Marius Kurkinski holding a candelabra on stage during The Cage of Theatre

Y-3 x Marius Kurkinski: Inside The Cage of Theatre

There are collaborations that exist for the photograph, and there are those that exist for the stage. At the end of May, ALL-U-RE presented “Клетката на театъра” (“The Cage of Theatre”) — an exclusive mono-spectacle drawn from “Мариус 50”, performed by Marius Kurkinski at Toplocentrala in Sofia, and born from his collaboration with Y-3.

Marius Kurkinski on the bare concrete stage at Toplocentrala, Sofia

The wardrobe

Kurkinski selected his stage wardrobe himself from the current Y-3 collection — Yohji Yamamoto’s long-running dialogue with adidas, and arguably the only sportswear label an actor of his register could wear on stage without irony. The logic of the pairing is obvious once you see it: Yamamoto’s oversized black tailoring, cut to move and to shadow the body rather than announce it, belongs to the same discipline as Kurkinski’s theatre — nothing decorative, everything in service of presence. On a bare concrete stage set only with boulders, black satin and a candelabra, the clothes did what Yamamoto has always intended them to do: they disappeared into the performance.

Marius Kurkinski mid-performance, close-up, The Cage of Theatre

Draped figure on stage with Y-3 cap, The Cage of Theatre set design

Marius Kurkinski receiving a standing ovation at Toplocentrala

The evening began in the garden of Toplocentrala, mirrors and Y-3 among the trees, and ended with the audience on its feet. Between the two came an hour in which fashion and theatre stopped being separate categories — a reminder that a garment is at its best when it serves the person inside it.

Guests at the Y-3 x Marius Kurkinski garden reception, Toplocentrala