The border. What do they want? What do we want?

Documentary performance and subsequent discussion about events on the Belarusian‑Polish border

The play is a record of the crisis situation on the Polish‑Belarusian border, which began in July 2021 and continues to this day, and at the same time an attempt to penetrate beneath the surface of the situation and into the motivations of the individual actors. The staged reading features reportage texts, personal testimonies of residents of the state‑of‑emergency zone, of those who help, those who refuse to help, border guards and police officers, migrants, politicians and other voluntary or involuntary participants in the events – without any deliberate attempt to defend or criticize anyone. In each performance, the texts are arranged in a different order, the performers respond to one another, and a new dialogue is created, a new portrait of a community which, despite its belief in its own moral qualities, is not willing to prevent a humanitarian crisis.

The performance changes over time along with the development of the real situation in the borderlands. Members of the group communicate with activists and organizations trying to bring a humane approach into a political war that ignores the human being. Their experiences, politicians' responses to letters, and reactions from the public are gradually incorporated into the performance.

The performance transitions into a discussion on how citizens can respond to a situation in which laws and human rights are demonstrably being violated, how art can influence reality, and what to do when faced with a sense of hopelessness.

Brief outline of the situation:

The regime of President Lukashenko invited thousands of people from Asia and Africa to Belarus with the promise of enabling them to travel to Europe. The Polish government declared a state‑of‑emergency zone in the border area, where no one who does not live or work there is allowed to enter – not even humanitarian workers, doctors, or journalists. A dangerous form of hybrid war is taking place at the border, in which the line between a human being and a tool of provocation or combat is blurred – a "social game" in which:

- migrants are transported from warehouses on the Belarusian side to the border and pushed into Poland, where they hide from Polish soldiers in the state‑of‑emergency zone

- Polish soldiers and border guards camp in the zone, search for hiding migrants, push them back into Belarus and prevent local residents from helping them

- local residents help migrants survive in the swamps and severe frosts, evade border guards searching for migrants – so as not to reveal where the migrants are hiding and not to expose themselves to the risk of criminal prosecution

- nationalist patrols harm migrants and activists

Cast:

Michaela Dašková, Marta Kuchařová / Adriana Kevešová, David Zelinka – texts

Ljubov Plavska – singing of Belarusian songs

Contributors:

Debora Štysová, Anna Tomanová

Music:

Field recordings of songs from the Podlasie region and songs of Syrian refugees in Turkey.