DakhaBrakha (UKRAINE)
TD MAINSTAGE BANDSHELL
SATURDAY 10:00pm-11:00pm
LONDON BREWERIES STAGE
SUNDAY 7:00pm-8:00pm
With a name that means "give/take,” celebrated Ukrainian-folk-meets-punk band DakhaBrakha (Nina Garenetska, Marko Halanevych, Iryna Kovalenko and Olena Tsybulska) explores all kinds of old Ukrainian folk styles and other far-reaching global sounds, refracted through the prism of the 21st century and with a highly honed sense of showmanship. The group’s music is rooted in the sounds of the harmonica, garmoshka (accordion) and the zhaelika, (single-reed horn instrument), and enhanced by traditional Indian, Arabic, African and Australian instrumentation.
If you’ve seen DakhaBrakha perform at TD Sunfest before (2023 is their third visit), then you’ll know that they operate at the crossroads of Ukrainian folklore and theatre. In fact, the ensemble was created in 2004 at the Kyiv Center of Contemporary Art «DAKH» by avant-garde director Vladyslav Troitskyi, and their shows have never been staged without mesmerizing scenic effects to complement their astonishingly powerful and uncompromising vocals, known as “white voice,” and their distinctive “ethno-chaos” branded costumes consisting of dark conical hats, multi-strand necklaces and patterned fabrics. The band inhabits a wide musical spectrum: first, intimate; then riotous, plumbing the depths of contemporary roots and rhythms, and inspiring cultural and artistic liberation. For years, DakhaBrakha have called themselves "ambassadors of free Ukraine." Their concerts have been peppered with trenchant critiques; now, they hear those insights reflected and amplified daily around the world. Indeed, since February of 2022, their music – fierce, exuberant and understitched with playful humor – has had to take on a far more serious and urgent tone.
A year ago, band member Nina Garenetska told The New York Times that “We can’t make any music. Because this is our life now: An air raid siren goes off — you go downstairs, you wait, you go back up. And this is nonstop. When it is too dangerous, we will run to the bomb shelter.” But this past March, in an interview with Globe & Mail contributor Catherine Kustanczy, Nina’s bandmate Marko was more upbeat: “Some defence mechanisms have been activated [now] so that we don’t go crazy, and nowadays, we are ready to accept art, and to rejoice in doing it, even though the war continues and we spend a lot of our emotional energy reflecting on that.”
New York ethnomusicologist Maria Sonevytsky said, "I think one of the most powerful things that DakhaBrakha can offer is they show there is a very rich past in Ukraine, and they show this by bringing together a diversity of musical practices from different regions of Ukraine, from different ethnic groups within the country… and they fuse them together in a beautiful way that also suggests a future for Ukraine.”