On the morning of Friday, February 25, the day after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a message came to us, sent from the Ukrainian capital, from Iryna Gorban, manager of the musical and vocal quartet DakhaBrakha: “We try to stay calm and brave. There is no panic, but it is very stressful to wake up to the sound of bombs, to be in constant fear of the air threat, of when it will be necessary to take refuge in the shelters. It’s surreal,” she tells us.
Words of fear and anguish but which also speak of hope: “People are united like never before. We believe in our army, they are real heroes, but we need help. It’s not just a war against Ukraine, it’s a war against Europe and all European values. We really need strong support. At least to close the sky, to protect against the sky, because Russia will not stop…” The manager and Nina, one of the singers of this popular band, are still in Kyiv – they insist « Kyiv », the Russian name Kiev is “illegitimate” for many Ukrainians.
The other members of the quartet have left the capital. Singer Iryna Kovalenko was able to cross the Hungarian border and take a plane to join her family in Seattle (United States). Olena Tsybulska joined the western part of the country, while singer Marko Halanevych managed to drive his family away from the capital. 1is March, he insisted on the need to increase support for Ukraine: “It’s a very strange feeling that now we can choose any country to live in and be accepted in, but we don’t want that. Our wish is above all to stay in Ukraine, to defend and support our land as much as possible. » Same determination with Iryna Gorban: “We will stay and defend our country as much as we can. »
“Ethnic Chaos”
DakhaBrakha was formed in 2004, at the initiative of director Vlad Troïtskyi
at the Dakh Center for Contemporary Art, which he had created in Kiev. In this quartet made up of three women and one man, Iryna Kovalenko, Olena Tsybulska, Nina Garenetska and Marko Halanevych, all are graduates of the National University of Culture and Arts in Kiev. Together, they reinvented the folklore and popular melodies of Ukraine, nourished by polyphonies and a varied instrumentarium, borrowing as much from the East and Africa as from the Balkans. To define themselves, they speak of “ethnic chaos”.
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