Sergei Ostrenko

His creative work is the synthesis of the Russian Theatre School and the newest experiments in performing arts. Ostrenko has vast directing experience in different genres.

He has dedicated many years to the exploration of world theatre traditions working with performers from different countries and cultures.

International theatre projects under the artistic guidance of Sergei Ostrenko took place in different countries: Austria, Belarus, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Russia, Slovenia, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. Ostrenko has directed himself over 50 theatre productions, has been an artistic director in international joint art projects, has been a jury member at dance competitions for around 10 years, has been teaching at universities, has held hundreds of international educational workshops focusing on performance making, physical theatre, choreography, acting and directing.

His approach in the international scene is known as the effective method of growing cohesion and the creation of live performances within limited rehearsal time. Students of Ostrenko, theatre workers from Russia, Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australia, have been using his creative method in their own performance and teaching practice.

Sergei Ostrenko's first education is in Fine Arts, he has started his career in theatre as a stage designer. When he began his career as a theatre director, the first profession had a huge impact on the directing of Sergey Ostrenko. His performances are very picturesque and permeated with grace. He made his debut as a theatre director in 1986 with Gogol's "The Government Inspector" at the professional repertory theatre in Russia. Since then, he has been directing from 1 to three performances each year at professional theatre companies in different countries. Since the end of 1990s, Sergei has been travelling and researching traditional and contemporary performing arts techniques - Contact Improvisation, Kinetic Environment, Structural Improvisation, techniques of Alexander, Laban, Butoh, Suzuki, Pilates, Viewpoints, Eugenio Barba's approach, Chinese Opera and Mak Yong. And, of course, the fundamental education Sergei Ostrenko has in the methods of K.Stanislavsky, Vs. Meyerhold and M. Chekhov.


Sergei Ostrenko started to teach students since 1988 at different institutes of higher education - Latvian State Conservatoire (Riga, Latvia), Latvian Academy of Culture (Riga, Latvia), the Latvian branch of Russian Academy of Theatre Arts (GITIS), Rosebud School for the Arts (Rosebud, Canada), the University of Calgary (Calgary, Canada) and others.

There are only a few highly-professional people in Europe who specialize in Physical Theatre through a prism of Russian Theatre school tradition. We consider that Sergei is one of them.

Since 2000, under the vision and inspiration of Sergei Ostrenko, the group of enthusiasts established an organization that aims to explore and promote the world's performance traditions and contribute to the exchange of artistic ideas in the modern world!