New Doc About Ukrainian Dancers' First Post-Invasion Show

The new documentary "Match in a Haystack" follows members of Ukraine’s contemporary dance troupe as they prepare for their first performance since Russia invaded. Director Joe Hill and producer & movement director Stefanie Noll discuss the making of a film in a country at war --- and why dance and art matter in a time of crisis. 

*This segment is guest-hosted by Tiffany Hanssen.

Tiffany Hansen: You're listening to All Of It here on WNYC. I'm Tiffany Hansen in for Alison Stewart. The new documentary Match in a Haystack follows members of Ukraine's leading contemporary dance company, as they navigate what it means to be an artist in a country torn apart by war. The film, which is set in Kyiv, has been devastated, which has been devastated by fighting, but which is also very much alive with creativity.

It follows a group of women who were forced to step away from dance, and then reunite for their first performance since the Russian invasion. Misty Copeland is an executive producer on the film. It's directed by Emmy winner Joe Hill, and produced by Stefanie Noll, who also is the film's movement director. Match in a Haystack premiered yesterday at the Angelika, and has three more showings next week. It'll be available for streaming this fall. Joining us now to talk about the film, our director, Joe Hill, and producer and movement director, Stefanie Noll. Welcome to you both.

Joe Hill: Thank you so much for having us.

Stefanie Noll: Thank you for having us. Hi.

Tiffany Hansen: All right, Joe, let's just start about talking about how you got involved with this project. How did these dancers come to your attention?

Joe Hill: That's a great question. When Russia had launched its full scale invasion in Ukraine, I was still a journalist, and I was working for Vice News, and we had been working in so many different ways to cover the conflict. I had this overwhelming feeling that, essentially, we were working to create this record of history in the moment, but everything we documented was death and destruction.

I felt the sense that maybe there was another history, there was something else to look for, and so we decided that we wanted to make this record, like some kind of documentation of the act of creation, as opposed to destruction, and so that was actually when I called Stefanie, and I asked if she would help me try to find a group of artists that were still trying to create during war.

Tiffany Hansen: You weren't just thinking dance immediately, you were just like, "We need art people who are doing something positive in a creative space, in a creative way."?

Joe Hill: Exactly.

Tiffany Hansen: When you first met the dancers, what was your initial reaction? You, Joe.

Joe Hill: Yes, so for me it was a long conversation. We met and interviewed so many different artists. We decided pretty early on that dance was interesting to us, because I think that something that's really important to remember, is that when words aren't capable of describing the way we feel, I feel like sometimes people turn to music, and even when music isn't enough, people turn to movement, and it felt like, somehow, visually and expressively, dance was the way to go.

We interviewed all of these dancers. Many of them had fled the country and gone abroad, and many of them had-- A lot of people gave up their art in general, and gone to the front lines, or had participated in different war efforts, and Stefanie found this really interesting project. It was a group of women who were mutual aid volunteers, and they were involved in the war efforts, and it dawned on them that if they were only doing war efforts, and they weren't creating art, then essentially contemporary Ukrainian culture had ceased to exist in this time, and so they decided to make this performance that was about their experience trying to navigate the war, and it was the way that they expressed themselves at this time.

Tiffany Hansen: Stefanie, you grew up in Kyiv, right? You were born there and you grew up in the US?

Stefanie Noll: Yes. I was born in Kyiv, and then we moved when I was a child, and I grew up in the US.

Tiffany Hansen: What is it like in Kyiv now for the artists there?

Stefanie Noll: I think it's really hard. I think they have to constantly grapple with surviving and this inner conflict, and creating as well. I think so many artists now aren't able to do that. They've completely shifted their life to something else, to working on the front, to fighting, to having to learn how to hold a weapon and use it. Those that are still creating in Kyiv, if they haven't left the country, I think it's really not easy.

I think it's not easy to encounter a night of shelling, sleep so little, and wake up, and want to keep creating. If I was living in Kyiv, I don't know how I would do that. I don't know if I would want to create, honestly, so these women in the film are-- For me, it's really admirable that they could do that.

