30/09-02/10/2022
festival
Otrokiv 2022
Ukrainian Laser Show Festival
Since 2008, the Otrokiv Laser Show Festival has been held in Ukraine. Sixteen editions of the event took place in Otrokiv in the Khmelnytskyi region (hence the festival’s name), as well as in Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa, and Uzhgorod. This year, as a result of the ongoing war in Ukraine, the festival will take place in Warsaw, Poland. Laser animations created by artists from Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, Moldova, Germany, and the United Arab Emirates will be displayed on the façade of the Ujazdowski Castle.
- On three consecutive evenings – 30 September, 1 and 2 October 2022 – we will experience the work of many well-known light and sound artists:
- Oleksiy Dulenko / Oryginal Liht (Dnieper, Ukraine)
- Vlodek Duval / Mediam (Kraków, Poland)
- Ihor Skalskyi / Tex-apt (Lviv, Ukraine)
- Pavel Kuboshek / Kvant (Bratislava, Slovakia)
- Jürgen Maak / Eastlight (Zul, Germany)
- Dmytro Yeroshenya / Studio Laser (Kyiv, Ukraine)
- Igor Vlasenko (Slobozia, Moldova)
- Oleksandr Bessmertnyj / Immolas (Kyiv, Ukraine)
- Serge Lomadze / Laser Saga (Dubai, United Arab Emirates)
- Vitaliy Pavluk / Shaw Servis (Lviv, Ukraine)
- Igor Skalski, the festival’s Ukrainian organizer, describes the event as follows:
- “It all began in the second half of the last century as Op-art was emerging in the West and light music machines were developing in the USSR. In Transcarpathia – amid the fusion of Ukrainian, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak and Romanian cultures, in this extremely rich cultural environment of Central Europe – in 1982, the theatre of new audiovisual art combining sound painting and moving light – Uzhgorod Light Music Theatre – was created.
- In this theatre, the parts of light actors were performed by the orchestra of light artists, each with their own instrument. They rotated dials and changed coloured lenses; illuminated by lamps and theatrical spotlights, they distorted and moved light images on the screen by means of flexible mirrors, and later began to use lasers as universal means of illumination. Back then, as we shaped this new kind of art, we believed that its beauty would improve the grey, gloomy world of socialist realism.
- In the 1090s, laser equipment became easier to use, leading to the emergence of laser graphics animation and spatial shows. With the development of computer technology, laser shows were recorded using computer programmes, allowing a single artist to control the entire “light orchestra” and include their works in other events without the need to be present in person.
- The name of our laser show festival of comes from the name of the place where it was held for the first time – the village of Otrokiv in the Khmelnytskyi region, which in tself has an interesting history.
- Have you heard of Mynkovetska State, created on the border of the Russian Empire and Austria-Hungary at the end of the 18th century? It was founded by Count Ignacy Ścibor-Marchocki, who united his villages, freed peasants from serfdom, developed his own constitution and introduced trial by jury. Count Ścibor-Marchocki’s castle, near which our annual Festival began in 2008, has been preserved in the village of Otrokiv.
- In 2010, the festival took place at the main square of Lviv, in 2014 – at the Independence Square in Kyiv, in 2017 – at the Green Theatre in Odesa, in 2020 – in Uzhgorod. In 2021, Covid-19 restrictions prevented the organization of the festival. And then, in 2022, Russia attacked Ukraine, so the festival will be held in Poland as a thank you for your help and support and a reminder of our shared history of struggle against the horde.
- The information front is no less important than the military front, and we will be pleased if this unique light and music art will help our audience come up with new ideas and inspiration for action and creativity.
- Among the many genres of light and sound, our festival will present the two most popular ones – laser animation and a laser show.”
