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Cops on Fire: The True Story

Category: by sasha pas, guests, music, russia, theatre
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(Läsningstid: 4 minuter)

The Cops on Fire-story started more than a year ago. One evening I met my friend Sasha Kholenko (DZA) in the 16tonns cafe in Moscow, the club where DZA together with how2make-crew made concerts and gigs during the time. He told me about one of his projects, a radio play based on a detective story about cops and killers. The play included more than 30 hip-hop tracks, each track was a short episode in the play. DZA made all the beats and loops for that project called “Cops On Fire”. He asked if I want to meet the other guys in the project, and make this on stage and not only on radio.

So, why did he ask me? At that moment I was working with the theatre group  “Le Cirque de Sharles La Tannes”. In 2005 we staged The Crystal World, a short story by Victor Pelevin. The interesting thing was that all the music for The Crystal World was composed by another member of how2make-crew, the talanted electronic musician Roma Litvinov (Mujuice). It felt like a good chance to make another experiment with how2make-crew on stage. But now with hip-hop.

So we started to work…

We had however no budget. So by the time we had the idea of how it could be on stage, we started search for sponsor. We thought we needed more or less 8000$ for the whole production. (Finally it costed more than 10000$). But we failed to find any sponsor. Probably we didn’t try hard enough. Everyone was eager to start the production and rehearsals as soon as possible, and to search for sponsors are a rather boring work. So we, me and my partner, Jury Kvyatkovsky (the director of “Cops On Fire”) invested our own money. But many helped. One of our friends proposed us a studio for the rehearsals, another found some costumes, another made the decorations on credit. And in September last year we had a call from S:t Petersburg and they invited us to the Sergey Kuryokhin Festival. We agreed and had only two months to finish everything.

The premiere in St.Petersburg was very sucessful. Even though we didn’t like the technical result – the place was a cinema but we prefer a theatre. The audience loved it though. Directly after that we started to work with the Moscow premiere and tried to make it in the best possible way. After several months of working it seemed as everyone finally started to believe in what they were doing. The premiere in Moscow got only one negative comment and that was that we used to much slang and bad language in the play, and we have now cut some of those.

However, the most interesting thing with our project is that we, subconsciously, have made a very social and actual project. In Russia there were several scandals connected to the police last year. There where for instance a shooting at a supermarket by a Major Evsukov and a video message for Medvedev. Our story is opposed to real life with the most fair cop. He is a true social order keeper. He spares no effort to put his vision of what’s right and what’s wrong into practice. Still there are very few comments from theatre audience about this connection.

“Cops on Fire” gives two shows every month in Moscow at the theatre centre “Na Strastnom”. In June it will be the 10th show in Moscow. Each time the house is full. About 3000 people have seen the show so far. In May “Cops On Fire” gave a live show on “TransMusicales” festival, and in September we will take part in international theatre festival GOGOLFEST in Kiev, Ukraine. And we have also started a film project….

…to be continued…

Cops on fire at facebook

Sasha Pas is art-director of Le Cirque de Sharles La Tannes – an independent creative group of actors, directors, musicians and artisits, based in Moscow, Russia. In past recent years – editor and founder of 55 pdf magazine. Now works as a creative producer of Cops On Fire project.


viewpoint-east.org recommends: Five-Finger Discount by DZA

Category: by sophie engström, music, recommendations, russia
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(Läsningstid: < 1 minut)

I highly recommend the latest release by Sasha DZA at Error Broadcast. (For a regular reader of viewpoint-east.org DZA surely do not need an introduction, but you can refresh your at myspace or read my interview with Dza in May, when he just returned from RBMA in London, or an interview (in Swedish) with Dza and Mujuice from 2008.)

The release at Error Broadcast

Sasha DZA, the how2make frontier, has with Five-Finger Discount created an unique album which unpredictable beats that will accompany a wild, wild summer. At least I will let this beautiful creative madness ring in my ears all summer long… and probably much longer than that! I highly recommend you all to purchase the lossless audio, which you find below the free download. Keep creativity like this live!

Dza – Shifty by DZA


Dza in London at RBMA

Category: by sophie engström, music, russia
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(Läsningstid: 2 minuter)

The annual Red Bull Music Academy in London has just finished and one of the participants was Sasha Dza, the how2make frontier that previously been highlighted here at viewpoint-east.org. So I connected to him, in London, to ask about impressions from the two weeks long experience at RBMA.

Dza – † Dance With Me ( preview ) by DZA

Sasha Dza: RBMA is a really heavy and nice experience for all participants. Every time, when I’d meet some one who has been a participant at RBMA before, they have told me to remember only one thing, Get a lot of sleep before academy! Because while you are there you will not get any sleep in two weeks!. And that was really true! Every day implies intensive studio work, lectures and live chatin’ with famous musicians like Hudson Mohawke, Roots Manuva, Busy P, Dj Zink, Marco Passarani, FlyLo (Flying Lotus) and many more.

It was also very cool to collaborated with another participants, such as Ad Bourk, Homeless Inc., Los Macuanos, Nando Pro and Hudson Mohawke. This guys gave me crazy energy and new inspiration!

RBMA has finished last week, but I have stayed in London for a few day to enjoy new places, museums and people.


Photo: Dan Wilton