News March 2008

From 17th to 22nd of March International festival of student theaters of show miniatures "Student jokes - 2008" was held in Zaporozhye. During several years, this festival has been conducted under patronage of Bloc of Yulia Timoshenko. The general partner of the festival is Zaporozhye automobile building plant. Amateur and professional performers of Ukraine, Russia, Belarus participate in the show of laugh, humor and fun. 5 teams of representa-tives of Zaporozhye institutes, 4 teams from Russian student theaters of show miniatures (STEM), 3 teams from Byelorussia and by 1 team from Kiev, Lvov and Kharkov performed student jokes on Zaporozhye stage. There are 16 participants from different countries. Performances of teams were evaluated by the honored artist of Ukraine Victor Andrienko, Vasiliy Bendas, actor of "Maski show" Vladimir Komarov, the Russian actor Igor Pismenniy, script writer Alexandr Pugachev, script writer of TV channel "Inter" Oleg Zima, Director of Zaporozhye Municipal Theater of Dance Larisa Neverova and art director of Horse Theater on the Khortitsa island Oleg Grigoryev. All members of jury worked during three days of the festival in the assembly hall of Zaporozhye National Technical University. The first team was our old friend from LPI STEM "Uragan". By the way, this team is author of new hymn of the Festival. The festival revealed the brilliant teams such as STEM "Vernisazh" from Grodno city (Byelorussia) and STEM "FOPF" from Dolgoprudniy city (Moscow region). STEM "SanTekhElectroMontazh" from Gomel' city (Byelorussia) and STEM ZNTU "Budilnik" showed the excellent performances as usual. It seemed that opening of Festival and three competitive days and gala-concert have never been so funny! It is possible that the reason was anniversary mood: founders of festival - Zaporozhye National Technical University and Zaporozhye Regional Committee of Youth Organization - held this humor festival in Zaporozhye for the 10th time. Students and their theaters show high class in the 10th anniversary festival "Student jokes - 2008". Audience is sure that there are a lot of fun and good performances in the festival. Word for word The chairman of Board of CJSC "ZAZ", deputy of Zaporozhye Regional Council from Bloc of Yulia Timoshenko Nikolay Yevdokimenko: - We support Zaporozhye National Technical University for the 10th time. We know that the leisure of young people is very important. Students, who played in STEM, are the most active and energetic specialists with interesting thinking. They are perspective creative employee including in our plant. They are all-rounders! The People's Deputy of Ukraine (Bloc of Yulia Timoshenko) Valeriy Krayniy: - The Festival is supported by the respected people of Zaporozhye. From the beginning ZAZ supported organizers of such good action. All actions in STEM - humor quality, team work - are rejoiced me. It is better than KVN. It is not a commercial show. It is real creative work! The Head of Zaporozhye National Technical University, deputy of Zaporozhye Regional Council from Bloc of Yulia Timoshenko Sergey Belikov: The Festival has started in Palace of Culture of ZAZ ten years ago. Now it becomes international and respected festival and confirm historical sense of Zaporozhye regarding humor: from Kozak's jokes to the modern humor festivals. Please note that now there is no any election campaign but the party supports such good action. Script writer, actor Alexandr Pugachev, member of festival jury: The Festival has difficult history. It started as "Zaporozhye usmishki" and has been held during about 10 years until the beginning of the 90s. In 1998 the festival was reanimated but slightly in other form. And today it is already 10th festival of renovated series. One time per year audience has possibility to see different type of humor depending on geographical and time factor. For example, somebody of jury noted that there were several jokes regarding credit on the festival. We could not think ten years ago that the credit could be as humor subject. There is one difficult factor that STEM does not stipulate evaluation by points. I think it is more important evaluation and analysis of performance by the judge. And, of course, it is very good when one person forces other one to laugh!