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Zhadan and Friends 2021

2021
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Zhadan & Poetry

premiered April 15, 2021 

after premiere

Event Program: 

Zhadan & Poets video of virtual event

Susan Hwang sings "Aviation 58"

more information below

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Zhadan & Prose

premiered April 20, 2021 

after premiere

Event Program: 

Zhadan & Prose video of virtual event

more information below

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Zhadan & Jazz

premiered April 22, 2021 

after premiere

Event Program:

Zhadan & Jazz video of virtual event

more information below

Zhadan & Friends 2021

Yara Arts Group and the Ukrainian Museum in New York will present “Zhadan & Friends 2021” three virtual events with Serhiy Zhadan, April 15-22, 2021. The events, directed by Virlana Tkacz, are all bilingual and free. Links and programs will be posted above when available.

 

Zhadan 2021: POETRY Serhiy Zhadan reads his poetry in Ukrainian from his new book “Psalm to Aviation” (forthcoming in May 2021), while American poets Dzvinia Orlowsky, Askold Melnyczuk, Wanda Phipps, Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler and Olena Jennings react to his poems with their own poems in English. Susan Hwang responds with a song.

Live streamed Thursday, April 15, watch video 

Zhadan 2021: PROSE – “The Orphanage,” celebrating the publication of Zhadan’s novel by Yale University Press in an English translation by Reilly Costigan-Humes and Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler. Zhadan and Wheeler read selections from the book in Ukrainian and English. Julian Kytasty plays bandura to images by Evgeniy Maloletka/Waldemart Klyuzko. Maria Genkin moderates and interviews the author.

Live streamed Tuesday, April 20 at 5:00 PM, on https://www.facebook.com/yaraartsgroupinc

After premiere free link to recording will be posted above.

Zhadan 2021: JAZZ -- Zhadan reads from his recently released book “List of Ships” (2020) and forthcoming “Psalm to Aviation” (May, 2021). Yara actors read English translations by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps, while jazz pianists Anthony Coleman and Fima Chupakhin play.

Live streamed Thursday, April 22 at 5:00 PM, on https://www.facebook.com/yaraartsgroupinc

After premiere free link to recording will be posted above

 

Serhiy Zhadan was born in the Luhansk region of Ukraine and educated in Kharkiv where he lives today. He is the most popular poet of the post-independence generation in Ukraine and the author of twelve books of poetry that have earned him numerous national and European awards. His prose works include Depeche Mode (2004), Voroshilovgrad (2010), Mesopotamia (2014) and The Orphanage (2017).

 

April is National Poetry Month in America and for the past six years Yara has created special poetry events with Serhiy Zhadan in April, celebrating his newest work. Order translations of “The Orphanage” and  “What We Live For, What We Die For: Selected Poetry” by Serhiy Zhadan on Amazon or bookshop.org which supports your local bookstore.

 

Yara’s Spring Poetry Events are made possible by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Self Reliance (NY) Foundation and the Friends of Yara Arts Group. Media partner: Razom for Ukraine. For more information, contact Yara Arts Group yara.arts.group@gmail.com

          

2020

Zhadan and Friends 2020

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Zhadan & Friends 2020

April 2020

 

Event Poster: 

Zhadan & Poets 
Zhadan & Jazz

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Zhadan & Poets

04/24/2020

 

Event Program: 

Zhadan & Poets video of virtual event

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Zhadan & Jazz

 04/25/2020

 

Event Program:

Zhadan & Jazz video of virtual event

Zhadan & Friends 2020

Yara Arts Group and the Ukrainian Museum in New York presented two virtual events with Serhiy Zhadan. On Friday, April 24, 2020, Zhadan read his poetry in Ukrainian from two books, “What We Live For, What We Die For” (2019) and “Antenna” (2018), while American poets Dzvinia Orlowsky, Wanda Phipps, Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler and Olena Jennings reacted to them with their own poems in English. On Saturday, April 25, Zhadan read from his recently released book “List of Ships” (2020), as well as his newest unpublished poems. Poet Bob Holman and Yara actors read English translations together with jazz pianists Anthony Coleman and Fima Chupakhin.

April is National Poetry Month in America and every year Yara creates a series of poetry events in the spring. Two years ago, Serhiy Zhadan arrived for the launch of his book, “Mesopotamia." His poetry reading at the 2018 PEN Festival in New York was sensational. Last spring, Yale University Press published his selected poetry as “What We Life For /What We Die For” in translations by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps. Times Literary Supplement wrote: “World-class poet” … “masterfully translated.” Yara organized two book launches at the Ukrainian Museum in New York that were sold out. This year there were plans for a festival of events with Serhiy Zhadan in New York, Philadelphia and Australia. A virus changed all plans, but it did not cancel them. Yara reimagined the events as a virtual festival.

Serhiy Zhadan was born in the Luhansk Region of Ukraine and educated in Kharkiv where he lives today. He is the author of twelve books of poetry. His prose works include Big Mac (2003), Depeche Mode (2004), Anarchy in the UKR (2005), Hymn of the Democratic Youth (2006), Voroshilovgrad (2010), Mesopotamia (2014) and Orphanage. He is the front man for the band Zhadan and the Dogs, and has collaborated with Yara Arts Group since 2002. Last spring, Yale University Press published his selected poems as What We Live For/What We Die For translated by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps, which was nominated for the 2019 PEN Translation Award.

You can order What We Life For, What We Die For selected poetry by Serhiy Zhadan, translated by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps from Yale University Press, Amazon or bookshop.com which supports your local bookstore.

