page_title: Slava Polunin
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Slava Polunin / Biography / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Slava Polunin at Russian Film Week USA in December 2019
context_page_description: Vyacheslav Ivanovich “Slava” Polunin PAR is a Russian performance artist and clown. He is the creator of the stage spectacles Asisyai-revue, Slava's Snowshow and Diabolo.
context_section_description: In 1968, Polunin started the pantomime theater, Licidei (Russian for "mummers" or literally "people who make faces"). 
  In 1981, his first very successful television performance took place on the New Year's Eve program Goluboy Ogonyok (Голубой огонёк). It was a part of his now famous Asisyai-revue.
  In 1982, in Leningrad he organized a mime parade in which more than 800 mime artists from the Soviet Union took part. It was an unheard of event featuring semi-underground artists at a time of strict Communist control of all artistic events.
  In 1985, during the Moscow World Festival of Youth and Students he organized a master class of pantomime attended by many Western mimes.
  In 1987, Polunin organized the USSR Festival of Street Theatres (Всесоюзный Фестиваль Уличных Театров); more than 200 participants, including critics and children, lived on an uninhabited island in the Gulf of Finland and made short excursions by boat to the nearby city of Leningrad.
  By 1988, Licedei had created five highly successful shows: Dreamers (Фантазёры), Eccentrics on the attic (Чурдаки), From the life of insects, Asisyai-revue and Catastrophe. The members decided to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the theater with its funeral. The events included funeral speeches over multiple coffins labeled with the names of the participants, followed by a funeral procession with the coffins through the streets of Leningrad. Then the coffins were set aflame and floated down the Neva river. Despite the theatrical style of the performance, it was indeed the end of the theater. The participants believed Konstantin Stanislavski, who stated that any theater dies after it has existed for 20 years.
  In 1989, Polunin organized The Caravan of Peace, in which mimes from different parts of the world were on the road for half a year giving street performances in many European cities. Later, he started the Academy of Fools, the center devoted to the "resurrection of the carnival culture in Russia". The project was started with Polunin's own money, but when the money was spent, the project was frozen. In 1994, Polunin declared that he would make a few commercially successful shows in the West and then return to continue the work of the Academy with the money earned. Among the shows he organized were the highly successful Slava's Snowshow (Снежное шоу) which has been a hit in over 80 countries, and Diabolo devoted to "comical meditation on life, death, and the beauty of the universe".
  He has earned many prestigious awards including Gold Angle (Scotland), Gold Nose (Spain), Triumph (Russia) and the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Entertainment (1998).
  Polunin voiced a character in the Russian animated feature film Gofmaniada.
caption: Slava Polunin at Russian Film Week USA in December 2019
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "7952", "Image ImageLength": "5304", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "ILCE-7RM3", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "350", "Image YResolution": "350", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 21.0 (Macintosh)", "Image DateTime": "2019:12:07 17:24:26", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 3, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, ... ]", "Image ExifOffset": "404", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1306", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4033", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/250", "EXIF FNumber": "63/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "3200", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF RecommendedExposureIndex": "3200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0231", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2019:12:06 18:03:55", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2019:12:06 18:03:55", "EXIF OffsetTime": "-04:00", "EXIF OffsetTimeOriginal": "-04:00", "EXIF OffsetTimeDigitized": "-04:00", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "995723/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "331919/62500", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "1991/640", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "85/16", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "240", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "7952", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "5304", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1180", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "240", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[24, 240, 7/2, 63/10]", "EXIF LensModel": "FE 24-240mm F3.5-6.3 OSS"}