Performance "Those Who Are Roaming"

On November 9, 2018, the National Museum “Holodomor Victims’ Memorial” together with the theater studio “Mif”, with the support of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, presented the performance ” Those Who Are Roaming”, which was prepared as part of the commemoration of the 85th anniversary of the Holodomor-genocide. The actors of the theater-studio “Mif” during the 2 weeks, from November 12 to 23, showed the performance ” Those Who Are Roaming” to the passengers of bus №24 and trolley bus №38, between the stops “Square of Glory – Park of Eternal Glory – Church of the Savior on Berestovo , National Museum “Holodomor Victims Memorial”, and “Church of the Savior on Berestovo, National Museum “Holodomor Victims Memorial”- Park of Eternal Glory – Glory Square”.

“Those Who Are Roaming” are 5 people / fates / stories from 1932-1933 that make an attempt of delicately intervent in our usual way of life. They come from the darkness of history to the present, in the day of the 85th anniversary of the crime of genocide – the Holodomor, and they tell about themselves what they have never told anyone, because they either died in a terrible 1933 or the authorities forced them to forget that terrible time, and threatened to death if at least one word of truth would be spoken loud into the space. They, roaming, go quietly into the transport, in their pretty scrolls, wrapped in hollow scarves, the only remained unchanged for food during salvation, and again return. They are wandering, because not everyone is honored, not everyone is yet written in the National Book of Holodomor Memories, they are buried not under the Christian tradition, unwept and unpraid. And that is why they are roaming, reminding us of our debt.

The idea of ​​the museum workers was realized thanks to the cooperation of the museum with the Kyiv theater studio “Mif” (founder and artistic director Oleksandra Kravchenko), whose actors are students of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Due to the fact that many actors are future historians, one of the most important goals of the young theater is to promote the Ukrainian national idea.

The basis of the script were the testimonies of eyewitnesses of the Holodomor from the archives of the Holodomor Victims’ Memorial  and published testimonies from the book “33rd: the famine. People’s Book-Memorial “(authors-compilers L. Kovalenko and V. Maniak).

The actors showed a young woman who exchanged jewelleries from her post at “Torgsin” for food; a woman who became mad after death of her two children who died of the hunger; a teenager who lost her family and was in a boarding school where she escaped from hunger; a member of the tugboat team, a teacher, with a notebook, that was taken with to record the property of those who were ransacked, and well-known British journalist Gareth Jones.

Idea: Lesia Hasydzak.

Authors of the concept – Kostiv Martha, Lesia Hasydzak, Yana Grin’ko.

Authors of the texts – Kostiv M., Vyhodovanets O., Bedyk Y., Hasydzhak L.

Project Coordinator – Bedyk Yana.

Directed by Oleksandra Kravchenko.