‘We dance for Ukraine’: displaced dancers bring the battle to the Australian stage | Catherine Lambert
As principal artist for the United Ukrainian Ballet, Knyazkov believes the most powerful contribution he can make is through his art form.
It’s been a traumatic series of events for him, beginning when he was living in Kharkiv, in the east of Ukraine and only 40 kilometres from the Russian border. He was a member of the Kharkiv State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre. When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 he was still there and stayed until March 3, under bombardment, unsure whether it was safer to stay or flee.
“It’s impossible to describe the feelings you’re experiencing in that moment. Every day the Russian army bombs civilian infrastructure, and every day people die from shells. Now every Ukrainian has his own battlefield.”He fled to the west of Ukraine where his family and relatives remain, though Ukrainian forces haveIn July he went to the Netherlands and joined fellow displaced dancers from his country in the United Ukrainian Ballet.
Fellow dancer, soloist Vladyslava Ihnatenko, 19, is also from Kharkiv but was in Odesa when the war started, having been a member of the Odesa National Theatre of Opera and Ballet. Her evacuation was much more swift, leaving with only a few belongings, which included her prized pointe shoes.“I woke up because of explosions and couldn’t believe this was true and happening for real,” Ihnatenko says. “I picked up a minimum of my stuff. For ballet, I had only one pair of pointe shoes.
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