On December 7th the theatre “Kryly Khalopa” will present the documentary project “Chernobyl” on the International theatre festival “Maski” in Poznan.
The documentary theatre is a genre which exists on the border of art and social analysis. The basis for the performance “Chernobyl” is the materials of two expeditions to the Belarusian part of the Zone of resettlement and Polessky Radiation Ecological Reservation, interview of the people who were evacuated after the Chernobyl accident, the documents relating to the consequences of the accident, compositions of the evacuated children, comments on the Internet-forums dedicated to the construction of the first nuclear power plant in Belarus.
German journalist Wolfgang Büscher, who went on foot from Berlin to Moscow, called Belarus the symbol of Eastern Europe, “cemetery of history”, “quarry of tragedy,” where ” the material’s just overgrown by grass” … We realize that the scale of historical catastrophes and tragedies that the Belarusians lived through is so great that the history of many events turns into a myth or, on the contrary, happens a replacement of painful moments of memory. At some instant, we recognized how important are the understanding and awareness of our history and present, as well as the creation of a modern history textbook of personal stories, which is without ideology, political motives and mythologizing. We’ve started a work on the project of documentary theatre “Histories of Belarus” and “Chernobyl” is its first chapter.
The performance is created in verbatim technique with the usage of the technologies of a multimedia theatre.
Besides the performance we are working on the other components of the project. There will be represented the exhibition of children drawings on the theme “Chernobyl” in Poznan (the children contest and exhibition were organized in April-June, 2013 in Brest).
The last stage of the performance preparation and the presentation of the project in Poznan were realized with the support of Adam Mickiewicz Institute and theatre Biuro Podróży (Poznan).
More information about the performance