Mikhail Borisov: "Azerbaijani temperament helps in work"

A year and a half ago, the head of the stage direction department of the Boris Shchukin Theater Institute, Mikhail Borisov, told to Vestnik Kavkaza about the creation of the Azerbaijani studio. Then he was going to Baku to find students and entrants. "I hope that the whole of Baku will know that we are taking students to the Vahtanogvskaya School: students who will graduate from our institute and return to Azerbaijan and will pour fresh Vakhtangov blood into the Baku theaters, both national and Russian," Borisov said then. See Mikhail Borisov: “The best theater university in Russia establishes an Azerbaijani studio”

Recently, the second-year students of the Azerbaijan studio of the Boris Shukin Theater institute took an examination on acting technique. Backstage, their artistic director Mikhail Borisov shared his impressions of the previous year’s events with Vestnik Kavkaza.

- Mikhail Borisovich, how does the first Azerbaijani studio work today?

- We have 15 students - there are students, who we found in Azerbaijan, there are Azerbaijanis who joined us in Moscow, there are Russian students as well. It is a friendly international team. We fell in love with each other so much that, probably, we will go to Baku to work there, if they give us a theater or accept us to some theater.

- How did the idea of ​​the Azerbaijani studio come about?

- It originated in Azerbaijan. The idea was born among students from Azerbaijan, who are studying here, as well as among the employees of ministries, who brought this issue to the state level. An agreement was reached between the states, between the university and the Ministry of Culture. The administrative part of the work was done very quickly and very professionally.

-Does Azerbaijani temperament help in work?

- Of course, it helps. Temperament in theater is a fundamental matter. And here we have the oriental temperament - people are getting excited very easily! 

- How do you assess your students?

- They follow the path that our college has been following for more than a hundred years - in 2014 we celebrated the centenary of the Boris Shukin Theater institute. We are moving forward, assimilating the experience, it is only the first semester of the second year. The work on the image, excerpts is awaiting for us ahead. With God’s help, we will stage graduation performance. I hope we will please the Baku public, when we come and show what our students have learned here.