Category: Новини

After an extensive warmup, the dance students break into groups. The most experienced children — from 12 to 16 years old — show off complex jazz-funk and hip-hop routines to songs like K7’s “Come Baby Come.”

Outside the technical college hosting the class, snow falls over the mostly abandoned and heavily damaged city. Russian forces who occupied Izium were driven out in September, but the area is still laden with bombs and other explosives. Most families fled and haven’t returned.

During the occupation, the dance team didn’t practice, and all academic schools were closed. Water and electricity were cut off as Ukraine fought bitterly to win back the city. Remaining families had little to do but wait for the violence to end.

“In the first days of occupation, we spent our time counting the falling shells,” explained Ivan Pustelnik, a 12-year-old dancer in black sweatpants and kneepads. After seven years of training, he is a veteran of Izium’s dance team. “In one day, we counted 400 strikes.”

As the months of war dragged on, families tried to get back to a somewhat normal life, added Olesya Bilyaga, the dance coach.

“We knew Russia was in charge at that time,” she says. “But we always considered ourselves Ukrainian and waited for Ukraine to come back.”

Ukraine did come back, taking this strategic city and restoring a key supply line to their forces on the front lines. Some families began to rebuild their damaged homes.

“After Ukraine returned to Izium, water came back and we could clean the apartment,” said Milana Tytarenko, a 10-year-old student who started dance classes a month ago.

She speaks in a quick, stoic voice and wears a bright pink shirt that says “Chief Happiness Officer” in small, white letters.

“It was hard to live under Russia because our windows were covered with plastic sheets,” she said.

At that time, there was no point in repairing windows that would break again in the next inevitable blast, she said.

But some damage cannot so easily be fixed, added Bilyaga.

“If you watch the children in dance class, you can see which ones stayed during the occupation,” she explained. “You can see the trauma on their faces.”

After her dance class, Tytarenko’s face grows pale as she remembers the time, and those she lost.

“My grandpa. My grandma,” she said. She continues listing relatives as her eyes glaze with tears and her voice fades to silence.

Moving on

Before the war, the Izium dance team was competitive, winning medals in regional, national and international meets. Most of the dancers fled with their families, but some have come back. About 30% of the original members are now dancing again.

“This summer we are going to Odesa,” said Pustelnik, the 12-year-old boy with seven years of training.

He described what he expects to be a dance conference that includes a friendly competition in the southern port city.

“My teacher will choreograph a solo for me,” he adds, appearing just a little bit excited.

Dance classes began again in December, and they are still among the very few activities Izium children can do outside their homes with other children. School is online and almost all community facilities are damaged or destroyed.

A nearly hundred-year-old theater that used to host the dance classes, concerts and a library is now damaged beyond use. Blown out windows are covered with fraying plastic tarps, and shattered glass litters the floor. An explosion of index cards that catalogued the library books is scattered throughout the facility.

The books were packed into a storage room by Russian soldiers, locals say, but they were destroyed when the room caught fire after a bombing.

“We are going to rebuild the theater one day,” said Bilyaga, the dance coach. “But the municipality doesn’t have the money right now.”

For now, dance classes continue at the technical college, which is also starting to host their students in person for some classes, some of the time.

In the class, after the more experienced dancers demonstrate their routines, younger and newer students spread out on the dance floor. In brightly colored leotards, sweats and sneakers, the children learn a combination of stomping, clapping and twisting. Some dance with abandon, others focus on getting the steps right.

The war in Ukraine seems far from over, with both sides gearing up for spring battles after a long, brutal winter. Many people died, and neither side gained much ground.

But dancers in Izium say the fighting is now barely in earshot and they hope it will never return to their city. The nearest battle zone is now at least 60 kilometers away, which for children in Izium, seems far away.

“Not long ago we heard shelling,” said Alona Gurova, an 11-year-old who recently began dancing after a friend told her it was fun. “But it was a long way off.”

Oleksandr Babenko contributed to this report.
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As bloody, stalemated battles in Ukraine grind on, young dancers in the eastern city of Izium are training again, hoping to resume competition despite the destruction of their theater. VOA’s Heather Murdock reports from Izium, Ukraine. Camera: Yan Boechat.
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Riding terrific reviews and a strong word-of-mouth, the role-playing game adaptation “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” opened with $38.5 million in U.S. and Canadian movie theaters over the weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday, stealing the top box-office perch from “John Wick: Chapter 4.”

The Paramount Pictures and eOne release appealed to more moviegoers than many expected a film based on a notoriously niche tabletop game to interest. “Game Night” directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley turned in a rollicking comic action-adventure, with a cast including Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page and Hugh Grant, that’s bringing in ticket buyers less familiar with “D&D.” Audiences gave “Honor Among Thieves,” which launched with a raucous opening-night premiere at SXSW, an A- CinemaScore. It scored 91% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. 

“We know how good our movie is,” said Chris Aronson, distribution chief for Paramount. “I know it’s been said before, but I think opening to $38-39 million is just the start. These kind of exits polls translate to playability.” 

“Dungeons & Dragons” was also a big roll of the dice. The film, co-produced and co-financed by Paramount with eOne, which is owned by Hasbro, cost $150 million to make. With a production cost like that, “Dungeons & Dragons” will be looking for sustained sales through April and similar success overseas to potentially kickstart a new franchise. It launched internationally with $33 million. 

“The challenge with this film is convincing everyone that this film is for you,” said Aronson. “Jonathan and John, these guys are really talented and great collaborators. We’re going to work more with them. Hopefully, this will be the start of a franchise.” 

