Lisa: It’s a fantastic piece.
At the start of this Zoom, you simply held for a minute as a result of there have been air raid sirens going off. How typically are air raid sirens going off at this level?
Alem: Now that Russia has began its focused assaults at Ukraine’s power and electrical energy infrastructure, we’re listening to much more of those air raid sirens.
Lisa: And you’ve got talked about prior to now that the kamikaze drones—this was a pair weeks again not less than—hit a playground close by.
Alem: Yes. So this was the day after our manufacturing really. Right because the play began, the air raid sirens went off. We did not go into the bomb shelter. We’ve already began; we’re simply going to proceed with it. And at that time, Kyiv hadn’t been hit for a really, very very long time. So issues had been normalized. There’s air raid sirens going and nobody’s going to the bomb shelters. Everyone’s sitting exterior and ingesting their espresso. And fairly actually the subsequent day was the primary time that the rockets hit Kyiv since starting of the full-scale conflict.
And it wasn’t too removed from our theatre both. First, it hit the intersection in entrance of one of many most important universities in Kyiv. Then, ten seconds later, it hit the opposite aspect of the park the place the kids’s playground was. And that is my childhood park. This is my favourite park in Kyiv. That week main as much as it, I used to be in that park each single day as a result of it is lovely within the fall.
I’ve seen pictures of youngsters taking part in round in these burnt tanks that had been left by the Russians, so it is like how life adapts to the brand new state of affairs.
I feel one of many causes this conflict is going on is that it is in our id to combat for freedom with our willpower and democracy.
Lisa: You converse so fantastically in regards to the actuality of what you are dwelling and what you as artists are doing to share these necessary tales.
Are there particular realities you want these of us within the United States to find out about?
Alem: There’s a number of disinformation on-line—manipulation and twisting of tales to manage the narrative.
This documentary play goes to be fully with none manipulation. There’s nothing political about it. It’s telling you the true accounts of why. It may assist folks perceive why Ukraine wants assist from the West and why Ukraine wants assist from the United States, as a result of that assist goes to avoid wasting these folks. There’s no proxy conflict. This is not a conflict between Russia and the United States. It’s nothing to do with NATO.
I do the work that I do as a result of I do not need folks to view Ukraine solely by way of the lens of trauma and conflict, however by way of the info that we’re inventive, we’re extremely courageous, we’re resilient, and it is inspiring. I’m always impressed, and I would like these within the United States to additionally really feel that method. I feel one of many causes this conflict is going on is that it is in our id to combat for freedom with our willpower and democracy. And I feel that is one thing the United States actually wants proper now, that power and that motivation to take their present political actuality into their very own fingers and combat for his or her future.
And Ukrainians had been profitable. We had been doing that, and that is the explanation why Russia was threatened, They understood that Ukraine is efficiently preventing and progressing and creating into a very free democracy, and that is a menace.
It can be nice for Americans to fulfill Ukrainians as the way in which that they’re. As resilient, courageous, and inspirational folks.