Vyacheslav (Slava) Ivanovich Polunin (June 12, 1950, Novosil, Orel region) - Soviet and Russian actor, director, clown, mime. People's Artist of Russia (2001) .
Biography Edit
He graduated from the Leningrad State Institute of Culture. NK Krupskaya (St. Petersburg State University of Culture and Arts) and the variety department of GITIS.
Actor-mime, clown, author and producer of clown numbers, reprises, masks, heroes, performances. One of the creators of the sensational theater "Litsedei" in the 1980s, from the reprise of which the most popular were the numbers "Asisya!", "Nizza" and Sad Canary ("Blue-Blue-Blue-Canary ...", by Robert Gorodetsky).
Since 1988 works mainly abroad (he lived in London, then not far from Paris): in England he was awarded the Laurence Olivier prize for the best performance of the year, in Edinburgh his performance was recognized as the best theater performance of the festival, in Liverpool and Dublin he received awards for the best show of the season , In Barcelona - the prize for clownery, as well as the prize of English criticism and the magazine "Timeout." Received the title of honorary resident of London.
Since 1989, several times he came to Russia. One of the organizers and leaders of the international festival of street theaters "Peace Caravan" (1990). One of the main founders of the Academy of Fools, which in 1993-1994 held festivals in the Moscow Film Center "Baba Dura".
In 1997, together with Terry Gilliam, staged the play "Diablo", where they both played the leading roles.
In 2000 he came to Moscow with a show-performance about the return of "SnowShow".
In 2001, he organized a program of theaters of the Moscow Theatrical Olympiad.
On the eve of the January 2008 tour in Berlin (Admiralspalast), the correspondent of the German-language newspaper "Europe Express" recorded an interview in which Slava Polunin talks about his new idea of theatricalization of life:
One of my favorite activities is blurring the boundary between life and art. This is the project that is being realized in Paris [2].