Forest. Mushrooms

2021 — 2024
Performance, 60 min
Permanent repertoire of Etude Theatre, St. Petersburg

A musical lecture on “The neuroeffects of mushrooms”, narrated in a whisper and performed by the “Tawagoto to sutikku” musical project. Music emerges through authentic self-made instruments crafted from artifacts found in the forest. The performance is accompanied by video art. The forest is presented as a complex symbiotic organism permeated with fungal mycorrhiza, rhizomes, and mushroom bodies. A visual walk becomes an act of self-immersion, where the forest mirrors the human body, and the mycelium becomes a prototype of neural networks, the connectome, and intellection. What begins as a lecture on neurobiology and mycology gradually transforms into a mystical musical revelation under the influence of music and video art.

Lecturer — Timofey Glinin
Video art — Anastasia Shubina
Music & performance — Alexandr Mashanov, Alyona Mitropova

Photos of the performance: Anastasia Shubina, Vladislav Kuchinskiy

Performances and Recognition:

• Since 2021, the play has been part of the permanent repertoire of Etude Theatre, Saint Petersburg.
• The play, as part of the project “Les” (“Forest”), was nominated for the leading theater award “Golden Mask” (Long List, 2022).