In a studio in Kyiv, Pavlo Tovstyk, a soldier, is holding professional dancer and choreographer Polina Ishchenko aloft in a classical ballet pose. The lift is strong, beautiful and powerful, even more so considering that he has only one leg. The other was lost on the battlefield.
The pair meet here a few times a week to practise dancing. For him, it’s rehabilitation and healing. For her, it’s a way of life and a way of helping soldiers.
Ms. Ishchenko never thought she would use her skills to assist soldiers in their recovery and draw attention to the war in Ukraine. But over the past few years, she has travelled to New York, Atlanta and Vienna, performing with soldiers who have been injured on the front lines.
On Sunday, she and Mr. Tovstyk performed in Kyiv – one of the first times he’s done that in public. Through dance, they are trying to draw attention to the war, which marks its fourth anniversary on Tuesday.
“Sometimes when I am abroad, people ask me, ‘How is life in Ukraine? Is the war still ongoing?’ That’s why I am doing it. To remind people about us, so as not to be forgotten,” said Ms. Ishchenko, 32.
She dances with 10 soldiers, all amputees, though not all of them perform in public with her. She also gives private lessons for women.
Both Ms. Ishchenko and Mr. Tovstyk remember the first days of the war. On Feb. 24, 2022, when Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ms. Ishchenko was in Kyiv. She thought it would be over soon.
Mr. Tovstyk, 48, was on the other side of the country, in Kharkiv in the east, with his wife and three-year-old son. On that day, he decided to join the army. For his family, the war had started in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and occupied eastern Ukraine. His younger brother was already in the military. Mr. Tovstyk joined the next day. “I made the only decision that I could have made that day: to defend my family and my country,” he said.
Mr. Tovstyk served for 18 months before stepping on an anti-personnel mine during mortar shelling and losing his foot. The doctors gave him a prosthesis, and for the first few months, he was not able to move much. He needed a second amputation, one that removed two-thirds of his shin. When he was finally able to put on his second prosthesis, it opened up new possibilities for him.
“The first thing I did – I started to dance,” Mr. Tovstyk said.
For Ms. Ishchenko, the first year of the war was not easy either. As she watched films about the Second World War, she began to understand that she wouldn’t have another life.
“My life is ongoing. The best years of my life are passing by. And maybe the best years of my life are going on at the moment. So, I need to pull myself together and start doing things,” she said.
After his injury, Mr. Tovstyk moved from Kharkiv to Kyiv. He didn’t return to his previous work as an energy engineer in a building company. Instead, he teaches disabled soldiers and civilians how to swim.
Ms. Ishchenko and Mr. Tovstyk smile a lot during their rehearsals.
“He is very focused on the dance,” she said.
“I can see how he practises moving his body for hours after our lessons. Only when I started to dance with soldiers, did I realize that I need to think about what to tell them about how to move their bodies and maintain balance.”
The choreographer said that the human body doesn’t have limits.
“I was at the hospital and saw soldiers with different levels of amputations. For them, it’s difficult to go through it. But when they see how we are dancing, they are starting to see that their life is not finished,” she said.
Each soldier needs to be supported in a different way. Ms. Ishchenko found that one might want a hand on their shoulder. But for another, that gesture might make them angry.
Looking back over four years of full-scale invasion, both Ms. Ishchenko and Mr. Tovstyk talk about how their lives have changed.
Ms. Ishchenko has become more fatalistic. “When an attack on Kyiv happens – I am covering myself with the blanket and taking earplugs. I became angry at our neighbour – Russia – but I need to be happy the next day and bring light to my work.”
She added that for the world, it’s comfortable to pretend not to know what’s happening in Ukraine.
Mr. Tovstyk does not believe that the war will end soon either.
He doesn’t think of himself as a disabled person. For him, it’s hard not to be able to return to the battlefield. He feels that he has become more emotional and aggressive. But he has also started to taste life more. He has big ambitions for the future. He travelled to the Bosphorus Strait for the first time and swam there. And he hopes to visit Mount Everest in the future.
Ms. Ishchenko said that “these years have taught me that nothing is impossible.”
Her next big dream is to create an adaptive space where veterans and people with disabilities can experience rehabilitation and social integration. Mr. Tovstyk’s biggest hope is that his son will see him as someone to look up to and admire.
With a belief in Ukrainian victory and in themselves, Ms. Ishchenko and Mr. Tovstyk are taking responsibility now for living in the moment. “Our dance is a defiance against all odds,” he said as they started to move in unison.
War in Ukraine: More from The Globe and Mail
The Decibel podcast
Since the war began, Russia has been spiriting away young Ukrainians to training camps designed to turn them against their homeland. Reporter Mark MacKinnon spoke with The Decibel last year about a project, partly funded by Canada, that tracks the children so they can be brought home one day. Subscribe for more episodes.
The arc of war so far
When Ukraine’s day of tragedy became tragically normal
Charts tell a grim story about Ukraine and Russia's trajectory
Chilly Kyiv, beset by blackouts, tackles a new kind of cold war