The Golden Ass

This session of Boris Yukhananov’s Studio of Individual Directing (MIR) will be open to the public. Over a four-day period, it will present a myriad of scenes, sketches and etudes created by Yukhananov’s students based on the text of Apuleius’ ground-breaking novel The Golden Ass (as translated by the great Silver Age poet Mikhail Kuzmin). These mini-performances are not “shows,” “productions” or anything even close to that. They are stages in a work process that Yukhananov is opening up to the public. “The whole principle of our relationship is that we are not actually showing anything. We’re just doing this publicly. We’re just taking down a wall,” says Yukhananov. As a result, the public will have an opportunity to witness a vulnerable, living process, but one which is also founded on a balanced dialogue - the public will see honest, open discussions of each segment immediately upon its completion. The key nature of Apuleius’ text in this context is that it provides an ideal space for the transformation of theatre into performative training.