East European Performing Arts Platform (EEPAP) supports the
development of contemporary performing arts (dance and theatre)
in 18 countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
DESANT: Theatre Laboratory in Ukraine, 1st session – “Director Director-playwright-dramaturg: creating the message”, Plyuty, August 2014
DESANT – Theatre Laboratory in Ukraine – 1st session, Plyuty, 18-24.08.2014
International Summer School „Director-playwright-dramaturg: creating the message”
Міжнародна літня школа «Режисер – драматург – “dramaturge”: Формування ідеї»
The Summer School conceived and conducted by EEPAP (as part of the Desant educational project by EEPAP) and the Kyiv-based independent organization Theatre Platform took place in Plyuty near Kyiv between 18 and 24 of August of 2014.
Among 18 participants of the Summer School (selected from 40 candidates on the basis of the applications) there were theatre directors, playwrights, academic teachers, theatre curators and critics from different parts of Ukraine: Kyiv, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Simferopol, Lviv, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Oleksandria, Pryluki, Cherkasy. The lectures and workshops were conducted by Marcin Cecko (PL), dramaturge, playwright and performer; Joanna Wichowska (PL), theatre critic, dramaturge and curator; Valeriy Mamontov (UA), dramaturge who used to work with the renowned Ukrainian directors: Andriy Zholdak and Dmitri Bohomazov. Pavel Yurov, young Ukrainian theatre director, actor, founder of the “DramPortal” project also visited the School as a guest and moderator of the discussion “The role of the artist in the time of turbulences”.
During a week of work the group heard lectures on dramaturgy in contemporary European theatre, watched fragments of performances by Krzysztof Garbaczewski and Marcin Cecko, Oliver Frljić, NeedCompany and others, created original texts and concepts of performances/installations/plays, and discussed the cultural system in Ukraine and the possible strategies of changing it.
The very recent experience of mass protests in the Kyiv Maidan and the current war in the East of Ukraine was inevitably present in the work – sometimes as a painful background of the texts written by participants, sometimes as a main topic of very heated and sore discussions. How can artists and intellectuals reflect on these events? Are they obliged to do it? Should they wait until any kind of distance will be possible? Obviously, there is no one or easy answer to these questions. But it was clear for all of the participants and trainers that we need to use the opportunity of being together to question the old forms of articulation and examine the artistic process of creating the message itself.
The Summer School was the initial stage of the Theatre Laboratory organized as part of the DESANT educational project in Ukraine. DESANT has been carried out by the East European Performing Arts Platform (EEPAP) since 2012 and is addressed at artists, critics and theoreticians of performing arts in the Eastern Partnership countries. The DESANT activities are rooted in local reality and related to a specific socio-political context; they combine workshop elements with theoretical reflection and are created in close cooperation with partner organisations.
The activities of DESANT in the years 2013-2015 took place mostly in Ukraine. This choice naturally followed from the need to continue projects initiated in previous years, but first and foremost was a response to the socio-political situation in Ukraine and specific needs signalled by our partners. The events of the 2013/2014 Ukrainian Revolution, the subsequent annexation of Crimea by Russia and the war in the east of the country made the need to cooperate with Ukrainian artists all the more pressing. All involved curators and artists were acutely aware that the critical situation in the country requires deep reflection, a confrontation of views and ideas, a joint action to reform social and cultural life, a dialogue between artists, theoreticians and audiences from various regions of the country.
Consultations with EEPAP Ukrainian partners and co-organisers led to the decision that DESANT activities should take a form of an intense laboratory work to increase the effectivity of the meetings and increase their impact (also in time). In accordance with these guidelines, a series of workshops carried out in previous years was followed in 2014 and 2015 by the thematic working sessions of the International Theatre Laboratory.
The Laboratory does not aim to treat the participants as students, or passive consumers of knowledge. Instead, it engages them in the realisation process of specific artistic projects. Working groups formed during the meetings work on specific performative projects to be presented later in public and independent institutions in different regions of Ukraine. The most important aim of the cyclical meetings is to facilitate joint intellectual work that could assist in finding alternatives for the anachronistic and oppressive theatrical system that dominates in Ukraine; to develop new models of artistic and organisational action and to foster creative and theoretical reflection on current events.
Participants: Artemiy Anischchenko, theatre director, director of the “Mrij Dim” festival (Pryluky, Chernihiv region); Olena Apchel, theatre director, lecturer at Kharkiv State Academy of Culture, documentary theatre researcher (Kharkiv); Ihor Bilyts, theatre director, founder of actors’ studio BilytsArtCentre (Kyiv); Sashko Brama, playwright, theatre criticism student (Lviv); Iryna Garets, playwright, founder of Poltava Theatre Laboratory (Poltava); Den Gumennyi, playwright, journalist, (Kirovohrad–Kyiv); Liubov Ilnytska, literary manager at Les Kurbas Theatre in Lviv (Lviv); Liudmyla Kyrylenko, film producer, screenwriter (Kyiv); Tetiana Kytsenko, playwright, journalist (Kyiv); Yulia Maslak, theatre director, lecturer at National Karpenko-Karyi University (Kyiv); Ihor Matiiv, theatre director(Donetsk); Oles Pavliutin, theatre director (Cherkasy); Uliana Roj, theatre studies lecturer at National Lviv University (Lviv); Anton Romanov, theatre director (Simferopol, Crimea, currently a refugee); Rosa Sarkisian, theatre director (Kharkiv); Margaryta Shyn, theatre director, author of social projects (Oleksandria, Kirovohrad region); Vira Yakovenko, film director, screenwriter (Kyiv); Valentyna Yeremenko, theatre director (Kyiv).
The Summer School in Plyuty was meant as a first stage of long-term work. The next phases are planned to be realized in Kherson (in the cooperation with Centre of Youth Initiatives “TOTEM” and Kherson Regional Department of the Sociological Association of Ukraine) and in Lviv (together with Art Workshop Drabyna and Drama.UA festival).
The Summer School was supported by Polish Institute in Kyiv, ЦДАМЛМ – State Archive-Museum of Literature and Art in Plyuty, and “Lisod” hospital in Plyuty.
Curator of EEPAP educational projects: Joanna Wichowska
Coordinators of the Summer School: Viktor Sobiianskyi and Iryna Chuzhynova (Theatre Platform)
Producer: Daria Odija (EEPAP)
photo: Theatre Platform:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.557944880995318.1073741834.422803717842769&type=1
photo: Uljana Roj:
https://www.facebook.com/uliana.roj/media_set?set=a.10204474815808680&type=1
Some images can be found here.
