Elina Kulikova

Un champ brûlé is a reflection on war as cultural inheritance, and on the narratives that make it possible. How can a tradition carry with it and pass on violence which ends up by justifying itself? Onstage, in classical musician attire, Elina Kulikova and Dima Efremov attempt to ward off a double trauma, that of singing in front of an audience, and that of watching their country invade and massacre its neighbour.

By means of songs from Russian folklore, Elina Kulikova summons, in Un endroit perdu, the second part of her trilogy, centuries of history and a memory marked by violence. This vocal gesture becomes a space for questioning the guilt of belonging to a nation that perpetuates this violence. But going beyond shame, the show investigates identity and the impossibility of purifying yourself of your own culture: “I do not feel shame because I embody it”.

The third part of the Trilogie de la guerre takes on a more active, militant dimension. Une nuit blanche, set to electronic music, takes its inspiration from the accounts of Dima Efremov’s activism, leading to the freeing of numerous political prisoners in Russia. The piece links clandestine spaces of celebration to that of the theatre, as a place of resistance and refuge. What does electronic music enable us to express or set free, in the face of war, repression and the traumas it breeds?

In a theatrical and musical trilogy, Elina Kulikova and Dima Efremov set out to denounce Russia’s war and invasion of Ukraine. In their hands, this gesture becomes the starting point for an investigation of an artistic and deeply personal nature. From its makings to its innermost effects, they explore what it means to belong to a country at war. Turning to references from the Russian repertoire — whether they be classical, folkloric or festive—the show builds up the contours of an ode to resistance and turns the stage into both place of refuge and confrontation.