Theater “Dakh”

Address: Chervonoarmiyska street 136, 529 4062

by Kathrin Singer

I don’t know if it happens to you as well. Sometimes I want to do things but postpone it again and again. This happened to me the last three years here in Kiev with one theater. Many times I saw articles in the newspapers about a small Kiev theatre with the name “Dakh”- a strange place, where you have to reserve tickets but don’t need to pay, where you have to take off your shoes when you visit a performance. I was intrigued but never really understood from the description where the theatre was. Finally on a dull Saturday afternoon in November 2006 my husband and I decided to find it. The theatre “Dakh” is on Chervonoarmiyska street, in a not very attractive big building from the 70th, opposite Metro Station Libidska, behind a small door. It took us some time to find it because there was no sign, no advertising at all. The first performance we saw in November was the program of the music group of the Theatre “Dakha Brakha”, an Ethno Band - so good, so exceptional that we became instantly big lovers of the theatre.

The repertoire of the theatre “Dakh” is very diverse. They perform plays by Gogol and Dostojewskiy. But the beauty for all foreigners is that some of the plays like “Richard III”, “King Lear” or “Prolog Macbeth” are played without any words. They are extraordinary performances, a mix of ritual, choreography and music. The theatre group of director Vladislav Troitsky performed successfully “Prolog Macbeth” last month in London’s “Barbican”. The play was also very well reviewed by the English press. Troitsky focuses on the essential, archetypal elements of the play to create a highly ritualistic piece using dance, masks and music to tell the story in an almost trance-like atmosphere. I can promise: It is completely unlike anything you have ever seen and I strongly recommend watching the group here in Kiev. It is just the right place and atmosphere. In April they will perform the “Prolog Macbeth” on the 25th and 26th with the Ethno Chaos Group “Dakha Brakha” (Their music is already available on a disc here in Kiev. They will release their first album in London this year). “King Lear” will be performed on the 27th and 28th. You can find the program on the Internet site: www.dax.com.ua.

The Centre of Contemporary Arts was founded in 1994 by Vladislav Troitsky.
It is the only private non-commercial theatre in Ukraine.

What does it mean to be a non-commercial theatre in Ukraine? Is it an independence from state’s control in artistic policy or an independence from a support, financial or analythical? These questions require an illumination of many aspects, concerning both theatrical management and artistic activity. Perhaps, this is a condition of theatre functioning models, its aesthetics and its methods of the creative work.

During ten years of “DAKH” activity (using the methods of probes and mistakes) a strong tendency of developing theatre and artistic style of its director – Vladislav Troitsky have being formed. This is, in a way, an aesthetic message of the new theatre generation. It is the experience of the so called “dynamic synthesis” of acting and producing methods and stylistic forms of the stage realization. And one of the main spaces helping such an investigation is a space of the Ukrainian musical tradition, an attempt to give it a new life in new theatrical forms.

An actor always has been the main value of a theatre. What kind of an actor is the actor of the “DAKH” theatre? It is a creative individual which made his conscious choice to do theatre – a territory of art and spiritual self-realization. The main criteria is professionalism whether the actor has or doesn’t have an official diploma. It is an actor who in the “DAKH” arts and educational program followed master-classes of the traditional and experimental theatre leaders: realistic theatre of Ogloblin, text theatre of Lysov, psychological, intellectual and mysterious theatres by Yukhananov, intellectual clownade by Bilchenko and the so called “zero” ritual by KLIM. And he synthesizes this experience in the neo-baroque aesthetics of Troitsky. It is a person who acts out of passion but doesn’t earn his living on it and even patronages in the art. This last particularity is very important because it determines the artistic and civil position of the contemporary artist. This position is not to exist and create in the hermetic experimental space but to be open to life in all its circumstances, to be successful in artistic and business carrier and use the tension between them to form the art’s message. The actor becomes an Actor not due to the techniques or a comfortable life condition but, first of all, thanks to his developed consciousness what is opened to the spiritual measure of life and routine. The modern social and cultural situation demands a special kind of an Actor – “all-rounder” who universally realizes the creative energy in the different fields of art’s activity.

The actual strategy of the “DAKH” Centre lies in active cooperation with a vast range of state and commercial institutions with an aim to change the cultural situation in Ukraine towards more open forms of art activity and organization, towards a creative dialogue and support of the experimental field of theatre, to settle up new semi-functional theatre buildings, to initiate innovative forms of the theatre education and create an editing center of theatrical literature.