14.02.2026
14:00 – 15:00
THINKING PLURIMI – Сhoreographic and musical performance with Dayana Mankovska, Viktoria Yerchyk, and Olena Shykina
Site-specific performance in which choreography and music interpret the artworks of Emilio Vedova as well as the musical approaches of Luigi Nono
Composer: Olena Shykina
Choreography & Performance: Dayana Mankovska, Viktoria Yerchyk
Curator: Yevheniia Havrylenko (Kunsthaus Dahlem)
Producer: Polina Bulat
On the occasion of the exhibition:
Emilio Vedova – More than Movement for Its Own Sake
Curator: Dorothea Schöne (Managing Director, Kunsthaus Dahlem)
About the Project
In the performance Thinking Plurimi, three Ukrainian artists engage with the artistically embodied experience of Emilio Vedova between 1963 and 1965 in Berlin. At that time, Vedova was in the city for a residency at the building that is now Kunsthaus Dahlem. Today, Dayana Mankovska, Viktoria Yerchyk, and Olena Shykina reinterpret his experience through bodily (dance) and musical forms in that very location. They explore how the historical context of Berlin and the architecture of the studio influenced Vedova, while also examining how the present-day context shapes their own actions here.
The performance’s title refers to the concept that Vedova was actively developing during that period: Plurimi – multi-panel abstract works unfolding into space at different angles. The neologism, specifically coined for this series and meaning “more than plural,” may represent the multiplicity of social energies and moods, as well as a fractured understanding of the world as a coherent whole.
Thinking Plurimi consists of two parts, probing the boundaries between freedom and conflict. It is divided into phases of “suppression” and “liberation,” while simultaneously showing the impossibility of clearly separating these states within some historical and political circumstances.
The music draws on the approaches of the Italian avant-garde composer Luigi Nono, who collaborated with Vedova, as they shared a similar artistic vision. It is also based on an analysis of the “soundscape” of Berlin in 1963–1965 – through engagement with news archives – as well as on experiments in translating the vocal intonations of Emilio Vedova into sound using neural network technologies.
Olena Shykina · Thinking Plurimi: Part I (Teaser)
Context of the Time
During his artistic residency in West Berlin between 1963 and 1965, Emilio Vedova was confronted with a paradoxical condition of stabilised tension in the city. After the construction of the Berlin Wall, there was no more open military escalation; however, the political conflict between East and West quite literally assumed the form of a fixed urban landscape. The introduction of pass agreements enabled the first rare contacts between separated families since 1961, while leaving an oppressive sense of external regulation and control. The exemption of West Berlin from compulsory military service created the conditions for young people to channel their energies into the cultural sphere, which became both a site of experimentation and a platform for expressing left-wing political views. At the same time, as cultural freedom expands, people are increasingly dissatisfied with authoritarian models of power and with society’s silent coexistence with the Nazi past. As a result, the atmosphere of the city during this period acquired a particular expressive intensity – an intensity that Emilio Vedova would repeatedly accentuate.
Costs and Tickets
Regular exhibition admission applies: see prices
Admission tickets are available on site.
Artists – Biographies
► Dayana Mankovska is a Ukrainian dancer and choreographer. She has participated in numerous dance and performing arts productions in Ukraine, Germany, France and Italy. Her credits include membership of the Procontemporary creative group in Kyiv and the dance company Of Curious Nature in Bremen, and in 2023, she participated in the Venice Biennale. Dayana Mankovska is also a teacher and director of miniatures. In 2024, she co-founded the ACT educational dance programme for the professional development of dancers working in commercial and theatre dance in Ukraine and the EU.
Instagram: dayanaaaaam
► Viktoriia Yerchyk is a Ukrainian movement artist and choreographer who relocated to Berlin in 2022. In her practice, she examines how the agency of different spatial and material elements is activated through physical confrontation with the body and how this agency determines movement. At the same time, she uses movement to investigate resistance under non-negotiable conditions. This trajectory was shaped through the development of the solo performance Freedom Inside Out (2023) at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK Berlin), and continued in film projects such as Sculptures of Intimate Spaces (directed by Bibiana Colmenares, 2025), as well as in her work as a movement director for art and fashion publications including Vogue Ukraine, Sleek, Sicky, Glamcult, and Temptress. Viktoriia has worked on music videos and live shows for Foals, Muse, and Ed Sheeran. As part of the Ukrainian collective Apache Crew, she performed at La Mercè Festival Barcelona (2023) and XJAZZ! Festival Berlin (2023). She studied the Dance, Context, and Choreography programme at the UdK Berlin from 2022 to 2024.
viktoriayerchyk
Instagram: viktoriayerchyk
► Olena Shykina is a Kyiv-based composer and sound artist whose practice grows from a research-driven, conceptual approach, shaped by her background in linguistics and in product and experience design. Her work investigates the physical sensation of sound – how it expands, resonates, interacts with the body, and develops a sculptural, multidimensional presence in space. Using electroacoustic methods, noise, high-frequency oscillations, granular processes, and real-time manipulation, she creates immersive sonic environments. Her recent projects include the electronics for the performance GAIA-24 (directed by the Ukrainian composer duo Roman Grygoriv and Illia Razumeiko, 2024), presented, among others, at O. Festival Rotterdam 2024, the Venice Biennale 2024, and the Vienna Music Theatre Days 2024, as well as the music for the audio-choreographic odyssey COSSACHKA (directed by Julia Lopata and choreographed by Gala Pekha, 2023), which toured cities in Ukraine, Prague, and Budapest. She also released the EP Sinner’s Pray (2025) in collaboration with the Ukrainian jewelry brand à propos, and co-created the IRRENAISSANCE EP (2024) with Roman Grygoriv.
olenashykina.me
Instagram: olenashykina
SUPPORT
German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with funds from the German Federal Foreign Office
