Multimedia poetry from Orbita 4

Orbita formed in 1999 when Latvian poets Artur Punte, Sergey Timofejev, Semyon Khanin, Zhorzh Uallik, and Vladimir Svetlov, who write in Russian, got together to establish a "text-group." The mulitimedia project entitled Orbita (The Orbit) birthed from these roots starting out with readings in clubs, city squares, and even a small ship, from locations spanning Riga, Moscow, Minsk, Stockhom, Prague, Leipzig, and New York. In 2000 the group produed a CD titled O2 and in 2001 they held a poetic video festival, Word in Motion. Orbita 4 was released as a poetry CD+DVD in 2004. The audio CD is a collaboration with a variety of musicians from Riga, Moscow and St. Petersburg. The DVD is compiled works of Latvian artists from two video festivals and new videopoems from Orbita and partners. Orbita's website is www.orbita.lv.

Semyon Khanin was born in Riga, Latvia, in 1970. He is the author of two collections of poetry in Russian, Tol'ko chto (2003; Just now) and Opushchennye podrobnosti(2008; Missed details). His poetry has been translated into Latvian, English, Czech, German, Italian, Swedish, Estonian, and Ukranian. He is a participant in the literary project Orbita and editor of the almanac by the same name.

Sergej Timofejev is a Latvian russophone poet. He has published three books of poetry in Latvia in bilingual editions. In translation into other languages, his work has been published in eight European countries, including Italy and Spain. He is a member of Orbita, a creative collective of Latvian poets and artists, and also works as a Riga-based journalist, translator, and DJ. He is interested in letting poetry cross borders with other media such as video, photography, and radio. He has also written librettos for two operas and published two books for children.