New Year’s Celebration of the Arts Studio
within the Hermitage School Center

On 27 December 2003 the traditional New Year’s celebration for pupils in the Arts Studio of the School Center took place in the Hermitage Theater. This was a fancy-dress theatrical performance in which about 100 children took part. Some two months went into preparing the children and their parents for the masquerade, including selection of the hero of the show, creation of costumes, writing the script and rhymed texts, and study of their subjects while visiting halls in the museum. The principal hero of all six short sketches was the Hermitage and its collections.

This year the smallest, five-year-old artists portrayed heroes of fairy tales on the stage. The theme for the performance of the next age group was gods and heroes of Ancient Greece. The following group of children presented the gods of Ancient Egypt, while the fourth group enacted scenes from an exhibition of Chinese culture. The two remaining groups played heroes from art works by masters of Italy and France.

The audience consisted of close relatives of the young actor-artists, invited friends, and senior staff of the museum. Both audience and performers were pleased with the colorful fancy-dress show.

Participants
of the show

The fancy-dress performance in the Hermitage Theater

Young actor-artists