Defamiliarization of the Object: Notes from the second Lecture-Conversation by Larysa Venediktova

In the spring of 2023, we conducted an educational program titled “The Enchantment of the Object: An Attempt to Read ‘The Philosophy of Theatre’ and Practice the Ideas of Les Kurbas.” The program was developed by Larysa Venediktova and consisted of seven sessions. Four of them focused on reading and discussing materials from the book. We’re sharing notes from the third lecture-conversation, which took place on April 5, 2023.

Larysa Venediktova — performance artist, choreographer, researcher. Since 2000, curator at TanzLaboratorium.

By the early 1930s, Kurbas was speaking less about class consciousness and more about theatre and its complexity: “Some think that if a theatre tours factories, then the mission is accomplished; I believe that’s only a quarter of the work… The point is, one must grapple with theatre as an art form, something that takes more than a season or two. It’s a demanding process through which a method is born, a method is established…” (p. 792).

Kurbas also found himself having to justify productions like The People’s Malakhii and Myna Mazaylo. He called them “those very productions that today would be deemed unacceptable” (p. 792). He was accused of nationalism and apoliticism, so much so that the term “Kurbasism” emerged.

In 1929, the director himself said of The People’s Malakhii: “In Kulish’s play I tore apart labels: labels of agitation and propaganda, tags born of the Civil War era, which no longer fit our present. Revolutionary is the theatre that discovers its class enemy among its audience… Theatre must provoke unrest, must ask uncomfortable questions: that is its civic and progressive role. The trouble is, audiences usually leave their brains at home when coming to the theatre, though what we really need is for them to bring their brains with them” (p. 722).

The meeting of Kurbas and Kulish was beneficial for Ukrainian art, and for transforming Kurbas’s way of thinking, yet it proved dangerous for their lives. They amplified one another in intellect, perhaps too much so. It became a theatre of intellect, where the spectator, who under Bolshevik doctrine was to become a mindless cog in the system, might actually begin to reflect.

Kulish and Kurbas were killed by the Soviet regime, and somehow turned into monuments, into sacred martyrs whom many now wish to use as pedestals for their own purposes.

Figures in Ukrainian culture who have been sacralized, canonized beyond critique – artists who can no longer be questioned, nor allowed to ask questions – demand, from us, a process of desacralization, of dialogue. Returning Kurbas to the history of Ukrainian theatre means liberating him from the Soviet space that still shapes our thinking and prevents us from truly seeing the depth of his ideas.

Kurbas’ The Philosophy of Theatre contains many recommendations for directors. For example, when you find yourself unable to handle the synthetic unity of your ideas – when you get tangled up in sets, music, and more – strip everything down and work with the actors, because the actor is what matters most in a performance.

One of Kurbas’ thoughts on acting technique: “…in acting, one must go from the greatest burdens to the greatest freedom and ease! Through the utmost difficulty to the utmost simplicity!” (p. 634).

That idea is deeply significant. It’s worth reading his entire book for this line alone. We believe the advice applies far beyond acting.

Kurbas must appear before you as a problem. Only then will he become part of the history of Ukrainian theatre… and a part of your own history. This problem demands further problematization, not resolution. That is how art works.

At the end of the book, there is a quote from Kurbas (1936–1937): “Socialism is incompatible with human nature, just as fire is incompatible with water” (p. 824). Like the revolutionary pathos of 1925, this statement is deeply problematic.

But how, in your view, can one continue this interrupted story – Ukrainian theatre? For instance, TanzLaboratorium in 2007 created the project “Kurbas. Reconstruction.” Kurbas admired Japanese theatre; we too felt a closeness to Japanese art. We tried to connect Butoh with Kurbas’ theatre. We used photographs from Kurbas’ productions and worked with them as visual images. From this came a study of our own relationship to our responsibility for our own history.

Butoh is a Japanese dance form founded by Tatsumi Hijikata in the 1950s. Butoh is a revolt against traditional Japanese culture and against Westernization. A revolt of the body. The core of Butoh (and not only Butoh, of course) is the body you have.

The body is capable of acting on its own. But for that to happen, it must be trusted, its imagination must be trusted. The body has its own imagination, its own awareness. It can test your ideas for vitality.

In Butoh, there’s an exercise that directly correlates with “accumulating the greatest difficulty”: you have four body parts (arms, legs, torso, head), and each of them is given a different image to embody. That means at minimum, you’re holding four objects of focus, all coexisting and shifting in parallel. It’s hard. But without difficulty, there is no simplicity—and no ease.

Likewise, without the difficulty of complex thinking, there can be no engaging Ukrainian theatre.

So let us reflect on how we might become worthy of Les Kurbas — in all his complexity — not as a naïve dreamer from Soviet Ukraine’s pantheon of cultural saints, but as someone who truly deserves a place in our history.

This material was created as part of the Per Forma grant program, implemented by the Kyiv Contemporary Music Days platform with the support of the Performing Arts Fund NL and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of the Netherlands, aimed at developing the performing arts sector in Ukraine.

Notes from the lecture compiled by Larysa Venediktova

Proofread by Yana Suporovska