"Pushkin's Dreams" set a record at Luzhniki Stadium and will return for the New Year holidays

The theatrical circus show "Pushkin's Dreams", which has become the most massive and longest-running event in the history of the Luzhniki Stadium, will return in winter with new shows. The unique production will be available from December 25 to January 11 at the same venue, the Druzhba Universal Sports Hall (Luzhniki). The show will run throughout the New Year holidays.

The premiere season of the show became a landmark cultural event: from the end of May to September, 71 performances took place, they were watched by more than 120 thousand viewers. This became a real record for the Luzhniki team — for the first time the Olympic complex site hosted such a large-scale project for four months.

Pushkin's Dreams opens a new page in the history of the Russian circus. This is Russia's first world-class circus show in the format of a new circus, an innovative experiment that combines elements of circus, theater, music and multimedia. Unlike traditional productions, theatricalization becomes the key here: "Pushkin's Dreams" is not just a sequence of tricks, but a whole dramatic action told in the language of circus art. This is a circus without animals, where the main characters are people, their talent, grace and skill.

In winter, the production will return in an updated format: the audience will enjoy a program with a special New Year's atmosphere.

"When we created "Pushkin's Dreams“, it was a real challenge for us to present a new circus, which had not existed in Russia before. We didn't know how the audience would perceive such a format: theatrical, multi-layered, with music and multimedia. But it turned out that we found our audience very quickly. And these are not only families with children who traditionally go to the circus, but also people who used to be indifferent to circus art and hardly ever attended such productions. It was a real victory for us to see that the show is interesting for different generations, that everyone finds something different here. We are happy to return to the New Year holidays, because this is the time when the audience is especially waiting for magic, and we can give them a festive mood and a fairy tale," said Elizabeth Hamburg, general and creative producer of the show.

The show "Pushkin's Dreams" is based on Pushkin's favorite fairy tales: "Ruslan and Lyudmila", "The Tale of the Dead Princess", "The Tale of Tsar Saltan", "About the Fisherman and the Fish", "About the priest and his employee Balda", "About the Golden Cockerel". This is not a retelling of classic plots, but a phantasmagoria born in the poet's dreams to the lullaby of the Nurse: dreams where reality is intertwined with fiction. The end—to-end plot is Pushkin's fate, shown through the prism of his dreams and creativity. In the struggle of Genius against Villainy, Pushkin is assisted by his faithful comrades, a Pen, an Inkwell and Paper.

In addition to betting on theatricalization, the show "Pushkin's Dreams" impresses the audience with its technical and genre boldness: many tricks are presented in the circus for the first time. Among them is the plural cor de parel, a number that has no analogues in the world. It reveals Ruslan's struggle with Chernomorye and is based on a unique design: several aerial ropes on which the gymnast works are unfastened right in the air. Also, for the first time in the circus, the air ring and the Syrah wheel joined together — in a stunningly beautiful duet by Alexander Pushkin and Natalia Goncharova.

More than 60 artists are involved in the show: laureates of international festivals, honored masters of sports, champions of Russia and the world. For the first time in world practice, acrobatic rock'n'roll has become part of the circus production, and the audience will also see amazing performances with breaking music — it's impossible to imagine such a Fool.

The production is interesting for viewers of different ages: adults note the artistic depth, complexity of tricks and musical accompaniment, children — brightness, dynamics, unusual costumes and the magical atmosphere of fairy tales.