Unrehearsed Future (S5) #1 Connection and Community for the Global Playback Theatre Movement

Kicking off the Season 5 of Unrehearsed Futures, we had guest curator Illia Abeliashev, an active member of the Vakhteri playback group from Ukraine in conversation with fellow Ukrainian playback artists Alisa Volkova and Olena Kalashnykova. Emphasising on theatre’s role in social transformation, this season we look at how we can transition from dialogue to action. Abeliashev and his playback group members, originally from Kharkiv, shared their understanding of playback theatre and how they’ve used this tool to build stronger communities, create a sense of acceptance and how it promotes the idea of hearing every story. 

There are many aspects to playback theatre. As one of the members of the Vakhteri Playback Theatre group, Olena, explained, playback is about community building. She gave an example of their work with a group that has narcotic addiction at a rehabilitation center, and said, “They are people who are not ready to open up their voices for a larger audience, and we go to them to help them play and create a bigger sense of community.”

She and Alisa also spoke at length about the group’s work with Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) since 2014 in Kharkiv. When the war broke out in Ukraine last year, and the group members had to leave the country and move to Vilnius, Lithuania, they decided to continue this work with Ukrainian refugees in Vilnius.  

STAY TUNED! We will be publishing a long-form article about the talk and the ideas/themes that emerged during the session on our blog in the coming weeks.