The city was at dusk and it felt so weird. A kind of grey fog, as if invisible, but you feel it all the time, even when you breathe. And everything around you seems polluted. I don't even know how to explain it. All the buildings are the same, all the streets are the same, the people look so similar... And it's all so bleak. It's like they've done something to our air... Damn, this is my city, I know it well, but they brought the smell of death here.
quote from the play
The city we live in is our extended personal space, which is as big as we are able to walk around, to see, to hug with our thoughts every day. These are the streets, squares, benches, cafés that we choose - places where we feel safe, comfortable. But what happens when the arteries of our beloved city are torn up by the tanks of the occupying army?
The creators of Kharkiv (Nafta Theatre), with director Nina Khyzhna at the forefront of their work, in the documentary performance Today Nobody Died, open up the traumas of their own city, of their own and of the collective trauma of Ukraine. Movement, physical experience and physical presence with the audience play an important role in the performance. The music is composed by composer Nick Acorne.
Today Nobody's Dead is based on the stories, reflections and insights of Ukrainian soldiers, volunteers and the creators of the performance about inner transformations, revaluation of values, perception of time and space and sense of belonging.
Telling their personal stories and those of others, Ukrainians reflect on the experiences into which war has plunged them: the proximity of death, the constant search for safety, anger, fatigue, living in strange places, and the endless arguments with the defenders of pacifism. Responding to the ideas of "peace at any cost", disengagement and "war fatigue" that dominate Western European society, they publish a manifesto:
"We do not know how long this war will last, who will come home, who will survive, or what the price of our freedom will be. We did not plan to become soldiers, volunteers, medics or to leave home. We did not choose this war, but we must win it. This performance was created to give a voice to our friends who are now risking their lives to defend what we love."
Theater Nafta
Theater Nafta is an alternative independent theater, founded in Kharkiv in 2018.
Theater Nafta is an open theatrical platform, with no permanent company and no classical canons. Actors, directors, musicians, choreographers and artists can join Nafta with their own ideas, form a team and initiate a new theatre project.
According to the creators themselves, Nafta is about openness, experimentation, new forms and creative synergy. The artists' goals are to "break down standards, disrupt frames and burn with content".