🇪🇺 TEEN European Digital Community: Sunflower from Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine

Sunflower

Yo! I’m Alya, I’m 16, and I’m from that “active youth”. I like to be at different events, volunteer at concerts, in my free time I either read books or write scripts. I play chess, sudoku, as well as the guitar and bandura 🙂
I love cats more than dogs, night more than day, and fantasy more than romance
My favorite subject at school is history. I like to discuss or just chat about history, events, and how they influenced the present. In music, my taste ranges from classical to hard metal, depending on my mood. I dream of creating my own project – a short film or a teen podcast. I love to create. I love to be. I love people.

The soil / the need

In my city, until 2022 (before the war) there were very few performances, hardly any people were interested in them, and in my city we had only one theater that worked at least somehow. It usually held concerts and shows, but still several times a year theaters from other cities came to us. Then Ukrainian theater was at a very low level: the performances were not qualitatively staged, there were no good actors… but I still watched with delight, and I did not understand why there were no such performances in my city. Once I went to the western part of Ukraine and came to the local Opera Theater, and wow, it was incredible!! Although the performance was not that popular, the hall was completely sold out (about 500 people), the artists and ballet were great, the production was a revelant topic at that time, and most importantly – the performance was in Ukrainian (which was a great rarity!). That’s when I realized what I was missing in the theaters in my city. It was awareness, professionalism, and relevance.

The first seed

A performance I watched

Tell us about that first spark

As I said, before the war, our theater did not develop much, and I was not that interested in it. But after 2022, Ukrainians began to understend their etnicity, and in 2 years, many plays, theaters, and performances that are worth paying attention to have appeared in Ukraine. My first spark was the perfomance “[Ти Романтика]” by MUR. This is a play about artists of the executed renaissance, which tells about their path, works, and murder by the russian authorities. The play was incredible, despite three pauses due to shelling, and at the end I applauded with all my might, crying. I don’t know exactly what, but there was something in this play that really touched me. This “something” is probably when the actors and the ballet lived the moments as their own, in real time, when the silence was scarier than loud sounds, when the actors walked around the hall and interacted with the audience, when at the end the audience sang on stage with the actors…it’s all incredible, two years have passed since that moment, but I still remember the first time I saw it, and from that moment, my journey just began.

Roots (people & experiences that shaped your path)

After that performance, it was already quite late, but I went to the back entrance to wait for the actors (to get autographs, hugs, ask questions), and while I was waiting, a group of teenagers like me came up to me and asked who my favorite actor from the performance was. We started talking, and soon the whole company went to the second performance of MUR 🙂
This company inspired me to go to the theater, to think about my activities there. Together with them, I went to other wonderful performances, traveling around Ukraine. They opened up many actors, theaters, and their interesting things to me. With them, I started volunteering, being involved in various projects. Thanks to them, I got into the team, in which I later created a short film…to be continued…

The trunk (what keeps you in theatre)

I had a period when I wanted to quit everything. Quit theater, art, music. It seemed that I would never succeed, society instilled that it was not profitable, my parents said to go to a math major.
But I was kept by people who applauded during the screening of a short film in the oldest theater in the city; famous actors who said that I would definitely succeed, and that we were “breathing in their backs”; a team that supported and helped me all the way… thanks to them, I am now writing a script at nights for my new film. And I am truly happy in these moments, so I decided not to quit this business for anything, as long as it is possible

Branches (future / desire)

In the near future I plan to release a film/short film, and create a new project – a podcast with teenagers.
In general, I plan to enter architecture, because I don’t have much theater experience to study as an actor or screenwriter. But even so, I want to be a stage designer. I never want to leave the stage, as I feel that my future lies there

Are you currently involved in cultural activities?

Yes, regularly

If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be? Why?

I’d be a sunflower. Not quite a tree, not quite a flower, but something in between. It always reaches for the sun, unafraid to be open and visible. It has a strong stem that supports its heavy top (which is so about my resilience). Too big, too noticeable, too sunny. And I don’t fit into the mold either.

Contact

Instagram: @usuhcuw