Artist Spotlight: Lena Kalashnykova
In conversation with Toni Shapiro-Phim
Lena Kalashnykova is, as of this moment in early June 2025, in her native Ukraine, working on a Playback Theatre project. She was the director of Ukraine’s Playback Theatre school for six years. In February 2022 she and an ensemble of her Ukrainian Playback colleagues were in Lithuania for a performance tour when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of their homeland. They couldn’t return. But they could, and did, get to work immediately, coordinating evacuation transport so that others would be able to join them. They secured emergency aid for the arriving refugees as well.
In May 2025, before her latest trip back into Ukraine, and while still in Lithuania, Lena spoke with me about her life as a Playback practitioner, especially during wartime. What follows are excerpts of Lena’s words from that conversation, after a short description of Playback Theatre.
Playback Theatre
According to the International Playback Theatre Network's website, “Created in 1975, Playback Theatre is now used in over 70 countries around the world to help build bridges across differences and to honor the human condition.” For a Playback performance, there is no script. And though there is a sonic component (with music and song), there is no musical score. This is an improvisational art. It is also interactive: An audience member shares an experience they’ve had. Playback actors then re-enact the story for the “teller” and all other members of the audience. A “conductor” – part of the Playback ensemble – initiates conversation with the audience and facilitates the overall event.
Lena Kalashnykova:
In Lithuania
Here in Lithuania we have two projects: One is about integration of Playback to Lithuanian culture, because in Lithuania they didn’t have Playback before we came. We were newcomers and brought Playback with us. After the full-scale invasion we were stranded here and started to do Playback. Lithuanian cultural specialists were like, “Whoa, we never saw anything like this.”
A second project is about the integration and adaptation of Ukrainian refugees to Lithuania, because we have so many refugees here: It’s now more than 70,000. And Lithuanians are a bit shocked because it’s a big amount of people, a big wave of migration. Ukrainians and Lithuanians have different languages, different cultures. We do performances for Ukrainian audiences about these differences. We’re cooperating with museums, where people can go to exhibitions, and after that they have a Playback performance where they can share how things are for them here, and how they were before, in Ukraine. Also in that project we’ve had performances in which we spoke about the Lithuanian language because for Ukrainians it is pretty difficult. It’s a very special language. I think Lithuanian and Latvian are part of a branch of languages not similar to any others. With just two million Lithuanians, some people are really afraid that now Ukrainians will come and overtake them, that maybe some parts of their language will disappear.
At the same time, they do a lot to help Ukrainians integrate. It’s really a big deal because here among the Ukrainians are those from occupied territories who will not turn back, not go home. People from territorial [not-occupied] Ukraine – if the war will finish – maybe they will go back. But here the situation is that more than half are people from occupied territories and we can’t be sure that these territories will turn back to Ukraine, unfortunately. More likely these people will stay. Our Lithuanian project supports people in this process of adaptation.
Countries, Languages, Cultures
We also have an international project. We are part of Perform Europe, and our project is about stories of ethnic and cultural minorities. We had a tour through Lithuania and Germany where we connected different cultural and national minorities with other local people through Playback performances. This is to provide some platforms for them for the sharing of their stories. And mainly, we help local long-term residents hear those stories. Because migrants or refugees somehow are usually in their bubbles. And they are not connected with the majority. Our main goal is to make them visible, so that other local people can hear their real stories. One problem is that people want to help, but they have some illusion or assumption about what refugees need. They think they understand something, but to be honest, they don’t. Because they weren't refugees, they don't know what refugees really need. And it's good for them to learn what refugees are thinking, to hear what war is like, and what the refugees see as their actual problems.
About languages: We play [perform] in Ukrainian or English or if possible, both. And if performing mixed, it means that on the stage we usually have four actors. Different actors play in different languages. In this case audiences can be attached to the performance, to the story, in different ways, because in Playback a lot of things are repeatable. And in Germany, someone will speak, for example, German, someone else will speak English, someone will speak Ukrainian. It’s what we did on our German tour. There we were coordinating with Ukrainian local Playbackers. They had already been there for three years and are pretty well integrated. A lot of them are maybe not fluent, but they can form correct sentences in German and it’s really very good. Also, we always have a translator in the audience. You know, sometimes it can be difficult understanding a particular teller, even if we know German. Maybe the person speaks very fast or has a certain accent or something and in that case we have an interpreter.
