In 2021, a young group of actors, singers, and musicians from the Dakh Contemporary Arts Center, in collaboration with playwright Klim, created the chamber opera Stus: the Passerby (ukr., «Стус: Перехожий»). The project aimed to give voice to the great Ukrainian poet Vasyl Stus to rethink and actualize the content of his poems. His poems already have everything: rhythm, style, meanings, and melody. Working with Stus’ poetry is an attempt to extract from them as much of the true essence of the Ukrainian people as possible. The opera Stus: the Passerby works with 12 poems by the Ukrainian poet as the basis for 10 musical compositions created by the actors.
However, with the start of a full-scale war in Ukraine, the opera’s content has changed radically. Now the project’s focus shifted from actualizing the author’s poetry to attempting to comprehend the fate of Ukrainians through Vasyl Stus’ prophetic texts. Today we understand that the project is an actualization of his poetry as a symbol of unshakable beliefs: the defense of the Ukrainian language and culture and the fight for human rights. Now Vasyl Stus’s voice sounds even richer and louder. His words, written under the influence of the Soviet regime, are prophetic even decades later.
In the film, the project participants reveal Stus’s opinion not only on Ukrainians in general but also actualize the issue of the reintegration of Donbas and its fate after Ukraine’s victory. After years of Russian propaganda in this territory, this issue is quite acute for the Ukrainian socio-cultural community. By studying the experience of our predecessors with Donbas, we may find options for further interaction.
In the film, we reveal the dialogues and reflections of the project participants and try to dream about the future of Ukraine.
