Moscow will host NET, the New European Theatre Festival, from November 9 to December 19. One of the program's special events will be an exhibit timed to coincide with the premiere of Boris Yukhananov's production of Catabasis. Demons in the German city of Cottbus. Visitors will see Yukhananov's graphic works, video clips from the production, and hear music composed by Dmitri Kourliandski.

Remember Boris Yukhananov's Suitcases? Well, the demons there have now crawled out: all the 86 hidden works can now be seen. While Moscow audiences are perusing devils in graphic illustrations, the premiere of Boris Yukhananov's production based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel, Demons, will take place in Germany.

Boris Yukhananov on the exhibit:

Catabasis. Demons was dictated to me in the spring of 2020. Using Chinese ink on Italian Fabriano paper, I journeyed (for a month and a half) down the 86-step descent into Hell. Each work represents a special terrain, visions of which are captured in the graphics. Events taking place there are connected with the “ballet of the war of demons,” which I observed on my descent.

I was surprised to find that some creatures joined my journey. They moved through the stages of descent, delighting me with their peculiar properties and plasticity, and taking an active part in the war-dance that permeates the entire world. When I set out on my journey, a spider web freed from its spider joined me before the gate leading downward. In the happy days of my childhood, we called such cobwebs “threads of the Virgin Mother.” Words do not describe the horror that I experienced and captured — the horror of what these threads turned into, the shapes and forms they acquired in Catabasis. At times they became heavy branches, a net, a grid, blades of black grass, the nerves of this world. The Threads of the Virgin Mother penetrated the hellish creatures and sprouted from them, freely developing in / moving about the space of the war dance of Catabasis. (About the rest I remain silent. The rest is in the graphics themselves).

We will write more about this project. Follow it in this space.