Here in Lithuania we as Playbackers know Lithuanian pretty well also, since we’ve been here for three years, but we always have an interpreter. The younger generation, though, are very good in English. If we speak about adults, older than 40, they are good in Russian because of the history of Soviet occupation. We are not natives of course but somehow we can communicate [in all these languages] as we know Russian very well, too. The Soviet occupation of Ukraine was much longer than it was in Lithuania.
One major difference I noticed, and maybe it’s a cultural difference between Germany and Lithuania, was how Ukrainian men talk about not being soldiers. In Germany it was the first time I heard a story from a Ukrainian man in which he said, “I’m running from war like a man,” because here in Lithuania it is impossible to hear a story like that. All men will be ashamed that they are not in the war, that they are not protecting [their homeland on the frontlines]. And it is very rare that men share stories in performances because there is a very big level of guilt, and of social pressure. In Germany, one-by-one the boys came and said, “Oh, I ran from war and I’m a free person here,” and I was “Whoa!” I was in shock…
February 2022
On the 18th of February, 2022, nine of us left Ukraine on the last flight. We went for a Playback performance tour of Lithuania. All of us already understood that war will be [imminent] and some of our group members even took their diplomas, you know, or some other documents with them, because a lot of people really had been preparing.
It was just, you know, not a lucky moment, but it gave us a big opportunity to help a lot of people. Because when the full-scale invasion started, we were living all together in one big house. We gathered together, and we did all this evacuation stuff. We collected whatever was really needed during that first month, because it was horrid for people. No one knew what to do, how to do anything, with whom to communicate, or where to go. And I remember, every day I went to the governmental institutions of Lithuania, and knocked on different doors. I was like, “Guys, we need this. We need that. We need buses. We need shelters. I don't know, hundreds of people will come tomorrow, where can you place them?”And this really helped. I understood that was a big deal because we would be evacuating people from a full-scale invasion from now on.
In Ukraine, we had a lot of projects before the full-scale invasion. I'm originally from the Donetsk region. In 2014 [when Russia invaded Crimea] I moved to Kharkiv. So in 2022 it was not my first migration. I had a very strong connection with border zones that are very close to the war. Since 2014 we’ve had Playback projects in military zones. When the full-scale invasion started, of course, it started there. And it was my people, whom I know and worked with, who were in the line of attack. And I just couldn't sit and look at how they were sitting in shelters, like 24 hours without light, water, with nothing. It was just horrible. And I understood that, okay, we should do something. No, we can't leave our people like that. And I just started to, you know, search for opportunities, search for people to call. And to be honest, Lithuanians are really very open and very helpful. And there was huge support, not only from the government, but also from local people who said, “Okay, a family of seven people, five kids and a dog? Okay, yeah, my house, okay, come in.”
[A usual pre-war trip] from Ukraine to Lithuania would take 24 hours. The first evacuation took four full days because they had to stop and go into shelters along the way. And for people who were under occupation already it’s a totally horrible story because they can't move through the border to [non-occupied] Ukraine. They had to go to Russia, cross Russia into Belarus, go to Latvia, and then come here. But somehow we found people at different points along the way, and they helped us. The Lithuanian government gave us transport. [Over the course of] two months, we had nearly 50 buses.
Nowadays
I work at an non-formal education and consultation center in Vilnius [Lithuania]. It was founded in 2008 and they are like my long-term colleagues. The first project I had with them was in 2014. Under that organization I can do my theater work. That has opened a lot of doors for us. I have my organization in Ukraine, but that’s only for Ukrainian projects.
I’ve said before that I believe in the power of Playback to foster community integration and emotional well-being. I have a lot of examples of this.
What I feel in Playback is that when people see their stories on the stage and when it really resonates with them, they feel deeply touched. It's really that someone has listened to me so carefully that they can perform my story. And when other people also observe it, like it's very big support for the teller. It’s as if other people find space for him or her. And also, it's about creating a safe space, because in Playback, we are very strict about making any kind of judgment. It's just impossible under my leadership. And when people understand that it's a safe space, they share whatever they have. It provides a possibility to say, I'm here, I'm alive. I have my story, and you can't say that I'm not correct.
