The Performative Laboratory is a space for research, experimentation, and interaction between artists seeking to expand their practices. This research and practical art project involves not only the creation of a new cultural product, but is focused primarily on finding an artistic language that can meet the needs of wartime.
The project involves the creation of a cultural and artistic product – a performance, but through a long laboratory process, which allows performers to expand their knowledge and practices during workshops and lectures by Ukrainian and Finnish professionals in Lviv and Kuopio. The procedural component of professional development and international mobility of Ukrainian artists is as important as the final product.
As part of the lab, five performers will take part in two lab sessions in Lviv and Kuopio (Finland), facilitated by Satu Herrala, a Finnish dance and choreography curator, and Nina Khyzhna, a Ukrainian director, choreographer, and performer. Based on the workshops and practices of the laboratory sessions, the team will create a performance that will be presented at the Jam Factory Art Center in late October.
Lecture by Inna Falkova “Bodies Testify. Bodies Communicate”
Everything that happens to us, or that we witness, leaves its marks on our bodies. Our bodies are carriers of information. When we observe the bodies of people in everyday life or on stage, we receive information—whether consciously or unconsciously. War leaves its marks and writes its history on the bodies of people. It is visible. The body performs it.
This event took place as part of the performative laboratory “Lab for Ukraine.”
The team and the participants
Curators: Elisa Itkonen and Liuba Ilnytska
Mentors: Nina Khyzhna and Satu Herralla
Participants: Ukrainian performers Sofiia Sliusarenko, Oksana Leuta, Anastasiia Lisovska, Yaryna Shumska, and Nataliia Mazur.
Premiere of the “In One’s Sight” Dance Performance
We need the gaze of others to affirm our existence and validate our experiences, whether they are simple daily joys or large-scale challenges. Likewise, it is crucial for us to witness the experiences of others.
Through dance and play, the artists of the Lab for Ukraine project explore how the gaze shapes the image of those being observed, making them real.
In their collective movement, the performers test the properties of a collective body representing a society undergoing massive radical events. It documents reality, integrates complex experiences, responds to images of war, and bears witness to what can only be felt when physically immersed in this reality.
Performance team
Director: Nina Khyzhna
Composer: Alyona KOMA
Set and Costume Designer: Dasha Chechushkova
Performers: Sofia Sliusarenko, Oksana Leuta, Anastasiia Lisovska, Yaryna Shumska, Nataliia Mazur
The performance is a continuation of the work of the Lab for Ukraine performative laboratory, which took place in Lviv and Kuopio (Finland) in collaboration with the Jam Factory Art Center and the ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival.
Information about the partner
ANTI is an international contemporary art festival held annually in September in Kuopio, Finland.
The festival has been organised for over 20 years and is Finland’s leading live art event. Live art is an umbrella term for innovative performance art that includes artwork that is performative, participatory and embedded in the present moment. At ANTI Festival, new forms of art, the urban culture, and reaching a variety of audiences meet educational and research-based perspectives. In 2023, the festival reached around 9,000 visitors in Kuopio.
At the festival, the works of artists from around the world take over public and private spaces in the city, including homes, shops, market squares, companies, business premises, forests and lakes. The audience and various communities get to be incorporated into the works of art in their everyday environments – both in creating and experiencing the art. We are proud to support a growing group of up-and-coming artists and are often the first to bring international attention to them.
In addition to the festival, ANTI is a versatile art organisation whose work also includes facilitating art and the work of artists around the year thanks to various partnership projects.
Lab for Ukraine is a joint project of the ANTI Contemporary Art Festival (Kuopio, Finland) and Jam Factory Art Center. The project is co-funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture Finland. The project was implemented with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation. The position of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation may not coincide with the opinion of the project authors.
Partners
