Voiceover Recording for Virsky

We have completed another important stage of work on the film Virsky: Dance of Resilience.
The voiceover brings together seven key fragments from the life of Pavlo Virsky: pre-revolutionary Odesa, family and ballet school; the 1930s and the death of his brother; the creation of the Dance Ensemble as a Soviet showcase; surveillance by the KGB and American intelligence during international tours; the encounter with Otto Skorzeny — and Virsky’s early death.

This was a difficult task not because the text is complex, but because it required absolute precision of tone. Together with actor Anatolii Mateshko and sound designer Miroslav Delev, we searched for how it should sound — not to emphasize, not to press, not to perform, but to allow the words to be heard.

When speaking about Pavlo Virsky’s life — repression, silence, fear, loss — any excess emotion sounds false. What matters here is not the strength of the voice, but restraint: not telling the viewer what to feel, but letting the story speak for itself. We stopped many times, rewrote phrases, listened carefully to the pauses between words — because sometimes a pause speaks more truthfully than text.

This voiceover is not commentary. It is a way of being present beside a man who lived his entire life between the stage and silence. There is pain in this story, but there is also something that endured. Ukraine — preserved not through declarations, but through movement, rhythm, and the body itself. Through dance, as a form of memory.

Work on the film continues.