Art & Culture
DARKDELIGHT
Malwina Kowalska
I'm a dance teacher and multisensory artist. I do performances, ceremonies and rituals.
Daria Fedorchenko
I'm a classical pianist and have been playing my whole life. I came to Holland to study, but about 5 or 6 years ago I became interested in studying other subjects, mainly trauma, and also different disciplines, such as body work and healing, and thus, I began to do ceremonies. It came a point where I thought about integrating that into my musical work so I began to create these experiences where I played ,with different spaces and different ways of integrating the audience in my performance and creating rituals with them.
From left to right, Daria and Malwina.
So you clicked like 6 years ago.
Daria: Yes, when I started practicing meditation, Yoga and other disciplines, I thought it would also be interesting to bring music closer to the public, so I started doing more private concerts. After finishing my music studies, I needed to make my own way, so I explored alternatives such as private concerts. At first it was limiting because I used to play in big and nice concert halls, and instead, some private places were not so well prepared, acoustically speaking, but I had much more musical freedom, not only for me as a musician, but also in the relationship with the audience, being able to take them to another state of mind.
Malwina: It's funny because I also made this click about 5 years ago when I started researching on heart issues, to better understand what love is, what is the heart and this work took me into a journey which is basically based on the senses. Through the stimulation of the senses, I can access my heart and establish a connection with other people and together create new places. So I thought, how can I use my theatrical and dance experience to take people to a space where they can face different artistic expressions or boost their senses to build small installations that allow them to enter this new world, connect with other people, elements or theatrical, musical or dance expressions? This experience will help them get closer to what it is what they experience? How does it feel? What kind of emotions and feelings are beeing moved?
Daria: 6 years ago I was struggling with depression for quite a long period of time and I couldn't get the care I needed from medicine and, at the same time, I was writing about trauma and experiencing post-traumatic stress. Therefor, I had to do a lot of research. on how to cope with trauma as an artist which gave me a great insight into the arts and performance. The art business is not very aware of mental health or wellness, so I discovered that it was important for me to serve to this part of our society, because there are so many people struggling with depression right now.
It was really shocking to me that my teachers and colleagues were alienated, they didn't understand that I was experiencing depression. They could not help me and when I started to investigate I realized that there were more people in my situation but there was not much information, there was no place for this. That is why I felt that it was my way, not to fix the world but, at least, to make more accessible to all people how to deal with trauma.
Malwina: It is important to know that there are other ways to heal, not just taking pills or going to the doctor, because that is repressing what is happening inside, rather than digesting it, managing it, going through it. And in a way, in relation to darkdelight, we have talked a lot about what darkness and light are, because there are many light workers who encourage people to go to the light and only work with joy, but for us, that will also represses the darkness. Therefore, we would say that the goal of darkdelight is to encompass all those negative states, because we believe that the healing process is a spiral, made of ups and downs. And if you work only towards the light, you are missing the core parts of life. Attention and acceptance of the dark side, so that everything has space in us and is allowed to be there. You go into the dark and you end up in the light. We prefer to keep it abstract rather than deal with a particular topic, because in the end the darkness and the light are on the same line and we don't want to judge it. To do this, we create the space and allow the darkness to appear, it can be different for each person. It can be images, feelings, sensations, memories and we also work with all the senses stimulation, because that will put you in the body.
(Daria): I think it's very important that people are present, that's why it's better not to lie down during the performance, because it's about being present in yourself, without going into the past and being carried away by it, which can be quite easy with music.
What is darkdelight?
Daria: After many talks, the idea is that it is a multisensory concert in the form of a ceremony. We introduce people to meditation, darken the space, and then play the concert alongside Malwina's sensory experience. So we put our professional and personal stories together to make it happen.
How did you come together?
Daria: We met in the dark (laughs), we went to a ceremony in December 2020. They create a construction with natural elements and make a whole dark space and create a fire and put all the intentions in the fire using also stones. At one point the group enters a space and the door closes. You sit for a few hours and you are sweating.
Malwina: I went with the intention of finally doing more activities in my career which are more based on the heart and the senses and after the ceremony we started talking and Daria told me about her project from an artistic perspective. And since then, the more we got to know each other the bigger the intention of doing something together grew.
What would you say to the readers of the magazine?
Malwina: Be kind to yourself, go to different types of experiences, go to concerts, to places where there is space to explore yourself with people who have this same sense. Allow yourself to enter your body with questions like, what do I feel? Where does my pain come from? Because you can move those types of energies simply with these practices and with a pure intention of connecting with yourself and with others, it's so powerful that it allows you to set yourself free.
Daria: Also, being with others gives you the option to be with yourself, but also to have the comfort of those around you if you need it .