On Tuesday, 21 November, on the threshold of the beginning of the III International Student Festival of graduation performances “GITIS fest”, a press conference was held, attended by the Rector of GITIS Grigory Zaslavsky, actress, singer, master of GITIS Lika Rulla and CEO of TV BRICS Janna Tolstikova.
They talked about the programme and theme of the festival, the geography of the participants, as well as discussed joint cultural projects abroad and their impact on the development of international cooperation.
Grigory Zaslavsky said that this year the geography of participants is diverse — from Belgorod to Belgrade, from Shanghai to New Delhi. Not only Russian theatre institutes will take part in the festival, but also profile universities of India and China. In addition, he reported on the innovations of this year. “There are two programmes in the festival’s playbill, which have been created in our Gitis theatre schools — these are intensive programmes for 10 days, which we hold regularly. This year we had an autumn theatre shift with the Belgorod State University of Arts and Culture. The resulting production will be shown on one of the last days of the festival, and it will be opened by an even more unexpected etude, created as a result of the work of teams of students of GITIS and students of the Russian University of Transport.”
Janna Tolstikova shared the principles of the TV BRICS International Media Network, which is based on content circulation, international multilateral exchange. “Today, the international network co-operates with more than 60 national media resources in the BRICS countries and in the BRICS+ space. These are Brazil, India, China, South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Kenya, Latin American states. These are all partners with whom we share information, translating it into the national languages of these countries, adapting it, subtitling it, dubbing it if we are talking about video content, and so on. Our partners receive information about GITIS projects. In our experience, this information, these projects and topics find a very wide response among the national audiences of the countries listed above. <...> We try to make the names of our specialists, artists, directors better known abroad.” She added that culture is the theme that unites the countries and makes them closer. That is why the topic of cultural interaction and promotion of Russian culture and the Russian theatre school is what the media organisation puts a special emphasis on.
The international student festival of graduation performances “GITIS fest” is a cultural project aimed at exchanging professional experience and forming ideas about modern trends in the world theatre art by means of showing graduation performances of Russian and foreign theatre schools.
The festival includes a discussion of the performances with the participation of leading teachers of the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts (GITIS) and teachers of the participating universities.
The festival is a platform for meeting and dialogue between the world’s largest theatre schools. It gives students an opportunity to get acquainted with international systems of theatre education, and the audience is free to see Russian and foreign students, who tomorrow will join the troupes of the best theatres of the world.
The tradition of showing the graduation works of Russian and foreign theatre universities on the training stage of the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts (GITIS) allows to see the creative achievements of young professionals of the acting profession, to trace the modern trends in the development of theatre art. The festival has become a wonderful opportunity for graduate students to demonstrate their talent to a wide audience.
