The play "Chernovik" in Frankfurt

On September 18, Frankfurt will host the dance-poetry performance “Chernovik,” based on Joseph Brodsky’s poem “The Procession.” The production is presented by Step by Step e.V. Frankfurt as part of the international children’s and youth theater festival.

“Chernovik” is a play about an individual in a crowd and the search for one’s own path in a world filled with thousands of different voices. Characters from world literature and theater—Don Quixote, Hamlet, Harlequin—encounter allegorical figures: the Thief, the King, and the Merchant. They find themselves in the modern world, where they argue, laugh, fall in love, betray one another, and make their own choices.

At the heart of the production is a person striving to preserve their own voice without getting lost among those around them. Here, words become movement, movement becomes music, and the stage transforms into a space where entire worlds are born and crumble.

“Chernovik” does not seek to literally illustrate Brodsky’s poem. It is an independent theatrical statement and an attempt to hear the poem anew—as a reflection on life and death, freedom and loneliness, choice and responsibility.

The performance is in Russian. Running time: approximately 60 minutes, without an intermission.