The grand opening of Bazaar 2025. This year’s edition, Whose Body is My Body?, begins with two premieres on a single evening: the world premiere of a new work by Magda Szpecht and the first performance of a new work by Kyiv-based dancermakers Gala Pekha and Yuliia Lopata to take place outside of Ukraine.

Magda Szpecht follows a woman artist’s transformation into a soldier via live feed. Through personal testimony, she reconstructs the everyday reality of war and searches for an answer to the question Whose body is her body? The 11th edition of Bazaar Festival launches with this piece of documentary theatre and a performance by the Ukrainian creators of COSSACHKA. Join us as we open the festival with a double bill. 

What happens when an artist decides to become a professional soldier? When she trades dance halls for trenches and artistic visions for military strategies? Magda Szpecht follows along in real time, as a close friend of hers goes through training and becomes part of the Ukrainian armed forces. While she fights at the front, Magda witnesses her daily life through messages, calls and open source data. She regularly monitors operations, sometimes with the feeling that she is there with her.

This documentary probe combines personal testimony with analysis of events that often remain hidden behind a wall of headlines and statistics. It reconstructs specific moments that reveal what it means to live and fight in the midst of the everyday reality of war. While the debate about Ukraine is currently fading in Europe, Ukrainian artists, intellectuals and ordinary people continue to risk their lives. Magda Szpecht reminds us that even at a distance we have a responsibility – solidarity and sisterhood are weapons we must not put down.

Running time: 60–80 minutes

The performance will take place in English with Czech subtitles.

Credits:

Direction, concept, video, research: Magda Szpecht

Collaboration on the front: Anonymous Artist

Dramaturgy: Szymon Adamczak

Music: Krzysztof Kaliski

Set and art design, video: Karolina Pawelczyk

Performed by: Agata Różycka

Assistant director, production, creative collaboration: Michal Rogulski

Co-produced by Bazaar Festival, ÆFEKT Productions and Dramatyczny Theatre in Warsaw

Strategic partner: Adam Mickiewicz Institute

Premiere: 20.03.2025 at Bazaar Festival

--------------------

The dance performance COSSACHKA highlights the resilience of women in the face of violence that turns their bodies into battlefields and weapons. Inspired by the legend of the Amazons, Yuliia and Gala explore the strength of women in times of crisis, when “Whose body is my body?” is a very relevant question.¨

Dancers, musicians and visual artists from Ukraine combine contemporary dance, live electronic music and song in a performative ritual of women’s resistance. COSSACHKA plunges into the collective experience of women in times of crisis – forged in the fires of war, when many women take up arms or take a stand on the front lines of activism. 

The title is a reference to the legendary women warriors, or Amazons, who once roamed the Ukrainian steppes with their hair in braids (kosy in Ukrainian).COSSACHKA is a poetic exploration of identity and resistance that lies not in heroic gestures, but unpretentious, everyday strength – to endure, to survive, to remain. 

Running time: 55 minut
No language barrier.

Credits:

Director: Yuliia Lopata

Choreographer: Gala Pekha

Dancers: Dayana Mankovska, Dana Sarman, Daria Hordiichuk, Viktoria Demydova, Anna Kulchytska

Composer and performer: Olena Shykina

Singer and performer: Kateryna Aldoshyna

Costume designer: Asya Sutyagina

Dramaturg: Paul Bargetto
Producer: Polina Bulat

There will be a talk with the makers of both performances immediately following.