LES KURBAS CENTRE

NADIA MIROSHNICHENKO (NEDA NEZHDANA)

... Dramaturgy - is absolute, because it encodes universal models of the world in instant displays “here and now”...
... the word in a play is a variant of the mask. The more dissimilar faces are able to hide behind that mask the more varied the interpretation of the text can be...
... I would term the Ukrainian variant of post-colonial post-modernism “whimsy” or “whimsical”. Whimsy is creation that mutates from real forms into paradoxical hybrids, without establishing any single style, changing, unafraid of “incorrectness", lack of norm, even repetitiveness. Applied to drama, it is a mutation of realism, with elements of modernism and absurdity, whose core features a pedestrian perception of brutality, cynicism, and degenerecy. It is characterized by a combination of carnivalization and pitiless confessionalism, irony bordering on black humour, absolute tragedy. In general, “whimsy” is analogical to the post-Chornobyl situation, when rather than being a product of a smug imagination longing for a “force-major”, monstrosity is pedestrian reality.

Culturologist, playwright, art-critic, translator, member of the NWUU, laureate of the P. Kravets’ Prize. Graduated from Kyiv’s Art School, Kyiv Linguistic University (French philology) and the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (culturology). Continuing work on her candidate’s dissertation. Research interests include 20th century Ukrainian drama in all its contexts, and neo-ritualism in post-modern theatre.

Headed Kino-Teatr’s theatre division, publishes in numerous periodicals. Author of Kotyvyshnia, a collection of poems (Smoloskyp, 1996, awarded publisher’s second prize). Editor and chapter author of In Await of a Theatre, an anthology of modern drama (Smoloskyp, 1998). Collaborated with the A. Diachenko Centre for Contemporary Experimental Drama. Author of the plays Dirigible, A Column of Turtles, The Eleventh Commandment, or Night of the Clowns, And I’ll Betray After All (Kyiv Kamernyi Theatre, 1996, Luhans’k Ukrainian Theatre, 1999), The One Who Opens the Door (V. Vasyl’ko Odessa Ukrainian Theatre, 1998, “From the Lamp” Rivne Theatre-Studio, 2000), Tale about the Silent Gopher (Kyiv Kamernyi Theatre, 1999), Honore, and Where’s Balzac (Franco-Ukrainian project with O. Mykolaichuk, Suziria Theatre, awarded prize for best Ukrainian play of 1999), Whimsical Messalina, The Second from Last Judgement Day.

Productions of plays were laureates of the following festivals: “Pivostriv-1994 (Kyiv), “Contemporary Ukrainian Drama” (Odessa, 1998, Kyiv, 1999), “Ternopil Theatrical Evenings. Debuts” (Ternopil, 1999), “Riba” (Klaipeda, Lithuania, 1999). Is compiling a Ukrainain drama library for the Ukrainian Mime Centre’s VIRTEP internet project. Is also developing a program for the Les’ Kurbas Centre dramaturgical laboratory.