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February 25, 2005
Artists win struggle for a way out
Three different origins and three different paths lead Chutzpah!
performers to set up life anew in Vancouver.
JANOS MATE
Alas, one learns when one has to. One learns when one wants a way
out. One learns ruthlessly."
This erudite observation is offered by Red Peter, Franz Kafka's
(1883-1924) protagonist in A Report to an Academy. Red Peter
is an ape. Five years earlier he was captured in the jungles of
West Africa and crated aboard a ship for transport to a European
zoo. With the chance for freedom out of sight, Red Peter searches
his mind for a way out. Out of despair, he decides that his only
chance is to become a human. His report to us, "the esteemed
gentlemen of the academy," is the story of his salvation and
the choices that were forced upon him by events outside his control.
Red Peter's role is brought to life on the Chutzpah! stage by Matias
Hacker. Hacker, 42, is a seasoned professional actor, singer and
dancer who, for many years, performed with San Martin Theatre, the
civic theatre company of Buenos Aires.
A Report to an Academy, first performed by Hacker in 1990,
was a collaborative project with his stage director father, Jorge
Hacker. Hacker will give two performances of the play, one in English
and one in Spanish.
"Emigration has made me grow as an actor and as a human being,"
said Hacker, who landed in Vancouver with his wife, Mariana, in
September 2003. I understand the role better now than when I first
played Red Peter.
"We all feel trapped in life at one time or another,"
Hacker explained. "Life in Argentina became very hard in recent
years. The economy collapsed, many people lost their jobs, businesses
went bankrupt and factories closed down. Life became uncertain.
I lost hope. I felt that if I didn't leave I was going to die artistically
and mentally. You can die other ways than just physically. Once
you lose hope, it is like being in a cage. Like there is no way
out. I had to look for a better future."
Hacker performs the role of Red Peter with ease. There is a seamless
transformation of the human into an ape and back into human. Hacker's
physical theatre, his use of his operatically trained voice, his
ape-like grunts, coupled with Kafka's sarcasm-laced script, acutely
convey the desperation of one who is compelled to be someone other
than who he is.
Constrained as a Soviet
The theme of finding a way out has also been constant in the lives
of two other Chutzpah! 2005 performers, Boris Sichon and Max Fomitchev.
Sichon, whose seductive smile and enigmatic presence is featured
on Chutzpah! 2005 billboards around the city, immigrated to Canada
in 2004 with his wife Faina and their two young children.
Sichon is the quintessential artist. He was classically trained
as a percussionist at the Music Academy of St. Petersburg. He plays
more than 60 different instruments, including tambourine, xylophone,
flute, didgeridoo and every style of drum.
Sichon also sings and dances. He is an actor. He is a mime. He is
magnetic. His enthusiasm for the moment is contagious.
"I don't care what instrument I play, or if I sing or dance.
It's like air. I do nothing apart from my art."
While studying at the Music Academy, Sichon played with the St.
Petersburg Symphony Orchestra. He performed with some of the best
known Russian conductors, including Gurgen Karapetian and Dmitri
Shostakovich.
After graduating from the academy, he joined the Jewish Chamber
Musical Theatre of Moscow for five years. He was then recruited
by the Russian National Folkloric Band, with whom he toured the
world.
Though successful as a Soviet artist, Sichon nevertheless felt constrained
by the authoritarian atmosphere of the Soviet Union. He also experienced
the sting of cultural and institutional anti-Semitism. In 1990,
Sichon seized the opportunity to leave Russia and joined the internationally
acclaimed Footsbarn Travelling Theatre of France.
"When I got the invitation from France, it was an opportunity
for a new life," said Sichon. "Instead of dedicating my
art to one country I could dedicate it to the whole world."
In 1995, Sichon moved to Israel, where he was with the National
Theatre Habima for five years and then taught at the Jerusalem Academy
of Music.
His entire life has been a search for new forms of artistic expression,
for new ways out. His show for Chutzpah! is aptly entitled the Wandering
Jew.
"The show is an excuse for expressing what I am thinking,"
said Sichon. "It is a philosophical rather than a biographical
journey. It is not a script. It is more like sentences.
"I am happy to explore myself under new conditions," reflects
Sichon. "Artists transfer their life experiences to their art.
The bigger the challenge the more you grow as an artist and as a
person. Life's struggles go to your presence on the stage."
Getting out of the glass box
Max Fomitchev, the mime extraordinaire, returning to Chutzpah! by
audience demand, emigrated from the Soviet Union to Canada in 1992.
His decision to emigrate was made after attending the 1989 Deaf
Way conference for the deaf at Gallaudet University, in Washington,
D.C.
"Deaf Way opened my eyes to the west and awed me about the
equality of deaf people in North America," said Fomitchev.
"When I was growing up, I felt like an outsider, like a white
crow. At the conference I realized that I had to start a new life.
I needed to achieve my dreams of living as a free man without the
shame of being a Jew, being deaf and being a mime."
Upon arrival in Vancouver in 1992, his immediate challenge was to
carve out a living. Life was not easy. For many years, he performed
on the streets with a hat in hand and at birthday parties.
"Only four years ago did I take the leap to become completely
self-employed and make my living by performing and giving workshops."
A broader challenge was to educate North American audiences to the
art of mime.
"Mime is much more than the 'lousy street theatre' to which
North Americans were accustomed," said Fomitchev.
Fomitchev is part of a long tradition of deaf mime artists from
around the world. When asked how mime is a way out for him as a
deaf person and as an artist, Fomitchev replied, "It's like
having been in a glass box, trying to get out and finally finding
the door."
Fomitchev said he can't live without performing. Being on stage
is, for him, "like fish in the water." He loves to see
how the audience is amazed by his performance, and one can not help
but be amazed by his gravity defying movements and his capacity
to evoke laughter and pathos with simple gestures.
At one point in Kafka's play, Red Peter explains: "There is
an excellent German expression: to beat one's way through the bushes.
That I have done. I have beaten my way through the bushes."
The same is true for Hacker, Sichon and Fomitchev. It is in their
person and in their art. And Vancouver is so much richer for their
decisions to find a way out.
Janos Maté is a Chutzpah! festival co-chair.
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