During the first half of the year after the full-scale invasion, everyone shared the story of how they evacuated. Almost every teller would sit on a chair and start by saying, “My name is.... I'm from…” And then there would be the evacuation story. It was really about presence. You know, “I'm here. But I'm from there.” Not all of us have the capacity to reflect on our lives. During a Playback performance, it's always like that. Also very often in Playback, we have community support. People find that many in the audience share the same feelings with the teller, or share a similar experience and reaction. And in that case, people offer real support and make real connections. Then the teller feels they are not alone. Very often we are so wrapped up in our experience, thinking “it is only me, only me in this fucking hole.” This even happens in audiences with people who have different abilities and disabilities, or who come from different cultural groups, or people of different generations.
Sometimes we do special performances under some topic, but more often, we are doing open performances. This allows people to say what is on their minds right now, today. And it always works very well. I really like it. Another thing I really like in Playback is that usually, after a good performance, people stay in the audience for at least an hour, and they continue exchanging stories and asking questions of one another. They are making some new friendships because something has opened up in them. For some people it is difficult to share in front of an audience. But after a performance, they can approach someone individually, maybe one of the tellers, and say, “Oh, I heard your story. I'm like you, or I'm not like you, or I have some experience like that, or not like that.” I remember we had a performance in Ukraine after 2014, a bit after the first invasion. There was a big wave of internal displacement and migration. We performed for a group of internally displaced mothers of children with disabilities. Some of them shared their stories, including what problems they had at the moment. And after the performance, we couldn't get them to stop talking and go home, because they started to run to each other and share resources (“I know this place where you can get help with…”) And it was, I don't know, like opening a box of miracles.
Once a performance ends we actors do our last rituals, and go into the audience, and hug the tellers as we thank them for their stories. As a conductor, I might go to someone who had raised their hand but who didn’t get to tell their story, and ask individually about what they wanted to share. If the performance has included very heavy or difficult stories, we refer people who seem to need support to psychologists who are present.
Internal Displacement
Note: Following Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity in 2014, Russia invaded the country, ultimately annexing Crimea. After continued war, Russia eventually fully occupied the western Donbas region as well.
I have thousands of stories. In 2014 and 2015, in one project, we did performances every week in modular towns that had been built for the internally displaced. That was the first wave of migration. People say that the war started in 2022, but we say that it's the full-scale invasion that started then. The war started in 2014.
We had a bus tour, sometimes driving for hours to a particular modular town, then performing, and then driving back. Modular towns are not such welcoming spaces. They are usually made of small wooden houses with minimal infrastructure. The travel and performances were really exhausting, but very meaningful. Sometimes difficult. Sometimes funny. Sometimes touching.
I remember the story of one woman. I don't know why I’m just reminded of that story. She shared that she worked as a train operator. She drove trains. And she talked about the fields, the trees, everything she would see as she was driving the train through the Donetsk region. She described things in such detail that we felt we could almost touch the landscape. Now it's impossible for her to see any of that, but it had been what she saw every day, through the weeks, months, and years. It was a light story, but how much heaviness was under that light narration?
And one other story: This one involves children. We took kids from evacuation zones and spent two days with them, hanging out at a zoo. We had some Playback performances where they could share stories about who or what they want to be when they grow up. In these special circumstances, just to see animals, dance, have fun, and be allowed to dream, was wonderful.
People were in crisis, but when we are in crisis, we want to be together. It's something, I don't know, something maybe natural, maybe not, but it's how we react if something difficult happens. Maybe it's a Ukrainian thing. It was very common that in this difficult situation, people tried to be together. And Playback offers this possibility, and we usually just call people to be together, to sit together, to speak together, to listen to each other, to help each other through.
Our art should disturb comfort, and comfort people whose lives have been disturbed. We try to provide safe spaces, even if we are underground in a shelter with one candle. No matter what, we are here together. We can laugh, we can dance, we can play. Because if we sit and cry while under all that pressure, we will die. We need energy to move forward.
