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Autumn Costume Ball in Sholokhov-Centre

Coincidentally, in the passing Year of Russian Cinema we mark the 110^th anniversary of Sergei Gerasimov, a film director, who in 1941, the 100^th anniversary of M.Y.Lermontov, filmed his drama “Masquerade”; and holding an all-Russian campaign “Night of Arts” coincided with the run of the exhibition “I was Happy Here…”M.Y.Lermontov. Life and Work” in Sholokhov-Centre of the Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov.

The interlacement of these events and dates determined the theme of the musical and literary evening, and the Museum invited guests for the autumn costume ball “From under the Mysterious Cold Half-Mask…”

On 5 November, in an old mansion, where Sholokhov-Centre is located, candles were lit and music started for the ladies and gentlemen wearing masks to be taken back to the Romantic era.

The costume ball was opened with a polonaise. This dance can be called a ceremonial procession for ladies to meet their gentlemen. It was followed by popular country dances, polkas, mazurkas, quadrilles and waltzes changing each other and making an emotional and sound world of Lermontov’s work. Particularly “Polka of Three”, cotillion “Shesteryonki” and “Cotillion for Three” were danced several times in a row.

During the intervals between the dances the guests were shown fragments of the film “Masquerade”, a drama written by M.Y.Lermontov in verse, which S.Gerasimov translated into the language of cinema.

The costume ball program was full of surprises: show dances by the guests from Novocherkassk and Krasnodar, forfeits, ballroom mail, burime and heartfelt poems by M.Y.Lermontov… The most active participants received presents from the Museum; however they remained unrecognized.

We hope the guests of Sholokhov-Centre were brightly impressed by the costume ball which took them back to the XIX century.

Yuliya Baboshkina