So far, we’ve offered our work fourteen occasions in eight completely different cities. Our largest and most prestigious efficiency but was final Friday, 2 December on the Millennium Stage on the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. At every efficiency, we held a talkback with the viewers, which helped us to develop our work additional. In addition, we gave visitor lectures at Chatham University, University of Pittsburgh, and the John David Mooney Foundation on Ukraine’s Executed Renaissance. Our undertaking will proceed on to Cannonball Festival in Philadelphia, Point Park Playhouse, City Theatre in Pittsburgh, and at last on the Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) convention in New York City, with a five-day run within the Gural Theatre from 11-15 January, 2023.
The Frontlines: Cultural vs. Physical
Life throughout energetic conflict is like dwelling in parallel realities, parallel universes; and typically so are our rehearsals. Not solely do we’ve completely different mother-tongues, we additionally converse completely different theatrical languages. Some days the one factor holding us collectively is our sense of widespread goal. Then there are moments when somebody is affected by deep grief, one thing that she can not even put into phrases. And there may be Lili, who has now spent greater than half of her life in an intensive theatre residency. Thanks to her, we’ve all skilled early maternity. Every day holds one thing sudden, and as a gaggle, we adapt.
So typically in occasions of conflict, tradition can also be at stake.
This is what energetic conflict looks like: life as typical till it’s not anymore—after which we return to no matter we are able to. Working with a child helps us with this, as Lili is ignorance and pure life-force. No matter what occurs, we should carry on dwelling so long as we’re nonetheless alive.
When group members really feel responsible concerning the privilege of dwelling and dealing in America whereas family and friends members endure elsewhere, we reassure ourselves by reminding ourselves that we’re combating, too: on the cultural entrance.
But what are we combating for? We stay centered on our widespread purpose of sparking curiosity about Ukraine and Ukrainian tradition, however what we struggle for is completely different for every collaborator on the undertaking. Olesia says, “for a very long time, foreign voices spoke for Ukraine. Now we’re changing it.” For me, it has turn into clear that we’re combating for the rights to transmission, evolution, stability, and place. The proper to exist and to create. The proper to a historical past, a Ukrainian historical past. For Yuliia, combating is about “continu[ing to be] able to love and to dance even into the jaws of the beast. And maybe this dance will kill him. That is what being a fighter means.”
For Maksym, it wasn’t straightforward to depart Ukraine. As a person, he felt like a traitor, like he ought to be a Ukrainian “hero,” a soldier combating on the frontlines. But Maksym is a delicate soul and a strong actor. As a human being, he has the flexibility to the touch an viewers. He may do quite a bit for the way forward for Ukraine by selling Ukrainian tradition—by encouraging American audiences to study extra about Ukraine, and much more importantly, by dwelling and carrying that tradition ahead to future Ukrainians.
In early October, the bodily entrance referred to as Maksym again. At the start of this undertaking, we have been in a position to attain particular permission from the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture in order that he may depart Ukraine to take part in our undertaking regardless of the army draft for males. However, he not too long ago obtained discover that he needed to return to Ukraine earlier than 4 November. His request for extended depart at some point of our undertaking was denied. On 30 October, he flew again to Warsaw, Poland, and over the past month, we rewrote our efficiency with out him. During talkbacks, we now have an empty chair—a reminder that this conflict continues to assert Ukrainians’ lives and cultural group.
Culture is meals, which is dependent upon the land. Culture is widespread expertise, which is dependent upon shared place of dwelling. Culture is language, communication, and group. So typically in occasions of conflict, tradition can also be at stake. The extermination of Ukraine’s cultural renaissance reduce off the blood move of tradition within the Nineteen Thirties, and russian propaganda has repeatedly tried to maintain Ukraine, notably jap Ukraine, from rebuilding that tradition. Nearly 100 years in the past, all artists and intellectuals have been assassinated and hundreds of thousands have been starved, leaving no lecturers behind. What is Ukrainian tradition right now? Where does it stand? What can we do to avoid wasting what’s left and assist those that are nonetheless alive rebuild and evolve? Slovo. Theater Group exists to place ahead one concept, one undertaking, one technique to stand for Ukraine.