Bunker Cabaret: A Ukrainian Theatre Tour in the UK

Aim

Support 6 Ukrainian artists to make a cabaret show based on material originally developed in the bomb shelters.

Our Project

We really need your help to support the making of our debut performance in the UK, our new show - Bunker Cabaret - an evening of songs, dances and sketches born underground in a bomb-shelter in Kyiv. 

The show, created and performed by Ukrainian artists, will premiere at Somerset House in London on 19th and 20th September and then go on a tour of the UK.  

With the support of the British and Ukrainian governments we have managed to bring our artists to safety in the UK. This is our first opportunity to be together since the full-scale war in Ukraine began.

Now it is essential that we tell our stories at a time when independent Ukrainian artists are underrepresented in the UK. Hooligan Art Community’s artists are from the first generation born in independent Ukraine. Their theatre and their vision for their culture needs recognition and a platform on the international stage now more than ever. 

"Theatre that knocks you out of the saddle"  - UkrainianTheatre.com

The Challenges We Face

At the start of this year Hooligan Art Community was preparing to present a showcase of work at Dnipro Centre of Contemporary Culture in Dnipro, Ukraine, in May 2022, as part of British Council's Ukraine/UK season.  

On 24 February, the full-scale Russian invasion brought war to all of Ukraine. This act of state aggression censored and exiled Ukrainian artists and has had a transformational impact on their lives. Most performers from Hooligan left the country as refugees whilst a small number stayed or were restricted from leaving, but they have been unable to find employment or financial support. With performance venues closed and with the withdrawal of key international funding partners, our company’s work was disassembled overnight.

The male artists (unable to leave Ukraine) started to work on the show in a bunker in Kyiv, under rocket attacks. Actors Sam and Danya recorded short films of themselves performing songs, satire and sketches, which they sent to the rest of the team who were in residency in Germany. We will now develop their material into a new performance called “Bunker Cabaret” which will present the artists’ personal reflections on the war in Ukraine, in their own unique, brave and arresting style. 

The war tried to stop our work together but we have fought to sustain it. Making new work together is a lifeline for us; an opportunity to energise our work, take agency and support Ukraine the way we know how. This is the beginning a new chapter for our company and our lives.

Who We Are

We first met each other in 2016 at Gogolfest Theatre Festival in Ukraine. In 2019 we founded Hooligan Art Community in Kyiv to collectively produce, write and perform site-specific theatre and music theatre in abandoned spaces. We have made performances in Kyiv, Dnipro and Mariupol, including Hooligan (about vulnerability, violence and rebellion, based on one actor's experiences as a teenage football hooligan in Kharkiv); Radiation (on the legacy of Chernobyl) and Hooligan: Bizhenka in Halle, Germany (with a community choir of Ukrainian refugees). After a performance at ICA London in March 2020 was cancelled due to the pandemic, Deutsches Theatre Berlin commissioned us to create an original film about our experiences: Hooligan: In The Field. 

We’ve been supported to make our work by Mahogany Opera, DAKH Theatre, European Theatre Convention, Kosmos Tabir, British Council, i-portunus and Culture Bridges. 

Our Plans

BUNKER CABARET - Creation, UK Premiere and Tour.

We are making a new show about our personal experiences of the fight for life, love and freedom. Our artists are embracing a radical form, trusting their artistic process to communicate their experiences, while at the same time processing the unimaginable destruction being wrought on Ukraine by Russia in its attempt to wipe out Ukraine’s culture, identity and way of life. 

Defiant, dangerous, unpredictable and beautiful, Hooligan Art Community will defy your expectations and show you the side of Ukraine you haven’t seen on the news. 

Every performance of a Hooligan theatre show is new and unrepeatable. We will welcome you to a cabaret at the end of time, revealing the beauty of life when all seems lost. What are you going to do on the last night of your life?

A music-theatre performance, with song, dance, prophecy: in English and Ukrainian.

We already have some great partners for this project they include:

• Somerset House, Britten Pears Arts and 101 Outdoors, Newbury. 
• Volta International Festival, Mahogany Opera, 
• British Council (UK/Ukraine Season) 
• Ukrainian Institute
  
  

The tour is planned for: 

• Somerset House, London (19-20 September) co-produced by Volta International Festival
• The Ladder, Redruth, Cornwall (new venue being created - we would be the first international group to perform there)
• The Point, Eastleigh, Southampton
• We will be booking more dates as the project develops...

What We Need

We need to raise £4000 to realise Bunker Cabaret in the UK.

We have already raised money through a funding campaign at the start of the war in Feb/Mar 2022 but we have no institutional funding for this project, which has been conceived of with a short run-up period, in response to the emergency situation our artists are facing. 

By donating you will be supporting the artists with:

• Train tickets in the UK
• Van hire 
• Food - communal breakfast, lunch and dinner 
• Accomodation and expenses outside of London during rehearsal periods 
• Production expenses - basic props, lighting, simple costumes 

Alongside the performances, you will support Hooligan Art Community to establish itself as a company in the UK, and connect to a network of producers, venues and creatives. In the long term we hope the project will help our artists establish themselves in the UK, including finding safe and secure permanent homes, employment and support during the most difficult period of their lives. 

The Artists

Co-founders of Hooligan Art Community: 

The performers Sam Kyslyi, Danylo Shramenko and Mirra Zhuchkova have known each other for a decade, since studying together at Kyiv National University of Theatre. They are pioneering young leaders of the post-Maidan contemporary independent scene in Ukraine; producing, devising, and touring their theatre and developing cultural exchanges, residencies and community engagement across Europe. Peter Cant is a British theatre and opera director who has been collaborating with the Ukrainian artists since 2016. Together they developed the company with a focus on non-hierarchical communication, co-authorship and artist development.

Hooligan team:

Liubov Sliusareva (born in Donetsk) is a video artist, film director and photographer. 

Natalka Perchyshena is a conceptual lighting designer. Her current research is into the use of non-theatre lights in performance.

Paul Kuraskin is a costume designer. 

Our producing partner is Volta International Festival, a UK-based registered charity working from Somerset House in Central London.  

Please Support Us Today

It’s urgent, it’s new, it’s happening now. We really need your help to begin this new chapter in our lives and our company. 

Thank you and Slava Ukraini!

Follow us on social media: 

facebook: @hooligan.theatre.performance

instagram: @hooligan_art_community

This project successfully funded on 8th September 2022