TanzLaboratorium

Siberia demands payment.
A conversation with Tanzlaboratorium: Larisa Vieniediktova, Mariana Matveichuk and Santana Preap after the performance Reindeer can eat and sleep at the same time, and if you kill them, they become a magazine called “Murzilka.” 

Date: 14.04.2024 (Sunday), 5 p.m.
Place: Arsenal Gallery power station, 13 Elektryczna Street (entrance from Świętojańska)
The discussion will be moderated by Anna Łazar
Free entrance

Reindeer know how to eat and sleep at the same time, and if you kill them, they become “Murzilka”* magazine

More than half a century ago, foreigners came to the territory of Western Siberia and disturbed the dead lake (Samotlor). They began to extract black substance (oil) from the untouched depths and later killed the sacred deer that protected the Khanty community. For sixty years the spirit of the deer wandered in search of its killers. His sense of smell led him to their descendants in Ukraine. They swore their innocence with the ashes of their ancestors who died in Siberia. They convinced the spirit that they were provoked for destruction by their eastern neighbors, who in turn were seduced by the Europeans. The latter exchanged the energy of the dead lake for oil dollars. The spirit of the sacred deer is sent to tell the Europeans of the crime they were taking part in and finally, to stop the bloody exchange forever.

*”Murzilka” is a magazine that nurtured Soviet people from an early age (still exists)

About TanzLaboratorium (webpage)

TanzLaboratorium (TL) is an independent research collective, based in Kyiv, Ukraine, that views art as life’s process being actualized through performativity. Here, performativity means a particular mode of artistic activity that thematizes temporality. The group’s artistic strategy involves permeating the gaps between contemporary art forms and destructing the linguistic conventions of these forms. In TL’s artistic practice, the body acts as the image author and critical agent for thinking. Physical practice is the primary method of critical analysis, and dance — by investigating its perception — becomes a way of thinking.

Larisa Venediktova – contemporary dance innovator, performer, philosopher, and curator, is one of the founders of TanzLaboratorium research oriented group (Kyiv, Ukraine). She is known for numerous experimental pieces, including Kurbas. Reconstruction (dedicated to the innovative Ukrainian director Les Kurbas killed in the Soviet Union), PostUkrainian Body (reflection on relations between politics and body), Dictatorship of the Victim (a documentary musical that attempts to analyze the influence of Soviet songs as a determining element of totalitarian culture), Unsurpassable Disaster (a piece that shows the images of Russia’s genocide of Ukrainians and also the feelings of Ukrainians about the war and Ukraine’s heroic resistance) and many others. Larisa is currently teaching theatre arts at Kyiv Academy of Circus And Variety Arts. She is famous for her bright mind and articulated political position.

Mariana Matveichuk – a performer with a cultural studies background, also works as a journalist in Ukraine, also writes about people of culture killed by war. Occasionally cooperates with TanzLaboratorium research-oriented group, including such pieces as Dictatorship of the Victim (Kyiv, Ukraine) and Unsurpassable Disaster (Gdansk, Poland).

Santana Preap – is a dancer and writer with an MA in art history and management. Currently works as a copywriter in Kyiv and self-engaged in dance & culture studies and practice. She was a student of MicroUniversity, Tanzlaboratorium’s educational project on philosophy, math, and dance.