20, 2017

 

Sound like your cup of tea? Then read on for an exclusive interview with Slava Polunin (courtesy of The Lowry) ahead of this truly magical show. 

Slava Polunin is a Russian Master Clown legend, founder of the Academy of Fools and creator of the famed Slava’s Snow Show – one of the world’s most inspired and inspiring spectacle, now celebrating 15 years on the stage.

Slava’s Snowshow is a timeless theatrical classic delighting and touching audiences in over 30 countries and 120 cities with more than 4,000 performances seen by over 3 million spectators. In New York, Snow Show has beaten off-Broadway records with over 1,000 performances at the Union Square Theatre. Paris, London, Rio de Janeiro, Montreal, Rome, Madrid, Moscow, Los Angeles and Sao Paulo are just a handful of the capitals the show has taken by storm.

Slava's Snow Show, The Lowry SalfordIt is a show unlike anything you have ever seen before – a world of wonder, in which a bed becomes a boat, a web of cotton envelops the audience and one tiny piece of paper becomes a snowstorm that will, quite literally, blow you away. Slava’s Snow Show is a stunning spectacle of beautifully crafted theatrical clowning, combining the unbridled silliness of slapstick with visual extravagance and beauty, all of which has established Polunin as a creative genius of international acclaim. This incredible show is soon returning to the UK for the 9th time, and we were lucky enough to meet Polunin in his extraordinary home just outside Paris.

A burly man of medium height, bearded, with twinkling eyes and a mane of long grey hair, comes bouncing along a pebbled lane to greet you. He’s very nimble on his feet, and is wearing ochre-yellow sweat pants and a vest of the same colour. The sturdy flip-flops are a more vibrant yellow (his colour of choice). He looks as if he’s got boundless energy – and he has.

He extends an arm and points at some carved gates about 20 metres away, and quietly, rather mystically, they swing open to reveal the Moulin Jaune.

“Beware, dreams come true” warns the sign at the door.

Slava's Snow Show, The Lowry SalfordYou truly are entering a magic domain. It’s a bit ironic that, about fifteen minutes drive in the opposite direction you will hit the ersatz flim-flam of Disneyland Paris, where the imagination of visitors will be channelled and manipulated by one of the world’s largest entertainment corporations. In Slava’s world, however, all he asks is that your imagination runs free and unfettered, and that you abandon all conformity at the doors of his home, and also of the theatres and venues where he performs all over the world. A simple enough request, which has turned Polunin into one of the most celebrated, talked-about and in-demand clowns in the world.

But if the word ‘clown’ summons up the idea of a guy with big shoes and baggy pants, with a red-painted ping-pong ball glued on his nose, then think again.

Slava is no ordinary clown. He turns the world upside down. He has been called “anarchic” and also “a genius”. Polunin looks at life not through a static mirror held at an angle, but through a rotating prism.

Slava's Snow Show, The Lowry SalfordSlava Polunin was born in the USSR 56 years go, in a small village of 3,000 or so inhabitants near the community of Orel. Neither of his parents, he says, were entertainers; although in later years his mother told him that his dad was quite musical. Toys were scarce, and young Polunin made his own entertainments, using his fertile imagination, making up stories, relying on folklore, and running free in the local woods. He became expert at building tree houses, and put on shows for his friends.

Hardly surprising, then, that when he was packed off “as a fairly bright kid”, to study engineering in Leningrad, he shortly thereafter joined a mime troupe instead. Even at the age of 17, he had decided that his mission was to rediscover what true clowns and comics did, and what gift and talents they had that could make people laugh. And cry.

Polunin’s unique home, The Moulin Jaune, is a wonderful reflection of his stage performance. When you arrive, you get an energetic tour. Picture a converted and extended 12th century mill house on the banks of the River Marne, a tributary of the larger Seine. There’s also a smaller house in the five hectares of grounds, all of which are connected by a sophisticated sound system of microphones and hidden speakers to a control desk in the central performance area within the house. If Polunin and his team want to listen to the rushing of the water over the weir in one of the rooms, they just flick a switch, and it’s there. If they want to listen to the rustle of the trees as they create their props and scenery and costumes, then that is possible too. There’s a state of the art performance space as well, which is replicated to the exact proportions of the stage on which he appears in theatres.

Slava's Snow Show, The Lowry SalfordAt the Moulin Jaune, Polunin’s surreal laboratory and playground, nothing is left untouched and everything is an interactive dialogue between art and nature: kaleidoscopic five seasons gardens, book trees, walls to walk through, flower beds to sleep in, a giant egg house for chickens, a river that flows backwards, galaxies and giants living in trees, keys for nowhere, a star observatory, fairytale bedrooms, a caravan paradise, a red walkway on the Milky Way, a Korean temple for sunset fishing ceremonies, a capsized ship’s canteen, floating moons that sing, horses with pink wings…

There’s one guest room, which is themed to Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, where all the furniture and fittings are seen through the eyes of a child in an adult world. Another room features the Arabian Nights, and another a bridal suite that takes your breath away with its romantic simplicity. He’s developing another which will make you believe that you are within the tendrils of Jack’s Beanstalk, and there’s yet another in which everything is in pale blue and white – a Babushka room for your favourite Grandmother. Polunin’s home is an explosion of the imaginative, the inventive and the surreal.

