Belarus’ histories. Vialikaye Sialo
“… What good and friendly were all the people,.
After the war, were good people. We were all together … “
From the collected stories of Vialikaye Sialo
During June-August 2014 theatre Kryly Halopa implemented the project, within the frameworks of which conducted workshops for children of Vialikaye Sialo and Yalova village from Pruzhany district, which is 120 kilometers away from Brest near Bialowieza Forest.
At the first stage the children were listening and collecting stories of local old people – stories about their lives and history of the village, the time of the war, about the neighbours, the Germans, the partisans, love, and even Catherine II… Then children practiced the technique of shadow theatre, created puppets and created themselves scenography, learned to pronounce the theatrical text, and create music and sound effects for the performance. As a result appeared the performance “Stories of Vialikaye Sialo”, which for the first time will be presented in Brest.
History, as we know from the textbooks – that’s not the whole story. Very often, we do not consider “small” human stories as important for the understanding of historical events. Oral stories are often the starting point for rethinking the “great story”. We may think that the important (and historically significant) is going somewhere far away, in the big cities, with the participation of well-known people. But the story of the war, narrated by an old woman from a neighboring house, can change our view on what we learned at school. And on their own street, village, city, country. The small becomes big, small is becoming important …
Project coordination: Elena Shtyk
Idea: Aksana Haiko
Theater teachers: Elena Shtyk, Siarhej Haiko, Sviatlana Haidalionak
Director: Elena Shtyk
Musical arrangement: Nastya Khmiel
Aktors: Anna Kalinichenko, Roman Kalinichenko, Elizabeth Karavai, Maryya-Violetta Karavai, Ulyana Komsa, Luba Chabatouskaya, Natasha Chabatouskaya, Jura Chabatouski, Gleb Bogdanov, Nastya Haiko.
The premiere: August 10, 2014 during the “Pryzba-fest: theatre, ecology, social art” (Zalessie village, Brest region).