Hexham-based Théâtre Sans Frontières’ latest production, Chernobyl@30, made in collaboration with Ukrainian theatre company Arabesky, is to tour North East venues later this month.
In autumn 2015, the British Council made an award to TSF Joint Artistic Director Sarah Kemp to take part in their CannyCreatives project which aims to develop new creative partnerships between arts organisations in Ukraine and north east England. She visited Arabesky Theatre in Eastern Ukraine which has toured extensively throughout Ukraine as well as Poland and Armenia.
In 2006, Arabesky made a documentary-style production based on the events that took place in Ukraine after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986, interweaving film from Chernobyl itself with choreographed scenes based on different characters, including many ordinary people affected across the country.
Now the co-production Chernobyl@30 revisits the original and explores new responses to the accident thirty years on, with a particular spotlight on its impact on northern England. The production features a poem written about the disaster by Linda France (the Northumberland poet) for her son.
Original film footage and abstract animation serve as a background for the British and Ukrainian artists to explore collaboratively, through text, movement and song, their own aesthetic responses to the realities of life after the accident. Thirty years on, what does the accident mean to us, the planet and our futures? Through this piece of theatre, the audience is encouraged to ask many questions.
Chernobyl@30 is directed by Svitlana Oleshko, artistic director and founder of Arabesky Theatre, who directed the original production of Chernobyl. Performing are John Cobb and Sarah Kemp (TSF), Robert Nicholson (who appeared in TSF’s Heaven Eyes in 2014) and Arabesky Theatre performers Natalia Tsymbal and Mykhylo Barbara.
The production tours to Newcastle’s Alphabetti Theatre (26 to 28 September), Arts Centre Washington (29 September) and Queen's Hall Arts Centre, Hexham (30 September and 1 October).