And you cannot forget the outdoor ‘room’, which is a huge table and chairs and a stone heater, nestled under the branches of an ancient willow overhanging the river, where Polunin and his friends and colleagues gather on summer evenings to talk, create and let their imaginations take flight in creative thoughts. “I collect joyful people around me,” he says – and it’s easy to see how he does it.

Slava's Snow Show, The Lowry SalfordIt is within this vast and playful environment that foolish encounters and experiments of all types (workshops, festivals, rehearsals and contemplative activities) give birth to even more foolish projects. For these, the company make good use of the fabric & costume treasures, technical and storage spaces, the infinitely wide collection of books and films, an equipped theatre, artist residences, outdoor stages, wood and other such workshops and of course steaming kitchens for hungry fools.

Foolishness and playfulness, an end to itself.

So why France, Polunin, and why here? He reveals with a smile that he and his wife Elena searched for many years for a special spot that was near to water, had land and trees and was near to some hills. They lived for several months at a time in or near seven cities – Barcelona, London, Berlin and Amsterdam among them – and systematically looked for that special place. Villiers, France, hit the bull’s-eye, and Polunin was further interested to learn that many of France’s most celebrated painters (among them Corot and Toulouse-Lautrec) found the little village and its surroundings inspirational as well.

Polunin and his wife believe that the kitchen is the heart of the home, and in theirs there is a long oblong table with more than a dozen seats around it. There’s no TV in the corner, but a screen on which classics of the comic cinema are occasionally played. There’s the cooking area, a relaxation and reflection space, and a lot more besides. And, to make it even more magical, a proper tree, centuries of years old, grows right through it and up toward the ceiling. It’s on the first floor, and the wood-floored terrace of the balcony overlooks the river where there are ducks diving for their dinner.

Did he always feel that he had to be a clown, you ask? No, he says, he thinks that it “just grew” within him. “I always wanted to be a journalist as well. A gardener or forester. An engineer. A librarian. And now I feel that – with this house and ground, constructing and creating things, and also writing my book (which I’m currently finishing), I’m actually achieving a bit of all of those ambitions. I won’t have enough time in my life to get it all done – does anyone? – but the important thing is to keep on doing it. As well as you can.”

Slava's Snow Show, The Lowry SalfordHe says: “My work cannot really be called clowning, for my main objective is to break down borders and restrictions. But a clown is really like a child – we have immediacy and a freedom, as children do. It is impossible for a child to sit still for more than five minutes, and, like clowns they always demand to be the centre of attention. Think of five children – or five clowns – in the middle of a room? Phew! Impossible! But, like children, we also want to be loved. But I am extremely blessed, because I am happy, and joyous, and also extremely lucky.”

And, it has to be said, that Polunin is also extremely well-loved. By the family members and performance team he nurtures, his crew who make the props and man the sound and lighting desk, and by his friends and pupils who come to learn from this master of his craft from just about every country in the world. He raises his eyebrows at the word ‘pupil’. “No-one ever knows that I am teaching them,” he insists quietly. “I never, ever say ‘do this, or do that’. I look at what they have to offer and what they do, and I suggest that maybe they could develop that little bit there, or that fragment here…and they go away and work on it and the fragment becomes something more polished, perhaps more substantial and developed. Rehearsals and classes are forbidden here. Everything happens completely organically.”

Polunin Slava's Snow Show, The Lowry Salfordhas around 60 people in various parts of the world that he calls on to join him when puts a show together – they come from places as far apart as Brazil and Israel, and when he recently held auditions in his native Russia, one thousand would-be performers turned up to work with him. From that thousand, he selected twenty to go with him on a river voyage to discover and hone their skills. Of the 20, he picked two. Only one of the two now is a full-time clown in Polunin’s tradition.

He also tells the wonderful story of his work with the famed Cirque Du Soliel. Polunin had been part of their company (at their invitation) for a year and a half, and wanted to go back to doing things his way again. “I admire what they do so very much, and they are friends,” he explains. “But you have an idea with the Cirque, and it takes three years to get it together. You have an idea around the kitchen table here, and you could be doing it tomorrow, and putting it into the new production next week. It’s just….the scale of things.”

“Anyway, I told the Cirque that I wished to leave, and they said ‘fine, Slava, as long as you find a great replacement for us’, and I promised that I would. We were in New York, and I walked out of that meeting very amicably, and I hailed a cab. And the driver of the cab was working in the US, but was one of Russia’s greatest classically-trained actors, whom I knew very well. What a co-incidence. And he said, ‘What are you doing here, Slava?’ and I told him, and of my search for a replacement. He said ‘I have always wanted to be a clown! Can you teach me?’ I said, ‘I don’t teach, but I can give you some guidance’, and in those three days, I did. He was fantastic. In three days he had taken over from me at the Cirque. He is still there – and a very happy man.”

His mission, he thinks, is “to get the audience to open up, and to be a lot more creative within themselves. But I know from experience that what makes them hysterical in Britain will get a completely different reaction in Tokyo. They will see different interpretations of what I do.”

By Phil Penfold

(Interview and images provided by The Lowry)

 

Slava's Snow ShowSlava’s Snow Show is on at The Lowry in Salford from Oct 24 – Oct 29, 2017. For more information or to buy tickets, click here.

To read Northern Soul’s review of 2014’s tour of Slava’s Snow Show, click here