“Belarus Mama Zoya” (working title)

Directors Aksana Haiko (Kryly Khalopa theatre) and Fia Adler Sandblad (ADAS theatre) about the residency:

“The performance, on which we are working is based on documentary material. This is the story of Aksanas mother’s life. The topics that are touched upon in the performance is motherhood, vulnerability, female empowerment, working conditions for a female artist, the 90s in the former USSR, the women life in Soviet Union, mental illness and disability, and how a woman lives it in Belarus. At this stage we are talking and fixing stories for future work.

We imagine the story of the Soviet state of Belarus through the eyes of a mother. The Soviet mother who toils in factory and home under her dominant husband before she revolts in connection with the perestroika and creates an independent life. The performance is permeated by her struggle for freedom and sense of life while it is bordered by loneliness and traumatic memories from the post-war period.

We are also interested in exchanging experience. Aksana has created performances influenced by a method of physical theatre, documentary theatre techniques. In Sweden, Fia owns her theatrical method of working with body, voice, and archival methods. We would like to learn from each other and share our best practices."

ADAS Theater (Gothenburg, Sweden)

ADAS Theater is an independent theater that highlights and depicts women’s lives, their bodies, and their stories. We have our base at the Konstepidemin in Gothenburg, Sweden. For almost 30 years, we have made award-winning and acclaimed performing arts that we played in Sweden and toured with over large parts of the world. Even if our work is aimed at an adult audience, it always takes the child’s perspective and sees the world through its eyes. Since the start, we have developed a way of working that combines contemporary archival research with physical theater methods. We use strong stories, music, spatial design, and audience engagement to create art with both depth and edge. We are aware of and protect vulnerabilities. We create a safe room together with our audience. ADAS is drawn to the dark and hidden sides of life to create new light and meaning. Our goal is for our theater to be a place where boundaries can be moved, relationships explored and meaning created. A theater that listens and aims at the stars. Our work has its origins in the physical and spans many different genres; everything from intimate chamber plays that mix naturalistic staging’s with elements of magical realism to musical theater and grotesque / bouffon.

Kryly Halopa (Brest, Belarus)

The Kryly Khalopa theatre (from 2001 until 2011 — Brest Free Theatre) was founded in 2001. Theatre mission is to reflect a critical view on the social and political situation by the performative tools. The theatre created 15 performances, presented at more than 50 theatre and cultural festivals and events in Europe. Theatre was constantly working with the Brest local community accenting women, people with mental diagnosis through self-made festivals, art exhibitions, educational events, theatre studios for adults and children. After the pandemic and political crisis in Belarus, it is active online and abroad. Since 2017, the theater has been working with the topic of historical memory and implementing documentary digital audio performances (BSG project). KX Space was opened in 2014 by the collective of Kryly Khalopa theatre. KX Space consider social, gender equality, tolerance, inclusion as their values, position themselves as a space free from discrimination and advocating the rights of the excluded. Due to these values KX Space`s worked in directions of theatre, gallery of contemporary art and venue for cultural and non-formal educational events. In 2021 the KX theatre and Space were closed in Belarus for their activist’s activities.