In childhood, everything seemed large: trees, houses, and even the yard where friends gathered to play "Cossack robbers." We were looking forward to the summer holidays. Firstly, because there was a whole three months ahead of food, when you can sleep, go to your grandmother to the village or to the country, spend the whole day lying on the couch in front of the TV, watching the unchanged “summer set” from Adventure Electronics "," Secrets of the Third Planet "and the Australian cartoon" 80 Days Around the World. " Secondly, because during the summer holidays all childhood dreams came true and incredible plans were being made, the implementation of which we sincerely believed and most of which remained untouched: to build a raft and rafting down the local river in the company of Vovka, Dimka and Valerka, read a bunch of program books set for the summer, plus a couple for myself - “The Headless Horseman” or “Captain Blood Odyssey”, to teach a lesson to Vaska from a neighboring yard so that he does not pull “our” Lenka’s braids . Thirdly, in the summer even parents sometimes had a whole month of vacation, and you could go somewhere south together, enjoy a swim in the sea, eat fruit, get a “patented” tan and completely sun-whitened hair, pick up exotic shells and water from the water colored pebbles ...
As we grew up in classmates, it became clear to us that for such a short and quickly ended summer we turned out to live a whole small life with its joys and sorrows, broken knees and new acquaintances so cool (because they knew how to play the guitar) as counselors from the pioneer camp and a host of other impressions that will be presented on paper in the most boring essay in the world on the theme "How I spent the summer" ...
If in the early 1990s, local Emirati children were asked: “How did you spend the summer?”, The answers would probably be “Helped my father”, “As usual, at home” or “The whole family went to Europe” . And in 1998, there were smart people (from the team of the organizers of the traditional Dubai Trade Festival) who decided to hold the Dubai Summer Surprises children's festival, guided by only one goal - to enable local children and their parents, as well as everyone who was from He left the country with pleasure and fun in spending the days of summer school holidays, which begin here from mid-June.
Today, the children's summer festival is as well known in Dubai and beyond its borders as the shopping one, and so that these festive months are at least somehow different from each other, “Dubai Summer Surprises” were divided into a dozen thematic weeks for organizing and conducting each of which is responsible for a particular state department, with the support of private sponsors. From year to year, weeks of "Culinary surprises", "Ethnographic surprises", "Flower surprises" and the theme week "Back to school" are held. Each year, new themes are added to the traditional themes that do not give the festival program something to eat. The most favorite in the Emirates are “Ice surprises”, for which special snow and ice towns (under the roof) are being built, colorful ice shows, ice sculpture competitions and much more are held. Within each festival week, one or more records for the Guinness Book are recorded. As a rule, this is either the largest ice cream cake, or the longest hot dog, or the largest portion of spaghetti or traditional Indian food - biryani. There was also the largest chair or bicycle, and even the most hefty ... mattress.
But, it seems, and this is not the most important thing. It is very important that during the “Dubai Summer Surprises” parents get a temporary respite when professionals take up the matter of educating their beloved children. Previously, during the Soviet Union and the ubiquitous houses and palaces of pioneers and schoolchildren, such people were called Methodists or entertainers. They could and could do everything - played folk instruments, sculpted clay toys and embroidered with a cross, taught children and adolescents communication skills with the team and instilled in them a whole bunch of necessary and useful knowledge and skills. After practicing for a month or two with such teachers, the child could build models of planes that flew, saw the shelves in the kitchen with a jigsaw and loudly “sing in chorus”.
In Dubai, all these joys with pleasure and during two and a half or three festival months are provided by the "Modhesha Entertainment Town" located in the halls of the Dubai International Exhibition Center, exhibitions in which are not held in the summer. The mass-entertainers in it are proudly called animators, but the essence of this does not change. They hold contests and quizzes, play outdoor games with children, watch films and theatrical performances with them, teach them everything in the world in various kinds of creative workshops. In a word, "Entertainment Town" is an exemplary Palace of Pioneers with all the consequences ... And Modhes? This is the name of the cheerful yellow character, which is a symbol of the summer children's holiday and smiles at you everywhere - from billboards, streets and squares of the city, T-shirts and postcards, caps and boardwalks of shopping centers.
And on the main stage of Gorodok, artists from around the world perform, but perhaps the most vivid and interesting theatrical performances with circus elements and special effects delight us Russian artists. They have been brought to Dubai to participate in festivals for more than 10 years by Tatyana Entertainment, led by Tatyana Frederick. We still don’t know what kind of show will come under the patronage of this company for the current “Dubai Summer Surprises”, but I really want to say a few words about young artists who performed every day at another festival stage.
We are talking about a stunning and unusual theatrical performance "Magic Toy Store", which took place during the Dubai Trade Festival-2007 in the amphitheater of the World Village (Global Village). In this store, a real Wizard could revive toys that, together with three little girls, saved the world from the invasion of computer viruses. Bees and frogs, Pinocchio and a half-white half-moon from the cartoon "Ice Age", along with other fairy-tale characters, sang and danced, performed complex acrobatic numbers, juggled and walked on their hands. Light and airy moths drove good water on rollers, and huge exotic birds aroused only sighs of admiration. Colorful costumes, wonderful sound effects, laser special effects, music and easy communication between the artists and the audience kept the audience in suspense from the very first to the very last minute of the show. The smallest so empathized with the heroes of the fairy tale that they were ready, together with her persona, to jump onto the stage to fight Evil. But, as it happens in all good tales, "ours" won. Together with the children, the “Adult Toy Store” returned for a short while and adults, who, as it turned out, had not forgotten anything and remained in their hearts guys who believe in miracles.
Tatyana Frederic and her employees have been inventing, directing and sponsoring for many years, so this is an amazing warmth and a sense of celebration that we lack so much in everyday life. It’s also very pleasant to realize that all the performances are made at a high professional level, and even the young actors, despite the weight of their costumes (all the puppets of the show are full-size) and the complexity of the tricks, do not allow the audience to feel a “hal tour” for a minute or the opportunity to see your own fatigue. These performances with the participation of both children (many of which literally "grew up" in them and now play "big" roles) and adults give us the very feeling of summer vacation that arose only in distant childhood, when it seemed that three summer months - it’s a chasm of time, and that everything will work out, and much will succeed, and that summer is a small life. Easy, fun and so carefree ... Meet me at the festival?
/ Elena Olkhovskaya /
