We are glad to announce great news and unveil the winner of the competition of student-led projects of the Production Department of GITIS! This is a 4th year student Sophia Kharitonova with her project of promenade-performance named “Living in Satka.”

This is a great result of the production laboratory work which was carried out last autumn.

6 proposals were submitted within the project competition of the Satkinsky District. The project by Sophia Kharitonova was selected for implementation. The author proposed to create a promenade-performance named “Living in Satka” and became a scholarship holder of the Sobranie Fund (Sophia will get a special scholarship till her graduation, and her project will be financially supported).

“Having visited Satka within the production laboratory in September last year, we all noted that the town seemed to be asking for a site-specific performance to be shown in it. While the form of audio promenade arose by itself. Today, this is a quite popular genre in Russia which is welcomed in the capital and in the regions,” says Sophia. “The main feature of the project is that it was made specifically for the people living in Satka, and creation of a similar one in any other town or city is outright impossible. I’m looking forward to starting work and hope that the performance will become a new visitor attraction of Satka! The play will be written specially for the performance inspired by true stories and memories of the Satka residents about the town. By combining them, we will not strive for being qualified as non-fiction, so fiction is quite acceptable for such a project. The performance is designed as light, life-asserting and heart-stirring,” says Sophia with confidence.

She already has a plan of action, an estimate, a storyline for the future play and an approximate route, as well as a draft of the play’s poster which is bearing elements of the mural by Agostino Iacurci on the facade of school No. 4 and published with the author’s permission obtained.

Congratulations to Sophia and thanks to the staff of the production department of GITIS for cooperation, arrangement and implementation of the production laboratory in Satka. Many thanks to all the students who proposed their initiatives for the Satkinsky District! All your projects are interesting and bright! We wish the winner good luck and look forward to the premiere of the “Living in Satka” play this summer!