LIFE LONGER THAN HOPE BUT SHORTER THAN LOVE

… There are no turbulent years yet,
cautious expressions …
God of trouble
on thin legs
Wanders alone aside.

The omnipresent rumor
about the possible – gets weirder
drops of sweat more salty
and more moderate words …

“Leila, hello!
I would like to invite you to the opening night of “Quartet” in Ilkhom on November 15. This is a plastic play, actors – Olga Volodina + Himal Gafiyatullin + ballet-dancers Kristina Borzova and Fidan Abyshzade + Omnibus. Live music – Sanjar Nafikov, Sukhrob Nazimov, Ravshan Tukhtamishev, Alirna Korieva, Lemara Ablyatifova … And Feride Girgin sings.”
“Wow! Yes, this cannot be missed!”
“I also think it will be interesting.”
And I did not miss. And it was … interesting? Um … rather – as Artyom Kim indicated in his speech before the action: unique. This definition is related to very many components of the new Ilkhom performance – from “collective” music, the general author of which, without exception, turned out to be everyone who was on stage that evening, to the “beginning young dancer” Olga Volodina. And it was a little mad – that beautiful madness, behind which it begins, the art. This madness, akin to a passionately ungovernable thirst for life, it either drove the four characters in pursuit of the beckoning red fruits of happiness, or cast them away from each other almost in hatred, or made look inquisitively at the faces of that young, that old woman, who all the time is you, one and the same – and irreversibly different, slipping away – you…

First day,
first day!
Everything is fine, everything is great
Though on all the second
day an oblique shadow lies.

Day Two – Day of Miracles
hunting day, hugging day,
yet no curses
neither from the mouth nor from the heaven.

Everything is as if for future,
still full of meaning
voice of bitterness
is frivolous like a snipper-snapper …

A performance-dream, a performance-memory, embodied by amazing dancers, but which, nevertheless, could have remained just a magnificent “performance of bodies” – if there weren’t the face of the great Actress: either distorted by suffering, or glowing with insight, or stiffened in anticipation of that long-awaited, single Answer …
Whatever you praise there,
no matter how cursing words you use
clothes do not fit for future use …
Life longer than hope
but shorter than love.

And all the time nearby – as if in the center of your life, but in fact – by your side, on the side of the road – in a jump, in a dance, in movements that are sharp, as if mechanical, apparently not by chance – robot-like, – him. Which never will be – Him … Because, it’s you who gets and keeps all major passions, feelings, ups, depths and the last despair.
…Fifth day. Cold
outside the window is the weather.
No hunting – there is work.
There is no sweat but only salt …

Or you suddenly realize
that hurrying and stumbling
rejoicing and bitterly repenting
didn’t overtake anything? ..

The life longer than hope, but shorter than love
… The action goes off, just so swift movements-flights over a black floor worn over many years are exhausted. So much promised and once again deceived life is dying, drying up. And now the music was drowned in the farewell chord, the magical voice broke off at the last take-off, and the light contracted into a single piercing ray. And in this ray – a bent, clinging to the ground, thin back of the one for whom now everything is over. And only it burns, burns in a sharp beam of light with red-copper fire, like those rolled out, unfulfilled grenades, – the old woman’s red head in black …
Everything comes true exactly
as parting on the road.
The mystery flies away …
Thank God,
thank God.

The seventh day.
The day off.
The open is the exit door.
The lobby entrance door is open…
Goodbye,
The lobby entrance!

The life longer than hope, but shorter than love…
… But how did the young choreographer Maria Tikhomolova know, understand and see this all?..
Leila SHAKHNAZAROVA