Tiffany Hansen: Joe, what do you-- You've spent a lot of time with them now at this point. What do you think drives that? Other than just that you mentioned that need to keep the cultural identity of Ukraine alive and thriving, but there has to be kind of a personal engine for these dancers, artistically speaking, as an artist.

Joe Hill: I think that there's several things that really drive them. I think that it was different for everyone we met in the group as well. I think for some of them, it felt like resilience. It felt like it was some kind of act of defiance that they were able to keep creating, that it was a display that no matter what, you couldn't erase this portion of Ukrainian culture.

I think that for some of them, it was because they didn't know what else to do, and it felt like there was something bubbling inside them that had to come out. Somehow, it was something that had to be expressed, and it was just this general need. I think for some of them, it was about community or joy. I think that what really caught me by surprise, or what I found to be really something I think is really unique about the film, is that the conflict, the central conflict of the movie, I don't really think is necessarily Russian bombing.

I think a lot about this internal struggle, and I think the central conflict of the film is that, despite this decision, that there's a group of people that decide to get together, and try to make this performance. The reality is that, for them, it's not such a simple decision. It's actually not that easy to even decide it's worth making. I think they struggled all the time with the guilt of just knowing that they were allowed, or able to be in this room.

Even if the power shut off, even if they were cold, they weren't doing these other things. They weren't on the front lines. They were protected enough that they could continue to spend their time doing something that gave their lives meaning, and I think that the overwhelming turmoil is, that's what the conflict of the film is about.

Tiffany Hansen: Stefanie.

Stefanie Noll: I think for them, it didn't feel defiant. It didn't feel necessarily resilient. I think they had eight months since the start of the war when they started working on this performance, and I think for them, they were so excited to come back together, and be in the studio again for the first time in so many months. I think that they were scared a lot of the time.

Scared to create something, actually, and constantly questioning it. I think that they never considered that it's an act of bravery or resilience. We see that from the outside, and we really acknowledge that, but for them, I think, like all Ukrainians, they were trying to live their life in the way that they should, and not hide, and they were being themselves.

Tiffany Hansen: You're the movement director on the film. For those of us who have no idea what that means, can you explain what that is and how that-- How you fit into the pieces of the film?

Stefanie Noll: Yes, so a lot of the film, I mean, it's around a dance group. When Joe reached out to me, we started looking for four dancers, and for this cast. As movement director, it was-- There's one part of the film that, it was Joe's idea to have almost an interview as a dancer. Dancers, it's a very visceral thing, we use the body instead of the words, and these are all dancers that have so much to say, and we're doing a documentary, so we're constantly having them speak, but we had this idea to also have them speak with their art and their craft.

Tiffany Hansen: With their movement.

Stefanie Noll: Exactly. We also did these series of interviews that are dance interviews in a way. I remember, Joe had a point when we were preparing for these interviews, that it should really be from what they have to say. It's easy to project what you think might be going on, but to keep it open, so that we offer a lot of dialogue, and a lot of questions, but ultimately, it's guiding them to feel comfortable to reach a point where they can express fully themselves, and what they're going through their movement, and not only their words.

Tiffany Hansen: The film is Match in a Haystack. We're talking with the Emmy winner, Joe Hill, who is the director of the film, and Stefanie Noll, who is, as we mentioned, the film's movement director. We're going to take a quick break, and we'll be right back. This is All Of It. I'm Tiffany Hansen for Alison Stewart.

[music]

This is All Of It. I'm Tiffany Hansen in for Alison Stewart. We're talking about the documentary film Match in a Haystack, which follows members of Ukraine's leading contemporary dance company, as they navigate what it means to be an artist in a country that's torn apart by war. We're talking with Emmy winner and director Joe Hill, and also with the film's movement director, Stefanie Noll.

Joe, I want to get back to this notion of art as a form of resistance. What is it about dance, do you think that is particularly suited to resistance? Is there something in the physicality of it that maybe not just filmically, if that's a word, can express that resistance, but what did you notice from the dancers in terms of how the dance is, as a particular way of resistance, really fills that need for them?

