Thursday, February 22, 5:00pm Linsly-Chittenden Hall (LC ), Room 102 63 High St. New Haven, CT 06511 Friday, February 23, 11:00am Loria Center for the History of Art (LORIA), Rm 250 190 York St. New Haven, CT 06511
SPONSORS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Rock(ing) Regimes Sponsors: Adam Mickiewicz Institute; The Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Memorial Fund; and the European Studies Council at the MacMillan Center, Yale
Acknowledgement: For their help in conceptualizing and organizing this event, Professor Krystyna Illakowicz of Slavic Languages and Literature, Professor Karen von Kunes of Slavic Languages and Literature, and Daria Ezerova, PhD candidate of Slavic Languages and Literature. For her help in coordinating the films publicity, and program notes of this event, Mariia Muzdybaeva, Master's candidate in European and Russian Studies.
CONFERENCE PROGRAM THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22 Welcome Reception
5 PM 6 PM OPENING REMARKS SCREENING
Krystyna Illakowicz (Yale) ASSA (1987) Introduced by Rita Safariants Followed by Q&A
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23 11 AM SCREENING
THE PLASTIC PEOPLE OF THE UNIVERSE (2001) Introduced by Karen von Kunes (Yale) Followed by Q&A
1 PM
Lunch for participants
2 PM
BEATS OF FREEDOM (2010)
SCREENING
Introduced by Tomek Lipiński
3:45 PM
Karen von Kunes (Yal e)
ROUNDTABLE
Tomek Lipiń ski
DISCUSSION
Rita Safariants Marci Shore (Yal e) Bryan Swirsky Jul ia Titus (Yal e) Mod erator: Daria Ezerova (Yal e)
R o c k i n g R e g i m e s
FILMS ASSA (1987) USSR, 2;25 min
Director: Sergey Solovyov Cast: Sergey Bugaev-Afrika, Tatiana Drubich, Stanislav Govorukhin ‘Assa is, undoubtedly, more than a film. It is a film-network, in the Internet sense of the word. Every shot, every note, every phrase is a hyperlink which can bring you outside the plot, into history, literature, contemporary art, or sociology,’ writes film critic Boris Barabanov in his ‘documentary novel’ titled Assa: Book of Changes. It is definitely so: while watching a crime plot and a dramatic love story develop, we are also immersing into the sanctuary world of Bananan's dreams, as the protagonist himself calls it. He claims he only lives there—in the world of Nick Cave's records and self-made art installations he keeps in his room, the world where the singer Boris Grebenshchikov is a god emanating light. Yet, as we see Bananan and his friends walking through the winter city of Crimean Yalta, we find them passing by a giant portrait of Brezhnev and realize: there is no escape from the authorities in 1980, not even in the world of your dreams. The first film in Solovyov's trilogy (followed by Black Rose Is an Emblem of Sorrow, Red Rose Is an Emblem of Love and House under a Starry Sky), Assa incorporates some of Solovyov's favorite stylistic devices: for instance, the use of in-screen footnotes and digressions to a parallel historic plot. Not in the least thanks to the soundtrack, the film gained incredible popularity and finally became ‘a cult film of the times of change,’ according to the Mosfilm studio's official website.
FILMS THE PLASTIC PEOPLE OF THE UNIVERSE (2001) Czech Republic, 1;14 min
Director: Jana Chytilová Cast: The Plastic People of the Universe, Václav Havel, Lou Reed Jana Chytilová's documentary tells the fascinating story of the leading band of the Czech underground scene, The Plastic People of the Universe. Created in 1968, the band had a long and extraordinary life, ‘mutating through this entire hard to believe scenario in which a playwright becomes the president of the country and encourages the very music that in other countries is being banned left and right,’ according to Lou Reed of The Velvet Underground. Václav Havel, the playwright who became the first President of the Czech republic, indeed was their friend: he appears in the film himself and remembers hosting the band's concerts in his barn when they were banned from all public venues and talks about the role of the rock music in the 70s and 80s. Beautiful shots of Havel's garden, polaroid-like footage of The Plastic People's 1997 trip to New York, and their performance at the Prague castle where they played at the invitation from the President Havel, are all counterposed with the musicians' memories of being censored, persecuted, and arrested. It is truly ‘an odd horror [story] with a fairy-tale end,’ as one of the band members puts it.
