Artist in Exile: Olena Boryshpolets' Bride

Olena Boryshpolets premieres her musical-poetic performance Bride at Alphabet City on Tuesday, October 20, from 7 PM to 8:30 PM. Boryshpolets wrote the poem and directed the performance, and she'll be joined on stage by violinist Marta Krechkovsky. Jake Grefenstette served as editor on the project.

Boryshpolets is a poet, writer, journalist, actress, and cultural manager originally from Odesa, and she's brought her home city with her to Pittsburgh. She's written Ukrainian Detox, Orpheus and Eurydice in New York, and the long-form poem New Calypso. She's a member of PEN America and the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, and a co-founder of the public organization Creativity Without Borders. After Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, she spent a year in Poland acting in the Polish-Ukrainian play Life in Case of War. Now she's a Research Scholar at Chatham University and a Writer-in-Residence at the City of Asylum Fellowship for Ukrainian Writers.

She describes Bride as a continuation of her exploration of the feminine principle and the role of the modern woman — her strength, her powerlessness, and her potential spheres of influence on the world's disheartening events. She frames the poem as an archive and a mirror of human decisions and their consequences. The performance combines her spoken word with Krechkovsky's violin, so it's as much about the sound as it is about the text.

Tickets are free for both in-person and livestream options, so you can catch it at Alphabet City, 40 W. North Avenue, or from home. The performance runs from 7 PM to 8:30 PM.