"Like writing history with sand"

The basic tool of the animator is imagination – drawing skills and a skewed sense of proportions comes second. The animator understands that no thing in nature is immutable – shape, size, and nature change over time and space. That is a constant and - for those who are open enough to appreciate it (the number who are wary and afraid of change isn’t small) a beautiful - process. And what more apt way to animate than use sand – an ever-potent symbol of time and transformation.

Sergey Nazarov enthralled us as the wiry mane of an old wise man suddenly became the everflowing waves of the sea, as the creepy vine by the lonely window overlooking two lovers on the beach turned into a girl’s long hair, as solar systems evolved – the table with its sand was a world of its own, Sergey the little child whose imagination transformed things as he wanted.

What an idea, Sergey!

(Thanks to Mukti 2010 organisers for the experience.)

Videos of Sergey performing: 1, 2, 3, 4. (The NITD performance has been recorded too, but the video is not up on youtube still.)

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Talking of animation, cartoons have always been close to me. One of the best animated films I have seen is Walt Disney's 1929 production - The Skeleton Dance (download). In the words of Eisenstein, it is Disney's infantile imagination that makes Skeleton Dance so wonderful.