A Culturologist Rose Lee Goldberg, who has written an authoritative history of performance art, provides evidence of the existence of this creative instrument since the Renaissance. Time has honed methods or techniques, but the performance has secured such components as open creative space, free artistic flight, the union of skill and improvisation. Have you ever tasted an action where authors and viewers communicate in real time? The guests of the Ars Teteriv Stage were lucky: the collaboration of Olga Kebas, Serhiy Dyshlev and Serhiy Vilka, which combined modern choreography, music and vignetting into a performance called “Controversial Territory”, left the audience space for reflection. The authors of the action shared with us their thoughts on their work, art and the future of the festival
Serhiy Dyshlevy, media artist
“I came to vijing, working with projections, graphics, and in general what is called “generative art”, immersive interaction with the audience through the combination of music, sounds and skills of professional programming, because my main professional activity is related to development Software. In this expression, in vijing, technical and technological converged with the creative component”
“As a media artist, I take part in large-scale theatrical productions and various performances. In particular, I work in the field of visual support, 3D-mapping, interactive projection and interaction with them. In the performance “Controversial Territory” all available technical achievements and own skills are used to the maximum – here I can fully develop. Since performance is a time-limited action, the action must be more expressive and dynamic. And it’s not even about speed or time. This is primarily about the dynamics of internal movement”
“For me, the Ars Teteriv Stage is an opportunity to express artistic creativity through technical and technological means, an approach to creating another dimension, augmented reality through projection. Now, as an artist, I lack a single platform or festival that would take place more than once a year or season. What is missing is an event that could be a platform for artists of different faiths to come together. In my opinion, Zhytomyr needs it”
Olga Kebas, choreographer and performer, teacher of modern dance at the College of Choreographic Art “Kyiv Municipal Academy of Dance named after Serge Lifar “, a curator of performative programs
“I have always been interested in new directions. Theater, different body practices and dance styles, performance – all this is in my experience and forms a single creative history… In performance, as in modern dance, the presence of the artist in the moment “here and now”, the feeling of space around, communication with the viewer as part of this space and the reaction to what is happening. Communication with the viewer is possible at different levels: verbal and nonverbal, emotional, physical, more or less contact. In the performance “Controversial Territory” my story is plastic, not fixed. There is a theme, a structure of performance, ideas for the embodiment of ideas through movements and images. But the story is formed in its entirety directly in this space at this moment and with those spectators who are here. There can be no two identical performances”
“I do not often visit Zhytomyr, but every time I notice how the city is changing. And, although I have not seen the city as a whole, I see a beautiful and cool Mykhailivska, which is very different from the area where we enter Zhytomyr. New highlights of the city are emerging, one of which is the “Cultural Space”. There is a wonderful atmosphere that inspires to create, people are open and willing to co-create, ready to do what they have not done before. Together we go to common thoughts, ideas”
“Recently, I’ve been thinking about the question, ‘What is development really?’ For example, we see how fast technology is evolving. But these technologies can be used for different purposes, they can both help and destroy. I came to the conclusion that development is the ability to think differently, the search for a new point of view, way of thinking, perception. Events such as the Ars Teteriv Stage set you up for trying to find something new for yourself, get new experiences, develop”
Serhiy Vilka, composer, multi-instrumentalist, conductor, author of symphonic and chamber music
“For the third season I have been conducting the orchestra of the Zhytomyr Academic Ukrainian Music and Drama Theater named after Ivan Kocherha and for the second year in a row I am teaching at the Zhytomyr Professional Music College named afterV.S. Kosenko. I decided that I could be useful in the city, to share the modern approaches that I received during the performances abroad, in master classes. For me, festivals are interesting because they call the slang word “move”. It’s always a “fan”. Such things should be done exclusively “by the fan”, because the history of the festival allows us to unpack our gray everyday life, paint it with brighter colors. In my opinion, it is Ars Teteriv Stage that can do this. I see a request for cultural events, it remains to satisfy this request, to give the audience, the audience an art product, and at the same time not to lower the bar of those standards with which I have been working for quite some time”
“Everyone loves statistics. And if you look at the numbers, how much the state invests in academic art today (I use this definition here as an antonym for the concept of “show business”), there is something to think about. At one time he was amazed when in 2019 he visited Wroclaw as a member of the Warsaw Autumn Festival as a member of one of the national ensembles. Our rehearsal base was located at the Karol Lipinski Academy of Music in Wrocław, where a concert hall was built with grant funds. Unfortunately, I have not yet seen anything that can be adequately compared. Our national pastime remains – “to feel sorry for ourselves”
“I want to see the perspective of the festival, because the ideas that underlie it are relevant, modern, resonate with what is happening around. I would like people to understand that the contemporary cultural and artistic context is much broader than our certain ideas about it. Therefore, recourse to European and American practices is very appropriate. Sometimes it seems to us that we know everything, we are the best in everything and everything works out for us. And then you see, it’s fifty years late! Therefore, I would like the Ars Teteriv Stage festival to live and be a pillar of the avant-garde in the city, which can shift the current artistic context”
Reference Ars Teteriv Stage is an initiative of the NGO “Art League” and is implemented with the assistance of the Department of Culture of Zhytomyr City Council within the financial support of the comprehensive target program “Cultural Space of Zhytomyr City Territorial Community”.