“John Wick: Chapter 4,” which launched last weekend with a franchise-best $73.5 million, slid to second place in its second weekend with $28.2 million. While a sizeable dip, the assassin action film, starring Keanu Reeves, has already accrued $122.8 million domestically and, after adding another $35 million internationally over the weekend, $245 million worldwide. Lionsgate has no shortage of plans for further expansion in the franchise. 

“While it may not be the highest grossing March ever, this is one of the best months of March for the industry in its history, coming off of three years of a pandemic-challenged marketplace,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for data firm Comscore. “March is not the summer, but it’s sure felt like the summer, with hit after hit.” 

Those films have helped push the 2023 box office well ahead of last year’s pace, up 28.7%, according to David A. Gross, who runs Franchise Entertainment Research. Still, overall ticket sales aren’t yet up to pre-pandemic levels, trailing the 2017-2019 average by 28.8%. 

Games and toys are also proving to be dependable big-screen resources. “Dungeons & Dragons” will be followed this year by Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and a new “Transformers” movie. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” is expected to extend a rising trend for the once-derided video game adaptation. 

“Dungeons & Dragons” had little competition from new releases. The Christian drama “His Only Son” debuted with $5.3 million. A.V. Rockwell’s Sundance Film Festival grand jury prize winner “A Thousand and One,” about a mother (Teyana Taylor) who kidnaps her son from foster care, opened with $1.8 million at 926 theaters for Focus Features. 

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday. 

1. “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” $38.5 million. 

2. “John Wick, Chapter 4,” $28.2 million. 

3. “Scream VI,” $5.3 million. (Tie) 

4. “His Only Son,” $5.3 million. (Tie) 

5. “Creed III,” $5 million. 

6. “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” $4.7 million. 

7. “A Thousand and One,” $1.8 million. 

8. “65,” $1.6 million. 

9. “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” $1.2 million. 

10. “Jesus Revolution,” $1 million. 
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Seymour Stein, the brash, prescient and highly successful founder of Sire Records who helped launched the careers of Madonna, Talking Heads and many others, died Sunday at age 80.  

Stein, who helped found the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation and was himself inducted into the Rock Hall in 2005, died of cancer in Los Angeles, according to a statement by his family. 

Born in 1942, Stein was a New York City native who as a teenager worked summers at Cincinnati-based King Records, James Brown’s label, and by his mid-20s had co-founded Sire Productions, soon to become Sire Records.  

Obsessed with the Billboard music charts since childhood, he was known for his deep knowledge and appreciation of music and would prove an astute judge of talent during the 1970s era of New Wave, a term he helped popularize, signing record deals with Talking Heads, the Ramones and the Pretenders.  

“Seymour’s taste in music is always a couple of years ahead of everyone else’s,” Talking Heads manager Gary Kurfirst told the Rock Hall around the time of Stein’s induction.  

His most lucrative discovery happened in the early 1980s, when he heard the demo tape of a little-known singer-dancer from the downtown New York club scene, Madonna.  

“I liked Madonna’s voice, I liked the feel, and I liked the name Madonna. I liked it all and played it again,” he wrote in his memoir “Siren Song,” published in 2018, the same year he retired. Stein was hospitalized with a heart infection when he first learned of Madonna but was so eager to meet that he had her brought to his room. 

“She was all dolled up in cheap punky gear, the kind of club kid who looked absurdly out of place in a cardiac ward,” he wrote. “She wasn’t even interested in hearing me explain how much I liked her demo. ‘The thing to do now,’ she said, ‘is sign me to a record deal.'” 

Sire artists also included Ice T, the Smiths, Depeche Mode, the Replacements and Echo and the Bunnymen, along with the more-established Lou Reed and Brian Wilson, who recorded with Sire later in their careers.  

Stein was married briefly to record promoter and real estate executive Linda Adler, with whom he had two children: filmmaker Mandy Stein and Samantha Lee Jacobs, who died of brain cancer in 2013. Sidney Stein and his wife divorced in the 1970s and years later he came out as gay.  

“I am beyond grateful for every minute our family spent with him, and that the music he brought to the world impacted so many people’s lives in a positive way,” Mandy Stein said in a statement Sunday. 
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A warrior-themed circus begins a tour of England on Friday with Ukrainian performers determined that the show should go on even though their hearts are very much still in their war-torn homeland.

Although the warrior idea behind the show was conceived in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the theme has inspired its Ukrainian artists to carry on, said Russian circus boss Irina Archer.

“Every day they are worried for their relatives. On stage, they perform, they entertain, but deep inside … they are so worried,” she said.

“But they love entertaining people. It gives them strength,” she added.

Fifteen of the circus’s 23 performers are Ukrainian, said Archer, who set up the Circus Cortex with her husband, Paul, in 2021.

“Before the war, there was no divide. I’ve worked with a lot of Ukrainian artists over the years,” she said.

The Archers, who used to run the Moscow State Circus, took the Circus Cortex on tour in the U.K. in 2021 and had hoped to restart performances in 2022.

After the war broke out in February 2022, however, they found performers stranded in Ukraine or signing up to fight.

Irina Archer described the show, titled “Warriors,” as an “epic magical production” with lots of dancing and traditional circus acts such as juggling and unicycles.

Some of the performers, such as Tetiana Lotiuk from Kharkiv, only recently left Ukraine.

Trapped in the city at the start of the war, she left two weeks later, traveling to Hungary and then the U.K.

Others include circus family Viktor Gorodetskiy, wife Yulia and son Valdis. The three were forced to leave their home three weeks after the start of the war.

They took refuge with Viktor’s parents, also circus performers, before spending several months in Lviv and finally traveling to the U.K.

The tour, which runs until October, begins Friday in the northern city of Sheffield.
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