The Best of Times... Slava's Snow Show

When the son of toy store clerks in the Soviet Union grows up to become a world-acclaimed clown, and the founding president of the Academy of Fools, and he creates a show, you can expect something special.

Maybe, if you're like me, you snickered the first time you heard there was an international Academy of Fools. But if you get the chance to catch Slava's Snow Show--don't miss it. Don't even think of it. It'll be the most amazing experience you'll ever have cost yourself.

It's hard to put into words what Slava's Snow Show is. On the face of it, it's a clown show with a Russian twist--it folds poignant moments of loneliness, goodbyes and rejection, into warm embraces of friendship, exploration, discovery and love, mixing tears with laughter and recognition. But it's even more than that. For the audience, it's about letting go of the knots that separate us, and letting go of the stress and isolation that we allow to envelop us. And it's connecting to a peace and delight, a happiness and contentment with ourselves, everyone, and the world as a whole. People talk about having a childlike experience of wonder and happiness, and although there is some of that, it's an all the more special experience because of its bittersweet side...

It's got the best of art, but also the best of community in it. Amazing that you can go to a show and feel such a sense of communion. And on top of all that, you can get your head massaged, get tossed over a clown's shoulder, and play ball with strangers.

I went to see it for the second time last night. Jody came for the first time. She went in stressed and overwhelmed, and she came out, I think, happy and content. And, surprised to feel so good. Well, our smiles speak for themselves. :)


Yellow, the lead clown. After the show, he sits on the stage and watches the antics of all the happy people. And if you come to engage him, he obliges most generously. As you'll see below.


After the show the Green clowns play with the audience, still in character.


Jody gets a head massage from a laughing Yellow, who's just been hit on the head with a huge ball.


And I also get some hair tips from Yellow as Jody snaps the evidence.

What Is My Kind of Theatre?or The Theatre I Love ~ by Slava Polunin

- It is a kind of wedding cavalcade,
where I try to marry everyone to everyone;

- It is a theatre of ritual magic
and festive pageantry,
constructed on the basis of images and movements,
games and fantasies,
that are the common creation of the audience and the people of the theatre;

- It is a theatre which inexorably grows
from dreams and tales;

- It is a theatre of hopes and dreams,
full of longing and loneliness,
losses and disillusionment;

- It is a theatre which always changes,
which breaths spontaneous improvisation
and cares scrupulously for tradition;

- It is in the vein of contemporary
multi-layered synthesis,
on the boundary of life and art;

- It is a theatre that works in an epic-intimate alloy
of tragedy and comedy,
of absurdity and naivity,
of cruelty and gentleness;

- It is a theatre which escapes
definition and the unequivocal
understanding of its actions,
as from attempts
to usurp its freedom.


Article from the SF Weekly
Slava's Snowshow: No dialogue, no plot, only miraculous and abstract moments on which to fix your own meaning
By Nathaniel Eaton
Article Published Apr 19, 2006

Russian-born Slava Polunin loves his theater "full of longing and loneliness, losses and disillusionment," so it makes strange sense that he has (deservedly) become a world-famous clown, is president of the Academy of Fools, and is the creator and heart of the sensational Slava's Snowshow. Sure, the show features some big shoe-in-the-face high jinks, especially during intermission, but it isn't focused on how many horn-honking clowns can fit into a little car; it's more about being steered through emotional extremes. Polunin is primarily interested in creating dream vignettes of wonderment, curiosity, and heartbreak, as when his small boat gets hit by an oil tanker or two lovers speak gibberish to each other on huge foam telephones. There's no dialogue or plot, only miraculous and sometimes abstract moments — such as a figure walking inside a glowing balloon — that allow the audience to superimpose its own meaning, while smoke machines work in overdrive and music from the far corners of the globe underscores the vision. The finale, which Polunin also performed in Cirque du Soleil's Alegría, is true heart-pounding astonishment. When the smoke clears and the gigantic balloons crash down, look for the old clown sitting unobtrusively in the audience like a quiet child, eyes aglow, watching the oblivious grown-ups gleefully bomb each other with snow confetti.