Your new project gives women who have been victims of war a space where they can talk.
For several months I have been working in a workshop in Warsaw with a group of 21 women affected by the nightmare of the war in Ukraine and the oppression of political persecution in Belarus. And with those who gave them shelter in Warsaw. I also work simultaneously with Ukrainian ethnomusicologists in search of what the war is unable to touch - the tradition of the living voice and Ukrainian singing. The paradox of this war is that thanks to it we penetrate so deeply into the culture of Ukraine.
The CHORUS is for me and the group of women I work with a tool to look at the defense mechanisms that war activates in us, a tool for recovering memory, but also voice and language. But not the voice of women as victims of war, but on the contrary - as its protagonists.
The transgenerational ensemble consists of women aged 8 to 71. They come from Kiev, Sum, Irpen, Kharkiv. They are survivors. They are refugees. They are witnesses of violence and bombings.Those who fled with their children to Poland, Warsaw, or other cities in Europe and beyond - want to speak today, use the power of their voice to name what is unnameable.
One of them, Natalia, brought to Warsaw - only one thing that she wanted to save from the war. Bandura, a traditional Ukrainian instrument that she did not want to leave to the war. This instrument is a symbol of the power of the voice and the power of women. The libretto of MOTHERS and the spectacle for the time of war, which we create together, will begin with a song, which is an old ritual, a song - a wish for prosperity, life and rebirth. It's about finding together what's alive in the rubble. In a meeting, in the CHORUS.
You have been working with your form of political CHORUS THEATRE since some time. How this idea started?
The chorus is an ideal medium for evoking the political, in the Greek sense of the term, that is, the place where subjects that concern citizens are discussed, in other words subjects related to the State. In its very form, choral speech carries a strong political dimension. I’ve been working with CHORUS THEATRE, for several years now. I began my research in 2010 at the Theatre Institute in Warsaw, where I had the freedom to experimentally explore this form. This allowed me to create the new alphabet for the CHORUS, new kind of text, libretto, the new vocal/ body training to actors and actresses and to attempt an artistic exploration which resulted in 2019 in the creation of the Political Voice Institute (PVI) at the Berlin Maxim Gorki Theater. The first performance born from this research, in 2010, was THIS IS THE CHORUS SPEAKING only six to eight hours, only six to eight hour in Warsaw, which we then presented in many different countries around Europe. It was followed by MAGNIFICAT in 2011, a play about how Catholic church usurps power over Polish women’s bodies which we notably performed in France in 2015, at the Grande Halle de la Villette, Le Maillon Strasbourg, Lyon Festival, Marseille and others. Most often, I need to bring people together for research workshops. What matters isn’t the age, gender, artistic experience or path of life of the participants, but the fact that they have all experienced antagonisms, or armed conflicts. Chorus entered places that are difficult to reach, political hotspots, or war zones. In Israel, I brought Israeli and Palestinian women and children together with Israeli soldiers. I was working in the biggest Romani ghetto in Europe in Slovakia or in Poland during major conflicts around our Constitution. This time, I’m working with women who’ve experienced exile, who’ve become political refugees.
This female chorus is perceived as comforting and restorative by an entire community.
I see work on the chorus as a huge laboratory of PRACTICES FOR COMMUNITY TRANSFORMATION. It’s not a place for representing reality, but rather for showing the reality in monstrous condensation. The chorus was originally designed as a communal and redeeming practice for society, and predates theatre. That practice is necessary to question the issues that arise in society, it’s an indispensable tool of catharsis. The chorus is the ideal place for expressing mechanisms of conflicts that exists in societies. By bringing together individuals from all paths of life, the chorus expresses a collective intelligence that spans generations and allows us to imagine the unimaginable. I try to connect my work with this life force that exists in the chorus, which defies annihilation. It’s about plurality, about a place where we can share tools, tell stories and practicing what connects us all.
Does Mothers, The Song for a Wartime then become a song of hope?
Right from the start, the practice of the chorus began with the feminine. A community of women who transmit intergenerational voice and wisdom. Women gathered and sung to heal communities, bring people together,give hope but and also to reveal what is the most difficult, unspeakable. Mothers, The Song for a Wartime attemps to reconnect with the primary purpose of the chorus: the sanctification of the preciousness of life, guided by this desire for healing. The great power of the chorus lies in building together, which is the exact opposite of a repressive system. That’s why this new project brings together Ukrainian women in exiles who have found refuge in Warsaw, Poland, fleeing war and persecution with their children. Whatever work I undertake with choral theatre, the aim is always to reflect on the most difficult and challenging socio-political events in our reality, and to provide a new voice, an language, and a different visions of both History and individual stories.
Mothers, The Song for a Wartime references popular songs like shchedrivkas, as well as poetess Lesya Ukrainka, among others…
Shchedrivkas are songs sung by women and children to welcome the arrival of spring, and to celebrate the renewal of nature. These ritual songs dating back to pre-Christian times were sung around villages: women and children entered houses to offer their song to each person and family, in order to wish joy, health, and a prosperous future. They believed that their words would come true, both hopeful songs and curses, and change the course of things. The musical part of the project is important to me, it reflects the richness of traditional Ukrainian songs, which are primarily life-affirming songs, celebrating life, trees, birds.
Nursery rhymes, lullaby”s and the poems for children found by Ukrainian poetess Lesya Ukrainka play a central role as well. The chorus in MOTHERS speaks, weeps, whispers, and sings the poems and testimonies mixed with contemporary political statements. Everything is happening between music and language.
War becomes the central subject of any political thought.
There is no History outside of war – as Brecht said. The subject of war and holocaust is something I’ve been preoccupied with for years. When I directed M(OTHER) COURAGE in Germany, I was struck by how contemporary the play still felt. War In Ukraine has been happening for a year and five months now. A war which perhaps disappears from our field of vision from time to time. So at a time we need practices brought by the CHORUS. We need theatre of new forms of solidarity. We know that civilians and women are the first victims of wars, we know that wartime rape is something that society don’t speak about… The work of the Chorus is to show what tends to be buried or hidden. Today, 30% of women are active in Ukraine’s war effort. I wanted both to reveal those assigned roles and give them voice, so we can finally hear their positions, whether they accept or reject those roles they have been given for so long.
Interview conducted by Moïra Dalant and translated into English by Gaël Schmidt-Cléach