Let the Body Speak

Let the Body Speak is a joint project of the Ukrainian Contemporary Dance Platform (Kyiv, Ukraine) and The Place (London, UK). It involves the launch of a digital hub of Ukrainian dance videos on a YouTube channel, workshops, lectures, and discussions, as well as the presentation of new works created during the educational programme.

The main idea of the project is to document the somatic experience and preserve visual evidence of the processes taking place in Ukrainian contemporary dance after 24 February 2022.

The project offers Ukrainian choreographers and dancers, who continue to work, an online platform to showcase and archive their work. To date, 140 artists have joined the video archive. Video submissions will be accepted until the end of the war.

Let the Body Speak also promotes the collected materials to Ukrainian and international audiences and spreads knowledge about the Ukrainian dance community to international viewers. 

Another component of the project is the educational programme, which consists of workshops on drama, composition, experimental dance, and site-specific performance; lectures on project management and the mechanics of participation in residencies and festivals; and dance technique classes. In total, the project included more than 25 activities for 320 participants. The recordings of the educational programme can be viewed here.

“For me, participating in this project is an opportunity for my work to be seen not only by my subscribers and students. Video dance is what I am doing now and what interests me now. Because after 24 February I was in a creative and psychological block, I didn’t know what to do. Then our dance school in Kharkiv was bombed, and the question arose whether my dance was needed at all”, says Yulia Hryshyna, dancer, performer, teacher and director of Holy dance school (Kharkiv). 

“At first, I joined the educational programme, planned my time and chose lectures. Then I came up with the idea of a dance film, and when I found out that it would be possible to publish it on the YouTube channel Let the Body Speak, I decided to shoot it. I also applied to participate in the preparation of a work-in-progress performance. Throughout the project, I received a lot of motivation to do creative work,” comments Svitlana Oleksiuk.

The interim stage of the project was the presentation of three work-in-progress dance pieces to an international community of producers, curators, and theatre managers. The event was held online on March 28. It featured:

• Bohdan Polishchuk – Danse Macabre, examining how death has changed Ukrainian society.
• Tetiana Znamerovska – Who are we, explores collective psychological trauma from catastrophic events that affect entire Nations.’
• Julia Lopata – Kosachka, celebrating female warriors and the women who choose the fight for freedom.

On 14 and 15 April, two evenings of performances under the Let the Body Speak project took place at the Les Kurbas Lviv Academic Theatre. Read more about the event here.