Dancing with danger

When Maria Falconer asked a Ukrainian choreographer, 'How do you dance in a war zone?', little did she know what would follow. Her partner, Paul Hill explains...

-  Paul Hill

As I consumed some great ravioli made by Viktor's mum in her and her husband's fourth-floor modest Soviet flat in Kyiv, she told Maria and I how she woke up the night before and heard a Russian missile pass overhead. 'It made a "swoosh" noise, and I rushed out of bed into the hall to be away from the windows, but the siren soon sounded the all clear,' she recalled in a matter-of-fact way, so common to those Ukrainians we met on our project. They have almost normalised the lethal consequences of this heinous invasion. In another part of the country 25 people were killed that day.

We are in Kyiv to complete our photographic and video project, 'How do you dance in a war zone?' It all came about 12 months ago when Maria sat in on a webinar organised by Dance Base in Edinburgh where she was previously the photographer-in-residence. Viktor Ruban, a dancer, choreographer and director, was one of the speakers and replied to her question, but he also invited her to come and find out. This is often the way with photographic projects: a chance meeting at an event or a snatched conversation in a lift. Incidents that are serendipitous frequently arouse your curiosity and ignite the imagination.

Maria decided to accept the invitation.

After several months of Zoom chats between ourselves and dancers in Lviv and Kyiv, a plan was formulated with all the usual caveats about flexibility and playing things by ear. A six-day reconnaissance in winter established real as opposed to virtual contacts with performers, the military and galleries, and gave us the opportunity to check out some suitable locations.