Besides creative projects, I am actively engaged in academia – so far I am an independent scholar but joining a PhD programme is in my nearest plans. Coming from the movement practices’ background, I am primarily focusing on the Body even in the intellectual realm.
My main research interests are body and dance politics, non-conformity and alternativity, orientalism and self-exoticism. I am investigating the recent history of the Ukrainian body: from the Soviet oppression through the post-soviet transitional period to the novel and extreme reality of war. I am especially interested in the non-conforming bodies that claim their agency through different ways of movement and adornment (e.g. dancing banned dance styles, getting tattooed, dressing ‘inappropriately’).
I regularly attend academic events as a speaker as well as present my work in a non-academic environment. Here is the list of my talks for the last couple of years:
2024
- Public Talk Body as a Tool: Politics of Soviet Dance in Ziegel Art Atelier, Graz
- Panel Talk Now We Get It’: Ukrainian Perception of Belly Dance as Colonial Practice at the Second Symposium on Middle Eastern, North African and Central Asian Dances, Music and Performing Arts (MENACA 2024)
- Panel Talk Dance and research in violent contexts: ethics, bonding and personal engagement for the Choreomundus Alumni Conference 2024, London
- Speaker at Embedded: The Military as a Patron of the Arts with a talk ‘Performing the Army: Military Representation by Soviet Ensembles’
- Invited speaker at the Footsteps of Resilience panel talk on dance under totalitarianism and after, Bratislava
- Public Talk Soviet Subaltern on Stage, Fellows’ Colloquium at the IWM, Vienna
2023
- Contribution to the panel Decolonising Terminology: The World In Dance Words: Theoretical Perspectives at the International Council for Traditional Music World Conference
- Invited lecturer at Cultural Transformations: Decolonisation online workshop by House of Europe & Goethe Institut Ukraine
- Moderator at Art in a Time of War: a series of Zoom conversations with Ukrainian educators, artists, cultural ambassadors supported by the University Riverside, California
- Transregional Dialogues Conference: presenting results of the Transregional Dialogues fellowship, panel talk Resistance and Non-Conformity: Gaining Agency through the Body in Post-Soviet Ukraine
- Lecture for current Choreomundus programme students War in Ukraine: corporeal experience, heritage and entertainment
- Contribution to A little bit further down and to the side Winter School at Tanzquartier Wien with panel talk on Self-Exoticism and Post-Soviet Femininity
2022
- Contribution to Moving Margins Symposium, Berlin, Germany with the panel talk Self-Exoticism and Post-Soviet Femininity: How USSR Dance Politics shaped Fusion Belly Dance in Ukraine
- Invited talk at NOMAD – performative community brunch as a travelling artist presenting her migration experiences, Budapest, Hungary
- Presentation Inclusion of Ukrainian traditional soup borscht in the ICH list and popular reaction to it in the context of Ukrainian-Russian war (inclusion to ICH as a political tool) for the roundtable ‘Recent Trends and Evolutions in Intangible Cultural Heritage’ at Choreomundus Alumni Conference 2022, France
- Contribution to the collective presentation of ‘The World in Dance Words’ project with ‘Ukrainian words for dance’ at Choreomundus Alumni Conference 2022, France
Maria Kardash 