“Theater Window to Europe” – a new project has started, to stage a joint French-Ukrainian digital play “Shadow” in three cities of Ukraine

A new project – the “Theater Window to Europe” – started in Kharkiv. The cycle aims to bring the Ukrainian and European theatre cultures closer together.

With the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation and the Institut Français of Ukraine, Georges Gagnaire, director and instructor, will give master classes “Dialogue between the actor and a digital avatar” for two weeks this year in Kyiv. Theater professionals and students of theater institutes from Kharkiv and Kyiv are very welcome.

Georges Gagnaire is adapting modern IT technologies, such as “motion capture”, which is widely used in the cinema and the industry of computer games, to the needs of the theater, and seeks to make it available even for low-budget theaters.

He talks about the application of this technology at his presentations for professionals in Kharkiv and Kyiv, as well as during the master classes for the students of theater departments of Kharkiv National University of Arts and Kyiv National University of Arts and Culture.

“This is the first time that we bring a project of such technical complexity but it really will help the Ukrainians feels that our theater is right on the tip of the cutting edge technologies, for such technical ideas are only finding their way into the art of theater in Europe. We know how Cumberbatch created Smaug the Dragon in The Hobbit. Georges Gagnaire is looking into the possibility of carrying this technology over to the theater”, says Dmytro Ternovyi, program coordinator of the Theater Window to Europe.

All these opportunities are presented in The Shadow – a play after the same-name fairy tale by H.C. Andersen. Scheduled for the first run in Ukraine rather than elsewhere, it will be staged in the Ukrainian language in Kharkiv (Theatre na Zhukah), Kyiv (the Dakh Theater) and Dnipro (at the Gogolfest). A product of the French-Ukrainian cooperation, it will feature Pavlo Chirva – one of the leading actors of the Academy Theater of Drama and Musical Comedy of Mykolaiv. Anastasiia Ternova, technical assistant to Georges Gagnaire, made the first-ever translation of the fairy tale of the Danish author into Ukrainian. The play will only be staged in France after the Ukrainian tour.
“Theater Window to Europe” was launched by the Theatre na Zhukah (Kharkiv, Ukraine) in 2011. The program aims to facilitate the Ukrainian students of theater departments in their studies of various theater cultures and schools from all over Europe, giving them the opportunity to try the latest technologies in direct contact with representatives of most diverse schools.

“The theater window has long turned into a real portal for many people. Our program has yielded over a dozen international projects, implemented by the students all by themselves, just using their new knowledge and contacts”, points out D. Ternovyi.