Rector of GITIS Zaslavsky noted Yukhananov's ability to make people fall in love with him

Director Boris Yukhananov was such an experimenter who knew how to fall in love with himself and was open to the public. This opinion was shared with Izvestia on August 5 by the rector of the Russian Institute of Theater Arts (GITIS) Grigory Zaslavsky.

According to Zaslavsky, Yukhananov influenced the Russian theater with his fact of existence and his performances, forcing everyone who was engaged in theatrical art to take into account his experience. The interlocutor noted that back in the 1980s, when the director was a student at GITIS, he enjoyed great prestige among his classmates.

"His first performances rallied around him a group of like—minded people who became his students, a large number of viewers, critics who saw in his experiments the seriousness of talking to the public, the search for a new theatrical language, a new way of educating an actor and the existence of an artist on stage," said Zaslavsky.

According to the theater critic, Yukhananov was one of those experimentalists who did not shut themselves off from the general public, but on the contrary knew how to fall in love with themselves.

"Running the state theater, he did not turn it into an experimenter's cave, which does not allow uninitiated people into his laboratory. <...> Yukhananov managed to use extra—budgetary funds to turn the Stanislavsky Theater into the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre, which has become one of the most modern and equipped theater venues in the capital," Zaslavsky emphasized.

The rector of GITIS also pointed out Yukhananov's contribution to the training of teaching staff for theater universities, who could then teach actors and directors. His creative workshop "Mir", according to Zaslavsky, had a proven successful experience over the years.

"Every meeting with Yukhananov is a meeting with a visionary who sees through time. Every time I had the feeling that he <...> knows when the current era of turbulence will end, when we will return to some more familiar existence in life, not only in the theater," said Zaslavsky.

In addition, the theater worker noted Yukhananov's patriotic qualities.

"He had never been with rabid liberals, and in these new circumstances, he was with us, he was here, it was fundamentally important to him. This distinguishes him from many others who knew how to spend budgetary and extra—budgetary funds and, in difficult conditions, instantly defected to the enemy," Zaslavsky summed up.

Dictator of beauty: choreographer Yuri Grigorovich has died

The outstanding choreographer staged his first ballet at the age of 20

Yukhananov's death at the age of 68 became known earlier that day. Later, the press service of the Stanislavsky Electrotheater reported that he had died due to a long illness.

Film director Alexei German said that Yukhananov was a focus and a beacon for Russian art, around which talented people always gathered.

All important news is on the Izvestia channel in the MAX messenger.