Vorobiivka

village of Vorobiivka in Podillia, central Ukraine

The festival was growing rapidly. Different people have united around one idea. The unique format of festival, artistic movement and surroundings have appeared. People began to meet not only at the summer festival, but also throughout the year in multifarious places and situations. At the same time, the quantity of ArtPole-fest’s audience was increasing every year twice at least. The small Carpathian village, located along the narrow road between the mountains, couldn’t place it anymore. The festival went forward. The big journey has waited ahead.

Vorobiivka-2007

The main theme by Sheshory’2007 was ROADS. There are new places you see in traveling. There are new people you meet and new customs you get acquainted with. New adventures attract and inspire. Nobody can be indifferent for it. Despite changing the location, the festival kept its format. New discoveries and collaborations were to be made for the festival participants in the village of Vorobiivka in Podillia, central Ukraine.

That year three stages — Folk, Big and Night — worked. The musicians from seven countries have performed on them. The participation of as big stars of world-music as, for example, Swedish band Hedningarna was undoubtedly very significant. The land-art program was updated because the artists worked with a completely unfamiliar landscape. The environmental program was quite diverse and included different parts from the demonstration site with environmentally friendly technologies to travel to the festival by alternative transport. А special cycle tour from Kyiv was organized. For deeper knowledge about the features of the new location, there were added excursions to nature.

The local authorities supported organizers and used every opportunity to hold the festival as best they could. Public transport went to Vorobiivka only twice a week but during the preparation of the festival’2007 a new road was laid to the village. That’s why a lot of transport could come there. That was not one improvement. The electricity was conducted at the festival zone, which could now be illuminated no worse than the city centre. When the festival went to other place next time, there already was a new road and rested places. And the most important is people who discovered the lawns near the magical river and were willing to return here again and again.

Ukraine is diverse. And every area has its own unique features in the landscape, architecture, folk music, crafts and rituals. If the Carpathians are mountains and forests then the musical instruments are wooden like sopilka, floiara, trembita, and songs are kolomyikas, rhythmic as mountains and lively as mountain streams. A completely different story is the Podillia region where the Pivdennyi Buh river spills hiding a secret in its dark waters. There are rocky rapids and amazing boulders on the meadows along the banks. Podillia is a stone, and eternity is in that stone. The best examples of stone carving and old sculpture can be found exactly here. If about music it is singing, two-voice, open as the boundless space around as endless fields, grass, sky.

After we decided to travel, we stopped being afraid of anything and have accelerated to the maximum speed. We could easily imagine the combination of Sheshory and Vorobiivka, Carpathian and Podillia. This has happened. Sheshory — Podillia.

Vorobiivka-2008

Festival’s debut in Vorobiivka was successful. Direct bus tours from Poland and the Czech Republic to the festival were organized and the audience became multinational. Of course, there were a lot of different possibilities to arrive at the festival from different cities of Ukraine. There was not only regular transport but also bicycles and even catamarans because of special tours were held. We anticipated that the audience would double at least.

The press release of that year’s festival
Don’t get together less than three! More is possible. Up to infinity. Everyone adds his own impressions, experiences, feelings, sings sincerely and especially. The voices intertwine in unison, there is a single melody — incredible, unique, perfect

Sheshory’2008 is polyphonic. Musicians from Ukraine, Georgia, Russia, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, UK, Sweden, Germany, France. New artistic entertainments and techniques. As for example several-meter letters, each of which was drawn by festival’s visitors and was symbolized some region of Ukraine, mixed in one word — SHESHORY. Traditional Ukrainian paper figures called vytynanka made by Anatolii Belov and traditional Jewish paper figures. Indian dancing. Polish dancing. Hutsul dancing. Georgian singing. Ukrainian singing. Some workshops took place in a real yurt. In addition, the architectural studio of the festival has introduced the technique of creating Indian tipi and the construction of traditional Ukrainian adobe housing.

This year’s Festival Film Club not only showed thematic films and offered communication with their authors but also suggested a workshop “People’s Cinema” by Oles and Andriy Sanin. Everyone who participated in it could feel like a director, cameraman, decorator or stylist. Every day the giant film crew created a video clip based on the traditional songs of Podillia. Every evening these video works were presented on the Big Stage.

Vorobiivka-2009

50,000 guests have visited the previous festival for three days. Fast increase of quantity of the audience made it very profitable but, at the same time, artistic and philosophical content began to fade. It could no longer be environmentally friendly it could not be a creative laboratory. The transformation was needed again.

For the first time, the festival was continuing for a week and the open-air art laboratory was so varied. People who just wanted to relax, listen to music and hang out were invited by organizers in the last days when famous musicians from around the world performed on the Big Stage. But everyone who wanted to take part in the unique art projects and to visit workshops could be throughout the term of the festival and could have performed in small musical and theatrical scenes.

The main theme of that year’s festival was the interaction of the artist and the environment, the inspiring designing of the world by those who were felt as parts of our common world system and, at the same time, as unique authors. Now the audience was offered an even more active position. Everyone from visitors could have become a creator. Unique worlds were arising from the variety of surrounding elements in the ArtPole. Clay, paper, water, sand, coal, cheese, filaments, stones, plants, creaks, rustling, spitting, the voices of birds and musical instruments, the rays of the sun and night lights, the people around. Everyone could choose own exceptional composition. Artists, who worked in their unique spaces-studios for a week, were ready to support new-opened authors all the time. The music story of the festival was similar. Many talented musicians arrived there, and they acted not only as mega-stars on the Big Stage but also in other spaces and situations. And so, easily migrating from one technique to another and from one artistic direction to another, new works were emerged developed and refined.

If the festival was considered like a multidisciplinary work, its author was someone like a Multiperson. A creature whose existence depended on a constant search for understanding. As a rule, artists are quite individual in their vision and it was sometimes difficult to include them in the common process. The most popular way is full responsibility by one person as an author, director, and… dictator. Instead, the concept of festival’2008 was in feeling each other and the world around for creation one common work. Thanks to this understanding, there were gigantic paper figures for stage decoration and hats-roses for audience, a daily festival newspaper, and a stage-fish, a chorus “We sing as we can”, which were traveling all over the festival ground on the truck, and also stones with roots, winged boats, and other amazing objects.

We had changed and it was time to change our name. Sheshory remained one of the most charming places on the map of Ukraine. However, despite everything that was planned and everything that was not planned but took place in the festival pole, new name was found by itself — ARTPOLE.