Gorky Park, Moscow’s most popular outdoor space, turns 90 this year. To celebrate its anniversary, Gorky Park is launching a big 7-day festival. The Moscow Times has selected the events that you just can’t miss.
Golitsyn Pond, the largest body of water in Gorky Park, will host a multimedia performance about the park’s history at the festival’s grand opening on Aug. 25-26. Liquid Theater will show street theater performances at the main entrance arch several times over the weekend. All of the organizations in Gorky Park residents, from La Boule bar to the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, will have their own schedule of festival activities.
During the workweek, Gorky Park will organize theme days. Monday will be devoted to art, with lectures and tours at the Garage Museum and Pioneer open air cinema; Tuesday is philanthropy day; and Wednesday is sports day.
Thursday’s theme is theater, and there will be plenty to see on that day: documentary theater Teatr.doc will show its site-specific performance “Indirect Influences,” acting workshops will be run by Gogol School, and an interactive production of “Etiquette” will be performed on the roof of Nike Box MSK.
Aug. 31 is music day with more talks at Pioneer cinema, the opening of an alternative music festival called Fields, and the start of the street art biennale Artmossphere. There will also be a concert by Petr Aydu, a star of experimental music.
Sat. Sept.1 is science day — and the first day of school all over Russia. In Gorky Park it will be celebrated with lectures on everything from learning a foreign language to using new technologies in street art. On the embankment there will be an electronic music concert headlined by Kate NV, a side-project of Katya Shilonosova, front woman of the popular post-punk band Glintshake.
Sept. 2 is the closing day when the biggest music festival will take place around the fountain. Headlined by pop and rap music veteran from Sweden Neneh Cherry, the line-up also includes Soul Surfers, an instrumental band from Nizhny Novgorod that recorded music with American electronic musician Shawn Lee; Luna, one of the best known ukr-pop (Ukrainian pop) stars whose music has a late-1990s vibe; and On-The-Go, one of Moscow’s leading English language indie bands.
Entrance to all events is free. For more information, news and schedules, see the festival site.
9 Krymsky Val. Metro Park Kultury, Oktyabrskaya.
