On the invitation from Cambridge Russian School and with the support from the project “Russian Children’s World” we had as our guests the Children’s Musical theatre from Geneva “Happy Island” showing two of their performances “Fairy-tale about Fedot Strelets” and “The courtyard”, directed by Tatiana Fleichmann, the head of the Theatre. The Musical theatre “Happy Island” was founded in 2012 in Geneva, as a part of the Russian-speaking School of Arts “Crescendo”.
During their 4 years children were learning new acting skills, and taking part in the International Festival of Russian-speaking Children’s theatres in Paris, becoming winners.
In London the children gave their performance of “The Courtyard”, which was performed for the students of English Rokeby school and their neighbouring schools. This performance did not need any translation as the children were speaking by means of song and dance. “The Courtyard” is a story of the sad steps in our modern history – the Spanish Civil war, World War II, GULAG, moving up to the last wars in Georgia and Chechnya.
In Cambridge children showed both their plays “Fairy tale of Fedot Strelets” and “The Courtyard”.
The talented Mitya Novozhikhorev, Daniil Novik, Dasha Chekeres, Anastassia Anikutina performed wonderfully, at the same time showing their real acting skills by replacing at the last moment those of their friends who were not able to come to the UK for various reasons.
The children and teachers from the Cambridge Russian School and Theatre had a lot in common to share, as both are working on maintaining Russian culture and language outside their home countries.
Our guests also had the time to take sightseeing tours in London and Cambridge, lucky with the weather.