Ukrainian Dancers Find Shelter Abroad as War Rages at Home
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- Mar 9, 2022
- 1 min read
Opera houses and theaters in European cities are offering to help fleeing or stranded ballet dancers, even as many are still stuck in Ukraine.
PARIS — When Ivan Kozlov landed in France with the Kyiv City Ballet on Feb. 23, the drumbeat of a possible Russian attack on Ukraine was growing louder. But he still didn’t think that President Vladimir V. Putin’s forces would invade.
“Honestly, I couldn’t believe it would happen,” said Mr. Kozlov, 39, who has directed the company since its creation in 2012. “I thought he was trying to scare us by putting soldiers at the border, that’s it.”
But the day after the company’s arrival in Paris, hours before its first performance, the troupe’s 30 or so dancers woke in the pre-dawn hours to news of airstrikes and troop movements flashing across their phones. War had broken out.
That made it nearly impossible for the company to return to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, after the end of its French tour, in mid-March.
“Every one of us was in shock,” Daniil Podhrushko, 21, one of the dancers, said through a translator. “We were in disbelief.”
Two million people have fled Ukraine since the start of the war, according to the United Nations. Like their compatriots, Ukrainian ballet dancers have found themselves caught in the middle of the conflict — trying to flee or stuck abroad on tour or forced to remain in Ukraine. Now, theaters and opera houses around Europe are scrambling to offer help, shelter or work.
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