Joe Hill: Well, I think that something that's just undeniable, is that we are our bodies. I think about something so visceral from my time covering war, is that this is all that we have, and it's the thing that's torn apart. I think that in a time when so much is at stake, when all of us go to bed in curfew, and we're all lying awake as we hear the shelling, we hear strikes, and it's just one-- Maybe that night, it wasn't our home that was struck.

You wake up and you go, and you still have a body, and you still have a life, and I think that it's the act of defiance to have survived, and chosen to be there. It's the act that it's a display of having survived for one more day, and so I think that there's something extremely profound and visceral about being able to express yourself fully with the tool that you have that still is here.

Tiffany Hansen: Stefanie, you interviewed a lot of the dancers as you were working on this film, and talked to them about their lives and their art, and so I'm just curious if you can tell us what those interviews were like, and how they feel. I know you said that there was some pessimism about the state of Ukrainian art and culture. Was there any hope there as well, or how would you describe the state of mind about that? Then, also, what is the state of it actually in Ukraine at this moment?

Stefanie Noll: Yes. When we started doing the interviews, it was the end of 2022, so it was about eight months after the war had started in Ukraine. A lot of the dancers had either left the country, and they had come back, or they had remained outside of the country, or there was very little going on. Actually, they were going through a completely new reality, and so their focus actually wasn't on dance.

We even encountered sometimes that dancers didn't want to-- They felt it was more important to talk about the front, and that front, then a cultural front, and so that was actually an interesting thing, was that sometimes we experience dancers who were fighting, and they said, "No, I actually, I don't want to make a documentary about dancing. I want to fight."

I think the dancers in Kyiv, a lot of the movie, is also about this inner conflict of guilt, of creating your art while you're at war, and does it mean something? Is there a reason you're doing it? I think that's a really common theme amongst many Ukrainians also, this constant need to feel-- To help more. I think these artists went through that, that they were creating, but they were-- They had this conflict of, if they should be.

Tiffany Hansen: Joe.

Joe Hill: Stefanie said something really important. You were talking about dance and resistance, and she mentioned the cultural front, which was a concept that a lot of people had used, and they talked about this cultural front line, that it was, think historically in Ukraine, there's a lot of time that they've spent behind the Iron Curtain, as you could say. I think that in only the last handful of years has it been possible to express themselves fully without feeling like they were necessarily being under this sort of Russian influence, or this Russian surveillance.

I think that, that sort of sense of freedom was really being able to thrive inside the dance community. I think that it was-- That was the thing that felt at stake, and that was the thing that I think people were really trying to preserve during this war.

Tiffany Hansen: Stefanie.

Stefanie Noll: I also think that the contemporary art scene, not just dance, but art in Kyiv is so powerful. It's not on such an international and world view. I think now with the war, it is a bit more, but knowing Kyiv prior to the war, I always knew that the art that's happening there and being created is amazing. It's incredible and so powerful. It didn't always have the viewers that it should.

I think that's why this is also a really cool that Joe wanted to do something on dance, because it deserves those eyes. Like Joe was saying that, for so long, Ukrainian artists were silenced by Russia, and now they have this chance, and they're really fighting to continue speaking. I think that's why Ukrainians are fighting so much, is to be able to continue speaking.

Tiffany Hansen: Not just the dancers, right? I mean, you, in your experiences, Joe, you've come across, I can imagine, while you're there doing this, all manner of artists and people who are "fighting" on that cultural front line. What do you hope people who see the film will take away from them about that experience?

Joe Hill: Well, I think that's something that's really stayed true for me, is I believe the film is not necessarily a Ukraine film in the same way that it's a film about resilience, and it's about the decision that no matter how complex and horrific the things around you end up being, it's about this decision to try to find meaning in your life. I think that, for myself as a filmmaker, I've felt this way too, where I feel very daunted going to sleep.

