THE UNDERBODY POEM

04’22, Ukraine, 2021

Director, DOP, Editor, Concept: Daria Balanovska, Dancer: Dimitrii Staev

 

The multidisciplinary artist Mitya Staev and the visual artist Daria Balanovskaya explore water as a mother’s womb playground. While living in nature artists experienced a silent dialogue between water elements, sea creatures and between themselves. Hours spent in water gave both artists a new perspective on body language in communication with the space we’ve all come from. As a performance artist, Mitya is grounded in the physical body, its potential and its place in mythology. This work had occurred out of the artist’s therapeutic search for trustful relationships with water itself. Visual narrative captured and curated by Daria. Тhis spontaneous collaboration lasts the plastic essay as a contemplating poetry form.

 

Daria was born in Yalta, Ukraine, in 1993. She took up painting and fine arts as a kid. When she was free of her studies, she would spend her time working on sets of feature films. She decided to become a DOP at age 14 and took up photography; at age 16 she became a member of the Photography Department at Minor Academy of Sciences in Crimea. After school she enrolled at VGiK to study Cinematography under Mikhail Agranovich. Her graduation film received the Vadim Yusov special prize of the Russian Guild of Cinematographers for Best Cinematography. Daria shoots music videos and special projects in collaboration with the independent musician Manizha. She filmed projects and global videos for the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. She is also successful in the field of fashion video, working with Vogue, GQ, Esquire, Tatler. Daria works as a director and DOP in commercials. In 2021 she made her debut feature film as a DOP in Kazahstan, the film will be released in 2022.

 

The film will be part of the screening on 29.10.2022, 17:00-18:30, Festival and Congress Centre – Varna.