Yara’s Spring Poetry Events were made possible by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts and the Self Reliance Foundation. Since 2015, they have been hosted by the Ukrainian Museum of New York.

Press on Zhadan 2020 events

YARA ARTS GROUP BRINGS EVENTS TO YOUR LIVING ROOM

          Like many arts organizations, Yara Arts Group is going virtual during the pandemic, taking the opportunity to involve artists in other parts of the world. On April 24 and 25, Yara had their first virtual events with well-known Ukrainian poet Serhiy Zhadan, live from outside of Kharkiv. The events were hosted by Virlana Tkacz with technical assistance by Darien Fiorino.

The first event of Zhadan and Friends featured poets responding to Zhadan’s work with their own poetry and Julian Kytasty responding on the bandura. The poets were Dzvinia Orlowsky, Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler, Wanda Phipps, and myself.

The second event of Zhadan and Friends featured Yara Arts Group actors, musicians Anthony Coleman and Fima Chupakhin, poet Bob Holman, and Serhiy Zhadan. Yara Arts succeeded in drawing a virtual crowd. The event on Zoom by invitation and on Facebook live had over 500 views.

In 2019, Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps released their book of various translations of Zhadan’s poems What We Live For, What We Die For (Yale University Press.) For these virtual events, Tkacz and Phipps translated a new body of poems. They started their new translations with poems from List of Ships.

            Saturday’s event began with a reading by Bob Holman of an essay written by Zhadan called “Phonebook of the Dead” which serves as an introduction to his poems. From this essay, we learn that Zhadan’s father has recently died causing Zhadan to take a journey through the landscape of memory. He writes about diary entries and bad photos, both help him to remember. He finds his father was someone he didn’t know, he “wrote about all of us in his odd handwriting, the handwriting of somebody we didn’t know.” Later, Zhadan calls to the places in his landscape that evoke memory, “book of trees,” “book of stones,” and “book of trampled soccer fields.”

            He also sets a tone for us to consider what writing is, comparing it to nature, “Writing is like a river. Wading into the water, not everyone looks at ease.” Jazz musician Anthony Coleman emphasized these lines with his piano playing, which complemented Bob Holman’s reading perfectly.

            Actors Sean Eden, Chris Ignacio, Maria Pleshkevich, Darien Fiorino, and Maksym Lozynski read from New York’s East Village to San Francisco. They all did justice to Zhadan’s work, but Zhadan most carefully recited the words that are close to his heart. Anthony Coleman continued to play through their readings. Zhadan’s laid-back nature created a sense of comfort like the piano playing.

            In one of the favorite poems “I Imagine How a Bird Sees This,” read by Darien Fiorino in English translation and Serhiy Zhadan in the Ukrainian original. Zhadan writes about the “discarded pages on the streets” making another comment about writing, what is given away and becomes part of nature. Later in the show, we learn about the sun like scripture, a beautiful combination of nature and writing.

            Zhadan read from another book in progress called Psalm of Aviation. This is another instance in which he speaks of writing in the poem “There were words.” “There were words I said about people and their stories.”

            The end of the event was a special treat in that Zhadan read from another book, the most recent, in progress with the accompaniment of Fima Chupakhin on piano.

            This event was a homage to the words used to express death and other emotions. The event will linger in my memory, perfect in a time when the pandemic might occupy most of our thoughts. Yara Arts, as always, is doing a great job creating a diverse community, even during a time of social distancing.

by Olena Jennings, The Ukrainian Weekly, May 3, 2020

          

Zhadan and Friends 2019

2019
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Zhadan & Bushwick Book Club 

04/12/2019

new music, art, film & tattoos inspired by "What We Live For/ What We Die: Selected Poems" by Serhiy Zhadan
 

VIDEO "Mushrooms of Donbas"

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Zhadan & Jazz

 04/13/2019

Poetry from "What We Live For/ What We Die For: Selected Poems" by Serhiy Zhadan, translated from the Ukrainian by Virlana Tkacz  & Wanda Phipps read in Ukrainian & English, while  Jazz pianists Anthony Coleman & Fima Chakhin play 

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Zhadan & Jazz

04/14/2019

Poetry from "What We Live For/ What We Die For: Selected Poems" by Serhiy Zhadan, translated from the Ukrainian by Virlana Tkacz  & Wanda Phipps read in Ukrainian & English, while  Jazz pianists Anthony Coleman & Fima Chakhin play 

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Where the

Rivers Flow

2018

Zhadan & Friends Read and React to His Book "Mesopotamia" April, 2018
Ukrainian Museum New York photos 
Jenkintown, PA | photos

PEN World Voices Festival

"Cry, The Beloved Country" | photos 
"Life During Wartime" | photos

St George Academy | photos 
University of Kansas 
Conversation with Zhadan & Yara

Zhadan and Friends 2018

2018
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Serhiy Zhadan and Friends

2017

Zhadan & Friends at  Yale University,

in Conversation with Keith Gessen| photos,  at the Ukrainian Museum
with Yara & Fima Chupakhin |
photos ,

in UC-San Diego, Sanford,
UIMA Chicago |
photos,

abnd  University of Chicago

Zhadan and Friends 2017

Zhadan and Friends 2016

Serhiy Zhadan - photo Waldemart Klyuzko.

Serhiy Zhadan and Yara Arts Group

2016

Bowery Poetry Club,

Columbia University,
Rutgers University,
Ukrainian Museum New York | 
photos, Ukrainian Museum-Archives in Cleveland, University of Texas Austin
&  KHARKIV PARTY
 photos

at Ukrainian Sports Club in New York 
with Fima Chupakhin and Susan Hwang & The Relastics. 

2017
2016
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