The New Genius Experience of The Great Atomic Bombreflector
by Rustem Begenov and Alexandra Morozova (ORTA)
Photo: Nurtas Sissekenov
Duration: 90-120 min
Language: English, Kazakh/Russian (songs)
Guide-Performer: Alexandra Morozova
Direction: Rustem Begenov
Concept: Alexandra Morozova, Rustem Begenov
Music, set-design: Rustem Begenov
Texts and inventions by Sergey Kalmykov
The New Genius Experience of The Great Atomic Bombreflector is a ritualistic, theatrical, and playful sci-fi experiment in the genre of New Genius Theater, invented by ORTA based on the ideas of Kazakhstani visionary Sergey Kalmykov (1891–1967).
Spectators will go through a multi-stage ritual and learn about the Theory of New Genius, encounter the mystical all-encompassing Universal Composition and the terrifying Atomic Inhumanity that fell upon Kazakhstan in the form of 40 years of atomic explosions, turning the entire country into one big testing ground. Incorporating Kalmykov’s transcendental texts, ancient folk songs, Zhuangzi’s philosophy, and testimonies from survivors of the atomic tests, the performance — led by Guide-Performer Alexandra Morozova and a specially assembled team of Berlin-based Researchers-Testers — will unfold in an immersive environment built from 17,000 disposable aluminum food containers, witty lights, and fragile music. Spectators will fully become participants in the third iteration of this planetary ORTA project, which has already taken place in New York and Seoul and is aimed at ultimately creating the revolutionary invention to transform the destructive energy of Atomic Inhumanity into the Genius Forces of global uplift: The Great Atomic Bombreflector.
Contributors
ORTA
ORTA is an artistic group of actor and artist Alexandra Morozova and director and composer Rustem Begenov from Almaty, Kazakhstan. Highly experimental projects of ORTA are called The New Genius Theatre and incorporate theatre, contemporary art, music, film, technology, and philosophy, as well as traditional crafts, customs, and ritual practices in order to explore the mysterious and all-encompassing Universal Composition underlying the visible world. The New Genius Theatre is based on the ideas and figure of the thinker, artist, and inventor Sergey Kalmykov (1891-1967) who was The First Kazakhstani Genius of the First Rank of The Earth, Space and Their Environs.
Since its foundation in 2015, ORTA’s performances, installations, exhibitions, video works, films, books and performative events have been presented at venues and festivals including New European Theatre NET (Moscow), New Drama (Meyerhold Center, Moscow), La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club (New York), NONAME festival (Moscow), Message 2 Man (Saint Petersburg), Re-Fest (New York), Kuryokhin Award Nominees Exhibition (Saint Petersburg), Stanislavsky Electrotheatre (Moscow); in 2022, ORTA, as curators and participants, created the historic Kazakhstan pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia (Venice). Articles by and about ORTA can be found in such publications as e-flux, The Daily Telegraph, The Art Newspaper, ArtReview, etc.