Posted at 7:00 a.m.
(Paris) It is not because they fled Ukraine that they have stopped fighting. On the contrary. For the Dakh Daughters, exile is now synonymous with resistance. The proof on stage Thursday, at the opening of 38and Victoriaville International Contemporary Music Festival (FIMAV).
It has been more than two months now since the six musicians left Kyiv. Accompanied by their children, their mothers and their mothers-in-law, they took refuge in Vire, in Normandy, in a small theater which offered them lodging, while their fathers, their brothers and their husbands remained in Ukraine. to wage war.
Dramatic situation, as for millions of other Ukrainian families who left the country in disaster.
However, we do not feel any discouragement from the two members of this atypical musical group that we meet that afternoon in a charmless Parisian café. More warriors than victims, Ganna Nikitina and Ruslana Khazipova clench their fists, raise their index fingers, curse Vladimir Putin and swear that one day they will come home.
Of course, there is concern. They admit to checking their phones “a hundred times a day” for information. But the news is rarely good. Four days before our meeting, they learned like everyone else of the atrocities committed by the Russian army in Boutcha and are visibly shaken by it.
But no question of crying over their fate. There is a fire burning in them, that of optimism and the desire for justice. A fire that nothing, apparently, can put out.
“We are a dignified people… Resistance is in our genetic code,” says Ruslana, the band’s drummer, simply, under her little bun, her hip glasses and her Ukrainian designer coat.
PHOTO TETIANA VALYSENKO, PROVIDED BY THE RECORD COMPANY
The Dakh Daughters
fight outside
One can hardly imagine the frictions and the cases of conscience when the time came to go into exile. Leaving your country in times of crisis is heartbreaking, especially when you leave part of your family behind…
But after two weeks of hesitation, feeling the fear rising and weighing the pros and cons, it became clear to the Dakh Daughters that the best way to participate in the war effort would be to perform on foreign stages. . Of which act.
“We have a voice. And if we have a possibility to tell the world all the horrors that are taking place in our country, we must do it”, launches Ganna, the guitarist.
Ruslana goes further. For her, the Dakh Daughters are nothing less than cultural fighters called to fight on the “artistic front”. They do not handle weapons like their companions, but compensate with explosive songs and armored performances dedicated to the Ukrainian cause. “Soldiers protect our country from within. We protect it from the outside,” she summarizes.
This commitment is nothing new. Born in 2012 from the thigh of the emblematic Dakh Theater in Kyiv, the Dakh Daughters have always had a militant streak.
But their unique formula has become more radical over time and events. First during the pro-European revolution of 2013, then with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
PHOTO JEAN-CHRISTOPHE LAURENCE, THE PRESS
Ganna Nikitina and Ruslana Khazipova, from Dakh Daughters
“How else? Ruslana asks. If you want to change something with your art, it’s impossible not to be political. »
Their songs draw from the Ukrainian soil, which is in itself a statement. The texts, readjusted in a contemporary way or borrowed from various poets, speak of democracy, freedom, love and hate or the future of a nation in search of emancipation. The music is inspired by local folk, but also jazz, avant-garde, rock.
Splinter concerts
As for their concerts live, located halfway between music and theatre, they are often described as “freak cabarets” where the Berlin of the 1930s, the punk spirit of the Sex Pistols, the old, the new, the rants and faces painted white. “We don’t know where the border is. We are open to all new possibilities, to all new doors,” summarizes Ruslana.
We will see what happens Thursday at FIMAV, for this show already postponed last year because of the pandemic. The two musicians announce an adapted version of their concept, with sound montages and art videos referring explicitly to current events. There is no doubt that their message will carry loud and clear.
After that ? Afterwards, the Dakh Daughters will begin a tour of the United States, before returning to Europe, where their schedule is filled until 2023.
In the longer term, on the other hand, it is still the unknown. As long as this war lasts, the Dakh Daughters will continue to wage their war “from the outside”.
“We are used to being on the road. But this is the first time we’ve been on tour as refugees, says Ganna. Normally, we always know when we’re going home. But this time, we don’t know. It’s horrible… ”