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Пишите “Discovering Andersen”
the festival is over, the celebration goes on
The project’s Expert Council included
- Honored Artist of Russia Viktor Chizhikov (creator of the Olympic Bear Misha),
- People’s Artist of Russia Oleg Anofriev,
- Boris Eremin, President of the Russian Chapter of the International Advertising Association.
The great storyteller Hans Christian Andersen was afraid of… children all his life. Not in a panic, perhaps, but he was wary of them. So, to overcome his natural shyness and even timidity before young mischief-makers, he began writing fairy tales for them.
Had he dropped in on 23 April at the Moscow Geological Museum for the festival named after him (April is when we celebrate his birthday), and seen the children in the hall and the Kremlin wall outside the window, he would surely have made friends with these youngsters with ease.
For a start, the show Discovering Andersen told his story in a fun and engaging way: the children eagerly guessed why he signed himself “Hans William Walter” (can you guess whom he named his pseudonym after?), and whether he could fly in a hot-air balloon and ride steam trains. Helping conscientiously from the audience (and sometimes throwing everyone off with wrong hints) was a well-known business consultant at RP Consulting and an even better-known member of the What? Where? When? club, Mikhail Levandovsky. Since the children often answered off the mark, Mikhail gave a master class at the festival to develop their creative thinking and teamwork skills.
In fact, the masters kept showing their class all day long. Olga Severskaya (leading researcher at the V.V. Vinogradov Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, author and host of the radio program Speaking Russian! on Echo of Moscow) explained that in Russian “to tell an Andersen” means to tell an untruth, to fib a little. Well, Andersen himself, in The Fairy Tale of My Life, advised young writers that if they must stretch the truth, it should be only a little. And so that young talents could write their native language correctly (Andersen himself famously made spelling mistakes to the end of his life), Olga Igorevna gave a master class too.
The legendary creator of the Olympic Bear Misha (hey, does anyone still remember the 1980 Moscow Olympics?), Honored Artist of Russia Viktor Chizhikov, carefully examined the exhibition of works by the contest’s participants and prize-winners and offered witty, professional comments on each winner of the drawing contest. For example, he gently scolded the author of my favorite entry — “the dog with saucer eyes” — for forgetting to draw the ears. A dog, after all, first pricks up its ears to listen, and only then opens its eyes wide.
The dazzling award ceremony turned into a master class by the maestro, to the delight of the young artists. The children never tired of learning the finer points of the craft, even though just an hour before the ceremony Regina Pokachalova, an artist and teacher at the Sergei Andriyaka School of Watercolor, had given them a special drawing master class.
As a reminder, the festival Andersen Gathers Friends (like the whole Andersen ForeVer project) was organized by the Social Investments Agency, the Russian Board on Books for Young People (founded by Sergei Mikhalkov) and the Russian Performing Arts Foundation. The contest jury was co-chaired by Viktor Chizhikov, Oleg Anofriev and Valery Vorona, whose signatures appear on the diplomas received by all the contest winners.
Had he dropped in on 23 April at the Moscow Geological Museum for the festival named after him (April is when we celebrate his birthday), and seen the children in the hall and the Kremlin wall outside the window, he would surely have made friends with these youngsters with ease.
For a start, the show Discovering Andersen told his story in a fun and engaging way: the children eagerly guessed why he signed himself “Hans William Walter” (can you guess whom he named his pseudonym after?), and whether he could fly in a hot-air balloon and ride steam trains. Helping conscientiously from the audience (and sometimes throwing everyone off with wrong hints) was a well-known business consultant at RP Consulting and an even better-known member of the What? Where? When? club, Mikhail Levandovsky. Since the children often answered off the mark, Mikhail gave a master class at the festival to develop their creative thinking and teamwork skills.
In fact, the masters kept showing their class all day long. Olga Severskaya (leading researcher at the V.V. Vinogradov Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, author and host of the radio program Speaking Russian! on Echo of Moscow) explained that in Russian “to tell an Andersen” means to tell an untruth, to fib a little. Well, Andersen himself, in The Fairy Tale of My Life, advised young writers that if they must stretch the truth, it should be only a little. And so that young talents could write their native language correctly (Andersen himself famously made spelling mistakes to the end of his life), Olga Igorevna gave a master class too.
The legendary creator of the Olympic Bear Misha (hey, does anyone still remember the 1980 Moscow Olympics?), Honored Artist of Russia Viktor Chizhikov, carefully examined the exhibition of works by the contest’s participants and prize-winners and offered witty, professional comments on each winner of the drawing contest. For example, he gently scolded the author of my favorite entry — “the dog with saucer eyes” — for forgetting to draw the ears. A dog, after all, first pricks up its ears to listen, and only then opens its eyes wide.
The dazzling award ceremony turned into a master class by the maestro, to the delight of the young artists. The children never tired of learning the finer points of the craft, even though just an hour before the ceremony Regina Pokachalova, an artist and teacher at the Sergei Andriyaka School of Watercolor, had given them a special drawing master class.
As a reminder, the festival Andersen Gathers Friends (like the whole Andersen ForeVer project) was organized by the Social Investments Agency, the Russian Board on Books for Young People (founded by Sergei Mikhalkov) and the Russian Performing Arts Foundation. The contest jury was co-chaired by Viktor Chizhikov, Oleg Anofriev and Valery Vorona, whose signatures appear on the diplomas received by all the contest winners.