Translation. Region: Russian Federal
Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –
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Theatre-goers have known the name of Boris Yukhananov since the 1980s, when he created the country's first independent group, "Theater-Theater", which revealed the genre of performance in a different way. He gave new life to one of the most famous theatres in Moscow, and each performance created by him became a real cultural event.
From GITIS to "Theater-Theater"
Boris Yukhananov was born in 1957 in Moscow. After school, he entered the Voronezh Institute of Arts, choosing the specialty of "theater and film actor". Later, he decided to continue his theater education and was enrolled in GITIS – this time to specialize in "drama director".
The future master graduated from GITIS in 1986, and his name was almost immediately recognized by everyone who loved art and followed what was happening in this area. Boris Yukhananov became a co-founder of the cinematographic movement "Parallel Cinema", created in opposition to auteur cinema and official art. The participants were directors from Moscow and Leningrad; in their films, they emphasized various non-public topics, not always understandable to the mass audience.
At the same time, Boris Yuryevich did not stop paying attention to his main passion – the theater. In the spring of 1986, he created an independent group "Theater-Theater", whose members explored the genre of performance, looking for new stage forms and methods. Thus, the first project of the group was the play "Misanthrope", shown not on the usual stage, but in one of the courtyards of Arbat. The performance was based on the complete interaction of the actors, each of whom, in the course of the action, became the author of his own role.
The next production of "Theatre-Theatre" is "Mon Repos", which combined texts by Joseph Brodsky, Vladimir Nabokov, Moliere. Boris Yukhananov was one of the first in the country to make the audience participants in the action – as a guide, he led them around an old mansion, told stories, looking into the rooms and commenting on the scenes that took place in them.
"MIR" and other projects
Soon Boris Yuryevich's teaching career began. He taught at the Free Academy in Moscow, GITIS, where he himself had once studied.
In addition, he actively staged plays in the most famous theaters of Moscow. His productions could be seen at the Theater for Young Spectators, the Russian Academic Youth Theater, and the Vsevolod Meyerhold Center. The master also worked a lot at the School of Dramatic Art: his popular production was "The Observer" about rock musicians. The director based it on a play by playwright Alexei Shipenko.
In the late 1980s, Boris Yukhananov created a large-scale project in which students and recent graduates — directors and actors — could take part. "Individual Directing Workshop" ("MIR") worked at the intersection of theater, cinema and contemporary art — creating something new, their own, participants simultaneously learned from experienced artists, sound engineers, make-up artists, set designers. After the successful first intake, "Individual Directing Workshop" continued to exist — several more streams appeared, and a directing and acting course was opened at GITIS. The last intake, in "MIR-7", took place in 2023.
Under the leadership of Boris Yuryevich, other projects were born that became real events in the cultural life of the city. One of them is the project-performance "Faust" by Goethe, presented in 1999 at the School of Dramatic Art. At the festival "Pushkin
Another interesting project is the Laboratory of Angelic Directing (LAR), within the framework of which Boris Yuryevich staged the play The Tale of an Upright Man: one of the main characters was a girl who was unable to walk or speak due to illness. In the early 2000s, a workshop for studying Torah texts, LaboraToria, was created, exploring the interactions of theatrical and sacred, as well as the project Nazidanie, in the title of which Yukhananov encrypted the name of Zinedine Zidane: Boris Yuryevich turned the conflict that arose between the football player during the game into a fight of higher powers. The project includes a play, an installation and a film.
Film and video works are a separate topic in the creative biography of the director. Back in the 1980s, he began experimenting with a video camera, filming a video novel in one thousand cassettes "The Mad Prince" (there were 20 chapters in total). Among such works are the trilogy "Mad Angel Pinocchio", a film about "Theater-Theater", a documentary video mystery "Edification" and much more.
"Stanislavsky Electrotheatre"
In 2013, Boris Yukhananov was appointed artistic director of the Moscow Drama Theatre named after K.S. Stanislavsky. The first thing he did in his new position was to completely modernize the theatre. It was closed for two years, and during this time, they renovated it, thought out a new repertoire, and created a new concept. The name was also changed – the idea for the new name was suggested to Boris Yuryevich by the past of this building: once upon a time, it housed the Ars Electrotheatre, where silent films were shown accompanied by a special orchestra.
The first premiere of the renovated theatre was Maurice Maeterlinck's "The Blue Bird" directed by Boris Yukhananov. The roles were played by People's Artist of Russia Vladimir Korenev, who passed away in 2021, and his wife Aleftina Konstantinova.
Boris Yukhananov invited world-famous stars to collaborate: Theodoros Terzopoulos, Romeo Castellucci and others. He himself also staged many performances, each of which was discussed at length by critics and theater fans. Thus, the opera series "Sverliytsy" to the music of Dmitry Kurlyandsky, telling about the parallel civilization of Sverliya, received the Golden Mask award in 2016 (for the costumes of the artist Anastasia Nefedova), and in the production "Octavia. Trepanation" the director combined the USSR, Ancient Rome and the Chinese Empire into a single whole. The first version of "Octavia" was created by him back in 1989 and has undergone significant changes since then. By the way, the director wrote books about many of his works.
"The Stanislavsky Electrotheatre" under the direction of Boris Yukhananov has become more than just a theatre – it is a venue where exhibitions and performances, lectures and book presentations take place, it is a place where the most daring creative experiments are not afraid.
In 2018, Boris Yuryevich received the title of "Honorary Artist of the City of Moscow". He passed away on August 5, 2025 – the director passed away after a long illness.
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