ANTIGONE: POST-MORTEM
Kyiv, Ukraine December 2022
San Miniato, Italy August 2023
Hoxton Hall (London, UK) 21 June 2024
Premiere: 2022
Performer & co-deviser: Alina Zevakova
Video & photo: Anton Dmytruk
This work combines elements from Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone with interviews I have conducted in Bucha in April-July 2022.
It is about the human struggle to defend one’s dignity, about the disruptions to the natural order, about the unraveling of grief, about the role and responsibility of the witness.
With this piece we have adopted a flashback-like structure that mixes different time periods and immerses the viewer into the aftermath of a catastrophe, which became an everyday reality.
Throughout the performance the actress interacts with lights that are commonly used for video interviews (and by forensic experts during fieldwork), uncovering different layers of trauma, historic memory and psychological defences in a journey to acknowledge one’s voice, needs, pain.
The performance is also the focus of an article “Antigone as Witness: Theatre Making as a Response to Russia’s War on Ukraine”, authored by an expert on testimonial theatre Dr Amanda Stuart Fisher and myself, that is due to appear in the Special Issue of the journal Contemporary Theatre Review in July 2026.
The article was presented at the Performance Studies International conference in June 2024 in London, UK.
