She is Russian, he is Franco-Gabonese: in 2019, Veronika Bulycheva and Jann Halexander put on “Emergency of you, from Gabon to Russia”, a show of “musical theater” where dialogues and songs explore their differences and their fraternity. As they resume it on March 29 at Kibélé in Paris, current events give it a particular resonance.
We had met Jann Halexander in the heart of winter last year (see “Sultana and Jann Halexander, singers of the essentials”), a harsh winter for artists, especially for those who perform on stage and had to endure or circumvent the confinements and curfews, from which we only came out for… a life under a sanitary pass. Jann Halexander tells us how he got through this period, trying to keep his “artist integrity” not without difficulties – we remember a sad epilogue of an innocuous event Place de la République – but at peace with his conscience.
Now that the war, the real one, is in the headlines, and a crazy “Russophobia” is in full swing, including against artists, they explain to us why they care about this show and have maintained it: a message of hope and faith in humanity, which transcends origins and hopes to sow some seeds of peace. Veronika Bulycheva will celebrate her 30th birthday in France this year, she confides to us her experience as a Russian, sometimes misunderstood or perceived in our country, long before this war, slips that the history of her country and its peoples is complex and reluctant to any Manichaean reading, and gives us his vital, visceral need to express himself through his songs – in French and in Russian -, like a “swan cry”.
A “Pause” of humanist, tender and inhabited sweetness:
The song “Interieur-es”, recorded on the sidelines of the interview:
“Emergency of you, from Gabon to Russia”, on stage on March 29 in Paris: