In the play «XX Century. Ball» by director and choreographer Alla Sigalova, there is only one setting — a railway station — and almost no words. Plastic studies on iconic themes of the 20th century form a chronology of the century — from Chekhov’s *The Cherry Orchard* to the Millennium celebrations, through revolutions, wars, the «thaw,» Gagarin’s flight, the 1980 Olympics, the market, and the crimson jackets of the 1990s… Generations and fashions change, but time and again people meet and part: Lara and Zhivago, Isadora Duncan and… Alla Sigalova: «Since today we’ve already moved a little away from the 20th century, we want to return to it, rethink it, and remember it. To remember the images that defined our lives in that bygone century. Of course, there are many impressions; we had to choose and create a very concentrated story, without wandering off the beaten path.» This performance is an homage, a gesture of love and respect to those people, that music, that era."
«The 20th Century. The Ball» is the most ambitious production at the Moscow Art Theatre. It features more than forty actors and 500 costumes. Moreover, for the first half of the performance (up to the 1950s), the costumes were created by the artist Maria Danilova, while in the second half, the actors use items that are witnesses to the era, collected by the fashion historian Alexander Vasiliev.
