Musician and performer Federica Rosellini brings to the stage Ivan and the Dogsby the English playwright Hattie Naylor, a play nominated for an Olivier Award in the “Outstanding Achievement” category. A tender yet desperate solo performance, an intimate and personal soul-searching, yet one capable of recounting the childhood we all share.

Moscow, the 1990s. Boris Yeltsin’s Russia is a country on its knees, where poverty empties homes and frays family ties. Ivan is four years old and lives with a fragile mother and a violent man who, blinded by vodka, wants to get rid of him. One day, the boy puts on his heavy coat, slips two packets of crisps into his pocket and runs off into the city’s freezing cold.
Thus begins a fierce and moving odyssey, told like a dark fairy tale: amidst hostile streets, hunger and loneliness, Ivan finds refuge in a pack of stray dogs that welcome him as one of their own. In that makeshift community, the boy discovers a new chance of survival, but also an unexpected form of love and belonging.
Alone on stage with her electronic equipment, Federica Rosellini transforms the story into a sonic and physical experience. Her mother’s recorded voice in Russian intertwines with melodies, lullabies and rhythmic beats, whilst body and word sketch out an intense and visionary emotional score.