Opening of Bazaar Festival: She stands in the middle of the battlefield + Cossachka

Magda Szpecht / ÆFEKT (PL):
She Stands in the Middle of the Battlefield

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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. 

The third year of full-scale war meets her somewhere at the front. She has taken the oath and is a soldier now. There is no turning back. Fellow soldier, theater director, sister. In exile, she sensitized Western societies to the fate of her country, only to finally take matters into her own hands and follow her heart to her hometown and confront the enemy and the realities of working in the army.

“She Stands in the Middle of a Battlefield” tells the story of a friendship, idealism, and an enduring commitment to war despite its devastating nature. The performance takes the form of a composition consisting of new images of the war, open-source intelligence data, private correspondence and sound forms to help dulled emotions resonate. It is created especially to express that feeling in which a sister goes to war and needs (your) support.

Although the mobilization of women is not mandatory, the number has been growing since 2014, joining the ranks of the army and in 2024 it reached at least 67,000.  The heroism and commitment of Ukrainian women in the defense of their country shows that modern war has more and more of a woman in it. The significant increase in the number of female soldiers on the front lines and women supporting the war effort in multiple ways (including demining the country, defense against drones, in civilian and medical services) at the same time opens a new chapter on another battlefield - for self-determination and equality for women in Ukrainian society.

“She stands in the middle of a battlefield” (2025) is another theater work by Magda Szpecht, coinciding with the third year of full-scale war in Ukraine. In the performative lecture “Cyber Elf” (2022), the artist returned to her first profession - journalism - and used the tools of cyberactivism to fight Russian trolls, fake news and show in real time how one can join the conflict and help Ukraine in its struggle for freedom. In the Estonian performance “Spy Girls” (2024), Szpecht, in turn, engaged an acting troupe in a subversive, collaborative online intelligence effort to learn about the enemy's worldview and motivations. By seducing soldiers on Russian-language dating sites, they sought to learn their personal stories and, most importantly, their goals and location on the front lines. All of these projects share a lively commitment to neighboring Ukraine and work at the intersection of forensic theater, journalism and cyber activism.

Yuliia Lopata a Gala Pekha (UA): COSSACHKA

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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.