Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann was a romantic — moody, gloomy, but very passionate. The flighty imagination he placed above the common sense and valued desperation of soul and vexation of spirit. The performance “Hoffmania” is an attempt to construct a world in tune with Hoffmann’s phantasmagoria. This is not just staging, it is rather a journey through the labyrinth of visions and characters with no shadows. A mirage. Fata Morgana. Chimera... This is a story of a lonely soul, preferring dreams and illusions to the world’s temptations. The performance is inspired by Andrey Tarkovsky’s unimplemented screenplay about the last days of Hoffmann.

The play features two facets of romanticism: fascinating and meditative Tarkovsky’s films and nervous and sarcastic novels by Hoffmann. The main idea lies in combination of two worlds and detecting the binding thread of times, reality and miracles. “Hoffmania” is a kind of a keyhole which allows us to observe how Hoffmann’s characters are wandering around the backstage of Tarkovsky's films.

Production: Alexander Bondarev, Evgeny Kozlov

Dancers: Evgeny Kozlov, Daria Shapran, Irina Kozlova

Music: Anton Berman

Video: Tanya Williams, Max Pfeffer

Technician: Max Pfeffer

Genre: Physical Theatre

Total duration — 60’’.

From June 30 to July 9, 2015, XVII International Summer Festival of Contemporary Dance OPEN LOOK will bring to St. Petersburg the best of the best. OPEN LOOK, founded in 1999, has come a long way from a summer dance school to the most anticipated dance event in St. Petersburg. The organizers — Kannon Dance Company — annually introduce the local audience world’s trends of contemporary dance and related disciplines: visual theater, performance, dance film, and multimedia.