William Kentridge blends animation and ballet to confront Soviet tyranny
William Kentridge’s hour-long film *Oh to Believe in Another World* combines animation, puppetry and live dance with a live orchestral performance of Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony. Presented at the Baku international arts festival, it uses the music’s uneasy mix of fear, revulsion and grief to examine Soviet history, political idealism and the human cost of tyranny.
Masks and miniature sets bring figures including Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky, Mayakovsky and Shostakovich into a deliberately uncanny world, where dancers and models move between comic absurdity and tragedy. The film’s four movements include images of people targeted by the state, Nazirova dancing and Stalin shooting, before Kentridge’s hand enters the frame as the masks come off. The festival performance also marks the 120th anniversary of Shostakovich’s birth and recalls his reported unrequited love for Azerbaijani pianist and composer Elmira Nazirova.
In short
- William Kentridge pairs animation and dance with Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony.
- The film explores Soviet power, grief and idealism through masks and miniature sets.
- Its Baku performance marks Shostakovich’s 120th birth anniversary.
Explained simply
Dmitri Shostakovich was a Soviet composer whose career unfolded under a government that controlled cultural life and punished perceived dissent. His Tenth Symphony, written after Stalin’s death in 1953, is often heard against the fear and pressure of that period.
William Kentridge is a South African artist known for combining animated drawings, theatre and film. In this work, he brings figures from Soviet history into an imagined setting, alongside dancers and Shostakovich’s music. The piece also refers to Elmira Nazirova, an Azerbaijani musician who exchanged letters with Shostakovich.
The work connects political power and artistic life with the experiences of people caught up in state repression. Its mix of puppetry, animation, dance and orchestral music offers several ways to consider how Soviet history has been remembered.
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Originally published by The Guardian as “Oh to Believe in Another World review – William Kentridge’s amazing animated ballet of black comic pain”.