First new steps

Life in Ukraine is full of contrasts this summer. Yesterday, the atmosphere was cheerful as the champagne flowed at a fundraiser in Odesa in support of Ukrainian soldiers fighting on the front lines. Today in Kyiv, missile and drone strikes can be heard all around. Drones loaded with explosives crash into the city’s houses; thick black smoke hangs heavy in the air. Debris. Sirens. Silent suffering. Destruction.

My coauthor, photographer Caroline Gutman traveled from Washington, D.C. to report on the cultural life of Odesa. When she raises her camera, she focuses on community and social justice. She focuses on peace. It’s about mutual understanding. Our work was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation as part of an initiative entitled “Women on the Ground: Reporting from Ukraine’s Unseen Frontlines” in collaboration with the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.

Odesa is warm and sunny on June 27 as some 6,000 people dance at a huge party at the Ibiza nightclub. DJs collect money for the air defense. The Russian summer offensive is already fully underway. One Ukraine is fighting, the other is enjoying life to the fullest. And, perhaps most remarkably of all, these two different Ukraines do not hate each other. The performers are collecting money for the front lines, and the soldiers say they are fighting so that Ukrainians can enjoy their lives.

Choreographer Vitaly Kuznetsov and dancer Denis Rudoi work at the Theater of Musical Comedy. This year alone, Vitaly has put on six shows, including “The Charmed Bocaccio” and “The Bueno Sires” as well as “Suknia,” the show we followed and photographed. In Ukraine, theaters can play a role in exempting dance professionals and other artists from military service.

Nevertheless, Vitaly says, “Some of the dancers are at the front, two have already been wounded.” Denis is not just a great dancer. He is also a producer. He has just organized two more dance evenings: “Chess,” a piece that is presented as a dramatic chess game, and “Cocoon,” which is set in the world of insects. The main character in the latter show is rejected by the worms, beetles, and mosquitoes in his community. They lock him in a cocoon so that he can be reborn as a large, colorful butterfly. Elsewhere, this story could perhaps be told to children. But in Ukraine, it has another meaning: that of a shedding of skin, a rebirth of this country from the imperial Russian and Soviet traditions.

Culture is urgently needed in this country. The artists producing it with bee-like diligence know no rest. Protecting art from propaganda and influence, understanding it as an authentic search for a free life in a free country, forges a close bond between art and its audience. Unlike in the West, no one in Ukraine would ever think of questioning the meaning of art; on the contrary. Our report tells you all about it.