When art finances the Ukrainian army

In downtown kyiv, Marusia Ionova and Nadia Golubtsova went to the basement of Dakh, a theater school known to Ukrainians. As she plays some notes on an out-of-tune piano that sees better days, Marusia prepares to greet some of her students who will be rehearsing tonight an experimental choreography in the theater.

The course takes place in one of the crowded areas, in a small, very dark room that acts as a stage. While the young adults, all dressed in black, are busy installing chairs in the middle of the room, Mariusa selects jerky electronic music while Nadia gives some instructions for tonight’s rehearsal.

A passionate artistic performance for Marusia, who three months ago, when the war began, had to stop all his art.

” We didn’t know what to do for our country, our art, so we started writing a war diary. “

So, with Nadia, she turned this war diary into a play they wanted to stage abroad. To promote Ukrainian culture during the war and explain in an artistic way what its people were going through.

We researched some questions on the theme: what is a man, how can darkness not be absorbed during this war? But also simple questions, like what is love, what is hate? How can people far from war develop empathy? Deaths are not just numbers. So how do we get together?

Thus was born Man, question mark, an assemblage of music and theatrical performances against the backdrop of war and its deadly bombings. The show was shown a few weeks ago in Hannover in Germany and in Budapest in Hungary. Not without emotion for the two artists, but on their return to their land they took the full extent of the impact of their art on them.

In kyiv, a few days after this European escapade, Marusia actually decided to offer this show within the framework of a special one day event that he organized and baptized. Art as a weaponart as a weapon.

An event full of theater, music, creative workshops and visual arts that achieved unexpected success; the curious came by the hundreds.

This was the first cultural event since the start of the war and many spectators, we did not expect. Marusia remembered.

The show they designed for Europeans really captivated their own countrymen. The audience was crying and laughing, all together, and in the end everyone was standing and saying “Glory to Ukraine” and that gave us so much energyMariusa added.

Thanks to the success of the event, they raised money on ticket sales. Several thousand dollars, which may seem ridiculous in the face of Russia’s enemy, but donated to the Ukrainian army.

It is a way to take care of the people we love, if being patriotic is so, yes, it is a patriotic act. confession of Nadia Golubtsova.

The event Art as a weapon has never been appropriately named, according to him. Culture is a very powerful weapon, it is a matter of thought. When you fall, when it’s hard, when darkness absorbs you, the important thing is that you understand what you’re fighting for, not what you’re fighting for.he added.

For Mariusa, art is also a weapon of liberation. They can destroy our buildings, our houses, but they will never destroy what we call here in the Ukrainian language, our freedom, that is all that our country owns.

It was not only Marusia’s troops that gradually resumed its activities. Recently, kyiv Opera began to accept again the limited number of spectators for the performances Barber of Seville. A way of symbolically resisting the aggressor, letting him know that fear does not prevent them from having a normal life.

For their part, Marusia and Nadia will offer another day of cultural events in Kyiv in the coming weeks. It’s also another way to make well -known artists and art that is sometimes more confidential success.

Don’t immediately expect a very light and funny tone, Nadia warns. We wanted comedy to come after the tragedy, but we weren’t there yet.

In any case, perhaps not before the imminent liberation of their country, they believed in unity.

I hope that soon we can transform all this energy created by hatred and aggression into a new form of human consciousness and I think the last empire, Russia, will collapse., they express at once. Do you really think so? I asked them. Pffft, of course …they let go, as if they had wiped out Vladimir Putin’s country with a simple wave of the hand.

Too many Ukrainians are hoping to leave this dark little place in downtown kyiv, where these artistic performances have been made that have actually become weapons of widespread disruption in these times of war.