Women and War
In 2016 and 2017 we worked with internally displaced women. Many who found themselves alone, or only with their children, tried to find someone to rely on. And not all the people who seemed to offer help or protection were actually good people. Women in this situation are at risk. It’s very sad, because they had already experienced difficulties and then they attached themselves to someone who ends up not being good to them.
We collaborated with organizations that were already working with groups of women who had survived intimate partner violence, and others who had been victims of human trafficking. Their experiences were deeply traumatic.
We had a lot of training beforehand because we really were afraid to retraumatize people. We didn’t want to do or say anything wrong. We would never have trust, this opening, this connection, if people thought that we didn’t understand. In these performances, there were always psychologists in the audience. After a performance, people could register for a support group. It was amazing, because after each performance, with about 70 people in attendance, so many of them joined support groups.
My current project in Ukraine is a difficult one for me. Maybe because I'm in Lithuania and I'm moving to Ukraine to do a project, and coming back to Lithuania. I'm not sure: Can I fully understand what is going on with women who have stayed in Ukraine and have husbands in the military? No, because I'm not living in a war. I don't have a military husband. I listen. I hear. I feel. I can perform, I can conduct, I can be present, I can serve. But it's very difficult, even more difficult than before because this is something really new for us. There’s a big question about military service and rotation, because when people from a war come back for a while to the cities, they might have PTSD. Even if they’ve never been violent before, they just have this physical reaction. And they are violent to their wives. Maybe she touched him just so. All of a sudden he will turn and beat her, not because he wants to, but just because he is in this condition. A lot of families have broken apart because of this, and when that happens, society starts to attack the women who are accused of not supporting the country’s saviors. “They fight for us.” But there is no official psycho-social support for returning soldiers.
There’s also a separation between women who have lost their husbands in the war, and the women whose military husbands have turned violent. One doesn’t understand how to live without her husband; and the other can’t figure out how to live with him. For now, these are two separate groups of women in our project.
Bomb Shelters
We played in a shelter once, but that wasn’t the original plan. We were in the middle of a performance and the bombing started. We just decided not to interrupt the performance, so we moved to the shelter and continued the performance there. Why not? Somehow we can be together in another creative way. I also like the idea that shelters shouldn't be places of fear. And now in Ukraine, we have a lot of projects where shelters have been painted very brightly because kids spend a lot of time there. Black walls in this situation don't work. We need something bright.
I'm thinking about Lithuania: They don't have any shelters, like under houses. Sometimes I'm really afraid that if war would start tomorrow, what would I do? In Ukraine, we’ve worked on this kind of infrastructure since 2014. We have these spaces everywhere. But here, what would people do?
Ukrainian Playback Theatre
I want people to know that our stories are really important. I really believe that a personal story is the most valuable thing. For me, it's about sharing personal stories and relating them to collective experience.
I need Ukrainian Playback to exist, just like I need water. You know that we have this big, big international network, and we have different schools in different countries, and we have different Playbackers with different styles, with different trainers. And for me, it's critical that we have Ukrainian Playback and our Playback school, and that we are doing a lot. We have our own expertise that maybe no one else has. It's about war. It's about trauma. We are very strong in it, because we’ve been working with these topics since 2014. If we can serve others with our knowledge and experience, we're always happy to do that. It’s my wish to exchange, to share.
We are applying for funds to support a Ukrainian residency in Lithuania. I understand that now we have this big separation between local Ukrainians [inside Ukraine] and Ukrainians who were evacuated. At the moment we take Ukrainians from Ukraine to Lithuania and organize some programs. It's not only theater: It's also educational and entrepreneurship training. This helps people build new contacts. We want to expand this residency, bringing students from inside Ukraine together with Ukrainian students at the Mariupol State University Center, established at Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania. [A number of Mariupol’s university students and faculty fled to Lithuania during or after the violent decimation of their city.]
I want people to know that we [Ukrainian Playbackers] continue to exist. We are doing our stuff. We are doing it as best we can. Maybe sometimes we are making mistakes. Sometimes we don't know how it will be or what will happen tomorrow. But yeah, we are here.
At the end of next month, I'm going to Ukraine for some time, maybe for a month or more. We will see how it is in terms of safety in the different regions. We will see.