The theater intersects with the reality that exists outside its walls or denies it and creates its own; reflects life or refuses to reproduce existing narratives; draws from actual events and processes or tries to influence them. The theater is fenced off from the hustle and bustle of the outside world, or vice versa – it leaves the black box and becomes a place where there are no walls and no stage.
The art of theater, which uses fiction, imagination, and fantasy, is in one way or another in a certain relationship with reality. Both local, which concerns the life and working conditions of its actors and the specific context of creation, and global, in which there are distant cultural and geographical countries and events, invisible and therefore unknown social groups, the latest scientific research, and long-forgotten historical events.
We will talk with Yoanna Vikhovskaya, Roza Sarkisyan, Oksana Cherkashyna, and Dmytro Levytskyi about the interaction of theater with the socio-political dimension, the emancipatory potential of artistic practices, the shift of attention from the action behind the fourth wall to the interaction/actions of communities and individuals, who are traditionally the “audience”.
The discussion “Theatre and Reality” is the concluding event of the second season of the educational program the black box, which includes six lectures by theater actors from Ukraine, Poland and the Czech Republic and is dedicated to marginalized and understudied theatrical practices of socially engaged, inclusive and political theater in Ukraine.
Moderator – Lyuba Ilnytska, theater expert, critic, and co-curator of the Jam Factory Art Center opening program
Speaker(s):
Yoanna Vikhovska, playwright, theater curator
Roza Sarkisian, director
Oksana Cherkashyna, theater and film actress
Dmytro Levytskyi, playwright, director
Supported by
