Inventive, experimental and activist, Ukraine band tells the story of their country while touring during wartime
KURATED NO. 144
ON TOUR DURING WARTIME
Ukraine’s DakhaBrakha
CONTENTS
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Ukraine’s DakhaBrakha is well known to North American audiences. Locally they’ve performed at both the Vancouver Folk Music Festival and the Chan Centre.

ON TOUR DURING WARTIME

Telling the story of their country

For Ukraine’s boisterous and joyful “ethno-chaos” band DakhaBrakha things have gotten serious. One month into a world tour and they found their country at war. The quartet agreed to carry on.

“Well, of course, it’s a big pain and it’s a big tragedy for our country, and we feel it every moment,” band member Marko Halanevych told NPR.org. “A lot of people in Ukraine and around the world, they tell us it’s our best possibility to be useful and helpful, is to be on stage and to show people our culture, music and to tell our story and to tell the story of our country.”

Over the past decade the band has toured North America extensively and been vocal about Ukraine’s vulnerable position sharing a border with Russia. When I heard them issue a call for support and solidarity at the end of a sunny Sunday workshop stage performance during the Vancouver Folk Music Festival in 2017, I didn’t know what they were asking of us or why.

The band wraps up their American tour this coming week and continues touring in Europe through May.

LISTEN AND READ

Halanevych, the band’s only male member, gave an insightful interview to NPR.org (National Public Radio).
• You can read it here. The article has links to two new songs.
Listen to the five-minute interview here.

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