Naftalab performance laboratory

A performance laboratory at the independent Ukrainian theatre Nafta (Oil Theater) in Kharkiv that took place over a month in late 2023. The city of Kharkiv is located near the front line and regularly suffers from rocket attacks from Russia. Due to the constant threat, theater schools in the city provide training only online, and in the laboratory, young theater artists gained professional experience, met, and experimented. Here, students practiced different methodologies of physical theater, explored performative existence on stage, and transformed pain and loss into artistic unreality. Together with the laboratory curator, director and playwright, they created their own performance using the method of devised theater, in which they shared their own experiences of interaction with the city undergoing change and destruction.