Dog House. View from above. View from below.
by Vladislav Troitskyi
Performance Exchange supported by ETC
Produced by: DAKH Center of Contemporary Art
Twelve people are locked up inside a steel cage. The jailers boss the inmates around; outbreaks of violence and rebellion, defiance and humiliation are common currency. The audience watches events unfold, first from above and then from below, and itself becomes part of the prison architecture, both monitoring and being monitored.
Doghouse takes an unsparing look at the political events that have taken place in Ukraine before and after the protests on Maidan Square. The physical prison is also a mental one, the idea of a country on the edge of an abyss. Using mythical images and songs they have composed themselves – borrowing from anything from Ukrainian art and folk music to the country’s national anthem – the performers search for a way out.
Doghouse. The View from Above. The View from Below is a lamentation play, based on extracts from different writings that are assonant with historical events that took place and are still taking place in Ukraine now. The chorus, prayers and supplications from the tragedy Oedipus The King reflect the position of a suppressed nation, forsaken by God. Despised, these people are sear ching for their truth and God in this world. What does a person come to earth for; Why do terrible things happen; Who is to be blamed for human anguish; What is that sin that people have to atone for… These and other questions keep emerging in the mind of a person that strives to break out from his bonds.
Based on the plays
Oedipus the King by Sophocles (translated by Ivan Franko)
KLIM Doghouse. Dystopia from life of the silent majority
Yellow Prince by Vasyl Barka
Alone with God by Janusz Korczak
Verbatim Hannusya recorded by Ilya Kalyukin
This production was shown at Theater und Orchester Heidelberg in the context of the Festival Heidelberger Stückemarkt 2017. The production is available for touring.
