“Kharkiv Calling” by Costa Compagnie, with contributions by Marichka Lukianchuk

Marichka Lukianchuk, who held a Harun Farocki residency in 2022-23 (in collaboration with Artists at Risk and the Ad-hoc Fellowship Program of the Berlin Senate), is working on the dramaturgy and video editing of the documentary performance Kharkiv Calling by Costa Compagnie at TD Berlin (Klosterstr. 44 10179 Berlin). Next performances: February 23, 24 and 25.

From TD’s website: “What to do when your own country is under attack? Costa Compagnie interviewed four women in Eastern Ukraine who volunteered for armed combat in 2022. They include human rights lawyer Zhenya, who is now a drone pilot in a reconnaissance unit, and documentary film director Helena, who is now a medic in a combat unit. A cinematic essay brings the conversations with these women from the frontline onto the stage. Here they are placed alongside a young Ukrainian actress whose path led her in a different direction, into exile in Berlin. On this journey she is confronted with questions about her homeland, her family and her coming-out. Exactly two years after the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, KHARKIV CALLING takes a look at the different lives of strong, emancipated women and their convictions against the Russian autocratic system that recently had the LGBTQIA+ movement categorized as extremist in December 2023. What values and systems are being defended in Ukraine beyond one’s own life and country? Would you risk your life to fight for democracy and freedom? How does it feel to perform a theater monologue about these questions 2,000 km away in Berlin, while friends and colleagues at home are involved in acts of war? In KHARKIV CALLING, the only 20-year-old actress Anna Mrachkovska confronts us and herself with these radical times we live in, with the German history in Ukraine and with questions about the future. The solo combines a gripping personal story, exclusive video footage and dance into a stage event that allows the dilemma and disaster of war to be experienced through real lives.”