Dance and War in Ukraine: Body, Memory, Resistance

Dance and war should not belong to the same sentence. Dance is often imagined as something connected to freedom, celebration, beauty, training, presence, virtuosity or collective joy. War, on the contrary, destroys the body, interrupts time, breaks places, displaces people and turns the future into a field of uncertainty.
And yet, in Ukraine, dance and war have been standing very close to each other for many years.
For Ukrainian contemporary dance, the war did not begin as an abstract political topic. It entered the body directly: through fear, loss, displacement, exhaustion, silence, anger, sirens, interrupted rehearsals, destroyed cities, changed audiences, new borders, and the painful necessity to speak about what often cannot be fully spoken.
These texts are not an attempt to summarize all Ukrainian dance practices during the war. It is a subjective reflection from inside the field — from the position of an artist who has lived through the transformation of Ukrainian contemporary dance before and after 2014, and especially after the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022.
It is also an attempt to ask a difficult question: what happens to contemporary dance when the body is no longer only an artistic instrument, but also a witness, a document, a wound, a shelter and a form of resistance?

What is Ukrainian contemporary dance during the war?

Dance and War in Ukraine
The relationship between Ukrainian contemporary dance and war did not begin in February 2022. It began in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and the war started in Donbas. For many Ukrainian artists this moment changed not only the political landscape, but also the body itself: its sense of safety, rhythm, memory, language and responsibility.
Before the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian dance was already responding to rupture though the number of the works was minimal . Sometimes directly, through works dealing with Crimea, Donbas, displacement and the loss of home. Sometimes indirectly, through questions of identity, Soviet legacy, public speech and the right of the Ukrainian body to appear as political. Projects by Larysa Venediktova and TanzLaboratorium, including Expertyza, Shevchenko. Unrest and PostUkrainian Body, were crucial here. They did not simply represent war; they created situations where society could hear itself after violence entered everyday life.
Since 2022, this relationship has become impossible to ignore. Ukrainian dance has been scattered across shelters, borders, residencies and temporary stages. The body became a witness, an archive, a wound, a shelter and sometimes resistance. But resistance is not always heroic. Sometimes it means rehearsing, teaching, documenting process, or returning to the studio when the ground is no longer stable.
There is also a danger. International attention often expects Ukrainian artists to bring pain, evidence and authenticity. But Ukrainian contemporary dance is not only testimony. It is not a humanitarian illustration. It is an artistic field with its own history, conflicts, aesthetics and voices.
This text opens a larger series about Ukrainian contemporary dance, war, memory, displacement and the body as a political archive.
Read more in this series:
Ukrainian Contemporary Dance and War Before 2022 (in progress)The Body as Witness: Dance, Trauma and War in UkraineDisplacement and the Broken Geography of Ukrainian Dance (in progress)Dance as Resistance — But Not Only Resistance (in progress)

Authorship

Written by Anton Ovchinnikov, Ukrainian choreographer, researcher, performer and curator. Since the 2000s, he has been involved in the development of Ukrainian contemporary dance as an artist, organizer, educator and founder of several independent dance initiatives.
Images are from the performances created in 2022 by the Ukrainian choreographers:- Anton Ovchinnikov - Beauty of the beast- by Gražvydas Jovaiša- Krystyna Shyshkarova - 2-1=4.5.0 by Hannah Granata- Olha Kebas - ExiSt by Anna Krotofil- Rita Lira - The way to/from by Donatas Ališauakas- Tetiana Znamerovska - Traces by Valeria Landar- Viktoria Khoroshylova - A lot of dolfins by Johan Persson

  • The war has changed Ukrainian contemporary dance not only thematically, but physically, ethically and structurally. It has affected where artists live and work, how rehearsals happen, what can be shown on stage, how the body carries trauma, and how Ukrainian artists are perceived internationally. Since 2022, many works have emerged from displacement, loss, resistance, memory and the need to continue creating under extreme pressure.

  • Yes, but dance speaks about war differently from journalism or documentary film. Contemporary dance does not need to explain events directly in order to address them. It can work through breath, tension, silence, repetition, collapse, touch, distance, rhythm and presence. The body can reveal what language cannot fully hold.

  • “The body as witness” means that the body remembers and carries the experience of war even before it becomes a clear story. Fear, exhaustion, displacement, grief and resistance appear in posture, breath, movement, stillness and the nervous system. In contemporary dance, the body can become a living archive of events, emotions and histories that are difficult to express in words.

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