LECTURES ON LES KURBAS AND THE PRESENTATION OF THE LES KURBAS CENTRE
Lecturer: Oleksandr Chaika, Ukraine
“Kurbas. Reconstruction”
Les Kurbas – a prominent Ukrainian artist, the founder of the contemporary national theatre, an actor, a producer, an activist, a translator-polyglot. His plays are a place where philosophy and psychology meet, giving an important impulse to the Ukrainian renaissance. The Soviet rulers killed him in 1937 employing his artistic heritage in the service of their own concepts. His name was rehabilitated in 1955, but not his ideas... The new Ukrainian authorities of the 1990s were forced to allow his name to be given to the Theatre Centre. The Centre has set several guidelines:
- Development of a contemporary model of dialogue: Ukrainian culture – world culture;
- Writing a history of the 20th Ukrainian theatre within the context of the world art culture, through the use of new methodologies;
- Creation of an extensive system of cultural projects as mechanisms for a reintegration of the national culture into the world context;
- Creation of innovative models for theatrical and artistic education;
- An analysis of the national cultural policy; proposal of alternative and innovative cultural forms.