Blizzards and clowns and balloons, oh my!
Prepare for a once-in-a-lifetime theatrical adventure this November, as the multi award-winning Slava’s Snow Show comes to York for the first time.
Audiences will enter Slava’s “snowy world of dreamlike wonder”, in the immersive show that culminates in a blizzard.
The clowns of Slava’s Snow Show recently visited some of York’s most iconic landmarks…Take a look at the video pictures below to see what they got up to.
YorkMix sat down and chatted with Vanya Polunin, the son of show creator Slava Polunin, who has performed in the show since he was seven years old.
We spoke with Vanya to find out more about the art of clowning, how the show helps adults connect to their inner child, and why after three decades audiences still need it.
Slava’s Snow Show is at the Grand Opera House from Wednesday 19 to Saturday 23 November. Tickets start from £15 and are available via the theatre website.
Q&A with Vanya Polunin
What can audiences expect when they come and see Slava’s Snow Show?
The short answer would be, they’ll first get confused, then they will laugh, and then they will be a bit surprised, and then they will get sentimental, and then literally blown away.
The show is a mixture between scenes of joy and absurdity. Everyone’s usually confused in the very beginning, they have no idea what’s going on, because it’s a different kind of genre. It’s clown, but it’s not your classical circus or TV clowns that you expect. So in the beginning, it’s very, very strange, but then you get to know the characters, you start to follow the story. You start to care for the characters, and by the end, it gets very, very sentimental. We catch the breadth of emotions that you can have – that’s why it’s been alive for 32 years.
Have you always had a love for performing, or did that love grow through doing it your whole life?
I think it came from first how fun it looked – as a kid, if you see adults have more fun than you do, you want to join in and play around with them on stage. With time, obviously that grew into the respect for the art form and then the joy of when you have 800 to 1000 people in the audience respond to what you’re doing with smiles or crying. It’s infectious – when we’re not on tour, we miss it. Even though tours are sometimes long and you get tired, whenever you’re not on stage, you miss it.
You’ve been to so many places around the world – is this your first time in York?
It’s the first time in York for me and first time in York for Snow Show. All I know about York was some images that I saw, and I’m excited to come back with the show and to walk around the old streets and find out what the audience is like here – because the audience is different everywhere.
How does it feel to potentially be people’s first experience of seeing the art form of clown on stage?
We sometimes get this comment after the show, ‘I had no idea what I was going to see’. People come to the show not knowing what it is, not knowing what the genre is, or what they even are going to see, without expectations. And I think it’s the best way to see the show. Clowns have been around for ages, but in the last few decades, some may have gotten a bad rep because of cinema or scary clowns. So you do have people sometimes who are afraid of clowns, but happily or luckily, when they see our clowns, they were surprised that they weren’t scared.
The show is very immersive – what’s it like seeing the audience’s reaction to those fun elements of the show?
I say we have two performances: we have the show where the audience is watching us, and then we have where we’re watching the audience.
First of all, a clown without an audience cannot perform. People ask us, do we rehearse a lot, or do we practice? And I say it’s pointless for a clown to practice without an audience, because it needs the reaction. It needs the conversation. So we always pay attention to the audience. We try to find the eyes that are interested and then you start pushing the show towards them. The more they enjoy it and laugh, the more people around them do too.
Once we finish the show, there’s a whole finale of us just hanging out on stage and watching the audience play with the snow and the balloons. So we watch the audience for 20, 25 minutes, and that’s our time to be an audience. The whole reason you want to be an actor is to see the reaction of the audience – otherwise I’d be in cinema.
The show is perfect for anyone of all ages – but if you’re an adult watching do you get to experience that feeling of childlike wonder again?
Kids will love it, but I think adults are the ones that really need it. For kids, it’s their world of fantasy and make believe. But I think a lot of adults with work and all the problems that they have, this is a little getaway to reconnect with their child-self and get back to what really matters. By the end of the show, they’re pushing the kids away to get more snow!
What’s the cleanup process like after the show?
Luckily it’s not us. The biggest comment we see in the videos of the snowstorm is ‘the poor person who has to clean this all up’. But luckily it’s not us….
You’ve been in the show for 30 years – do you plan to stay for the next 30 years?
As long as people need it. Clown was always throughout the ages like the doctor of the soul. You have a physical doctor for the wounds, but the clown – or any kind of art form – was always a solace during times of turmoil. Whenever there’s something bad, people turn to art. So as long as people need this show, I think we will do it. I know I’m not going to get tired – if I didn’t get tired after 32 years, I’m not going to get tired of longer. The show always evolves, it’s different every night. For us, it’s just a lot of fun. And when it’s real fun that we’re having on stage, people feel it, that’s what is contagious.
Why should audiences come and see Slava’s Snow Show?
I think it really doesn’t matter who you are, if you have kids, if you have a family, you can bring a date to the show. We’ve had stories where people came to the show on a first date, and then they came back the next year, and they’re married, and then they come back the next year with their first child. We’ve had people do proposals, we’ve had people come alone and then be completely surprised, and when everybody leaves the theatre they’re standing there alone, kind of still in the world, and not wanting to go back into the real world. Even if you’re not sure you want to see the show, if you have somebody who has been down or not feeling too great, bring them. I think it’ll be a nice surprise for both.