FILMS BEATS OF FREEDOM (2010) Poland, 1;13 min
Director: Leszek Gnoiński Cast: Chris Zalewisz, Piotr Nagłowski, Mirek Makowski, Tomek Lipiński While Chytilová's The Plastic People of the Universe is a story of just one band, Leszek Gnoiński's Beats of Freedom takes up a task of telling the viewer about the whole Polish underground music scene. Beats of Freedom is the first film in the documentary series Guide to the Poles, which was meant to show how any kind of activities from making toys to having sex could become rebellious and dangerous acts under the oppressive regime. ‘This movie is about music with a historical background to show that art could not exist without a particular reality,’ says Gnoiński. The film narrated by Chris Salewicz, a British music critic of Polish descent, features interviews with musicians and fans, as well as newsreels, photographs, and archival materials. ‘Can the music change the world?’ is the question Tomek Lipiński of Brygada Kryzys is faced with at the end of the film. The audience already knows the answer for themselves.
SPEAKERS TOMEK LIPI Ń SKI
Tomasz 'Tomek' Lipiński is a Polish rock guitarist, composer, lyricist and singer. He is the founder of Tilt (1979), one of the first punk rock bands in Poland, and cofounder of Brygada Kryzys (1981), one of the most famous rock bands in Poland. Despite Brygada Kryzys' success and popularity, the band was only active for less than two years and dissolved in 1982, due to political obstacles. Lipiński was also a member of the bands Fotoness and Izrael. The band reunited only in 1991, when the musicians gave a lot of concerts commemorating the introduction of martial law. In 1994, Lipinski recorded his first and only solo album ‘Nie pytaj mnie’ / Don’t Ask Me/. Apart from his music career, Lipiński writes for music magazines such as Tylko Rock, BMG Poland, and is editorin-chief of the Aktivist magazine. He also worked on several films, writing music for Psy 2 (1994) and Słodko-gorzki (1996) and appeared in several movies himself —mostly in documentaries about rock music. He lives and works in Warsaw, Poland.
SPEAKERS RITA SAFARIANTS
Rita Safariants is an Assistant Professor of Russian Language and Area Studies at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. Her scholarly interests focus on Russian film, late-Soviet popular culture and twentiethcentury literature. Having earned her PhD at the Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures at Yale University, Prof. Safariants is currently completing a book, Rock-n-Roll and Soviet Cinema: A Soundtrack to the Collapse of the Eternal State, about the symbiotic interplay between popular music and the late-Soviet film industry. Prior to coming to St. Olaf, Professor Safariants taught at Vassar College and held an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Bowdoin College. Her teaching portfolio includes all levels of Russian language, Freshman writing seminars, and interdisciplinary courses on Russian literature, film, women writers, and popular music. Rita Safariants has also authored articles on Vladimir Nabokov, Anton Chekhov, Russian cinema, and popular culture.
SPEAKERS BRYAN SWIRSKY Bryan Swirsky started promoting punk shows in 1983 while still in High School. He worked as a booking agent for such groups as New Model Army, The Alarm, Glen Matlock (ex-Sex Pistols), The Fall, TV Smith (ex-Adverts), The Rezillos, Mad Sin, The Undertones, Shonen Knife, Pansy Division, Metal Urbain, Wreckless Eric, the Weirdos, Uz Jsme Doma (Czech Republic), Dezerter (Poland), and The Avengers among dozens of others.Since 2011 he has been managing the legendary Pacific Northwest garage rockers, The Sonics - a band that started out in 1959 and predicted punk, heavy metal and grunge by several decades. Mr. Swirsky reestablished the band as a reliable touring entity and got them back into the studio to record an album with legendary producer, Jim Diamond (White Stripes, Detroit Cobras, Black Keys). Throughout it all, Mr. Swirsky has been devoted to punk and underground music no matter where in the world it hails from. One of his current projects concerns exposing the earliest manifestations of Socialist-era punk and underground from Central and Eastern Europe. Mr. Swirsky has appeared on radio music programs and has lectured on rock music. He lives and works in New York.
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