I feel I'm overcome by the sort of things I've seen when I've been filming in other war zones, and the things that I see on the news now, the state of our country. I think that these kinds of things haunt me, and sometimes discourage me from being also continuing to do the things that I love, like creating or making films, or making-- Telling stories, and I think that to see a group of women who decided that despite everything that they were going through specifically in that circumstance, they still would try to do something that was meaningful to them. I think that that's just-- To me, it's important that we just spend a couple hours thinking about the fact that we can make this decision together.

Tiffany Hansen: Well, let's talk for a second here about the dancers, because this does obviously, focuses-- The film focuses on the dancers. Yuliia. Am I saying that right? Yuliia is the troupe director. Tell us about her, and why she felt that this was a good time to create a new performance? Either of you. Stefanie?

Stefanie Noll: She talked about-- She's quite young. When she started it, she was 24, and she talked about that the war really taught her to live in the present. You don't know what tomorrow brings. You don't know what next week brings, and she said that, before the war, it was something that she would have only dreamed of, and this gave her an impetus to say, "No, now is the time. The time is only now." Actually, something-- An issue we had when filming, when planning was, we-- It was really hard to plan, actually, because they would always say, "Oh, I don't know. I don't know when the schedule is. I can't tell you what it is next month," because they really live in this state of only the present moment.

Tiffany Hansen: Joe, Yuliia in the film says, "We don't know if we've already experienced some of the most terrible events, or if they're ahead of us." How do you think that affected her as an artist?

Joe Hill: Well, I think that, honestly, Stefanie started to hint at this, but I sometimes maybe lovingly call it the YOLO mentality, where it is this sense, where you don't know if it's gonna be your house that night, and you don't really know if it's going to be-- I think that with that overwhelming sense that it could be tonight, it could be tomorrow, but you don't know what is ahead.

I think that what that forced people to do was live in-- That people made decisions that supported the things that they cared about most. I think that people would spend that extra few hours with their friends before curfew, and people would spend those couple minutes doing the things that they felt was mattered to them, so that actually was an unfortunate reason to have this discovery, but I think that, that was actually a lot of wisdom that I learned, and felt inspired by.

Tiffany Hansen: The performance that all of this builds up to is joyous. There are smiles, there are flowers, right? How does it feel? How did it feel for you to reach that point in the film? Then, how do you think viewers will view that point in the film, Stefanie? [silence] Joe?

Joe Hill: Yes, of course. [chuckles] Well, I just hope that people-- I mean, I felt it's complicated. I think that's something that, it's bittersweet. I think that it's full of tears and it's full of smiles. I think that there's some kind of sensation that just achieving the performance wasn't even-- It's a film about a performance, but I think in some ways it's not. I think that we really tried to explore the sense of-- One of the characters, Gala, she mentions this question.

She says, "At some point, I don't know, really, if this is for the audience, or if it's for myself." I think that we really explored this idea-- I think we just really enjoyed this idea that, the sensation of joy and community, and these things coming together, and what that actually means for the people who do it, and why that was necessary for them.

Tiffany Hansen: Really quickly, we got about 20 seconds. You were going to-- No, go ahead. You were going to add, Stefanie.

Stefanie Noll: Yes. I think what Joe was saying about, for example, Gala, she was really unsure if she wanted to do the performance, because this whole thing of, "Should I be creating when I should be maybe doing something else to help the war?" Literally, or more literally. After the performance was over, she says that it's such a pleasure to create, and she was so grateful that she had this project to go to, so that she could remember that.

Tiffany Hansen: Actually, that's a really great place to leave it, I think. We've been talking about-- The film is Match in a Haystack. The director is Joe Hill, and it's produced by Stefanie Noll, and she's also the movement coordinator. Movement director?

Stefanie Noll: Movement director.

Tiffany Hansen: Movement director. Excellent. It's actually-- More screenings have been added next week at the Angelika. You can see it on streaming platforms this fall. Joe, Stefanie, thanks so much for joining us.

Joe Hill: Thank you for having us.

Stefanie Noll: Thank you for having us.