Biography
Veronika Shuster (1999, Kharkiv, Ukraine) is a theatre performer with a BA in Language, Literature, and Comparative Studies from Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and a practical MA in Theatre in Creation from Sorbonne Nouvelle University, Paris, where she conducted research on the distance to violence in European and Ukrainian theatre of war and collectively created a theatre performance War and Breakfast, presented at Sorbonne Nouvelle and Théâtre de Châtillon.
Having a background in ballet and contemporary dance, Veronika now works in contemporary socially and politically engaged theatre. As an artist in exile, she explores topics of war, identity, language, and the binary oppositions of connection/disconnection, isolation/integration.
Veronika`s artistic practice has developed between Ukraine and France, while she has also been working in the United States. From 2022 to 2023, she was an artist-in-residence with the Slovo Theater Group in Pittsburgh (USA), where she co-created and performed in a physical and documentary play about Ukraine. The piece toured across the U.S. East Coast, including the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and the A.R.T. Theatre in New York, and was created during residencies at the John David Mooney Foundation (Chicago), City Theatre (PA), and ArtYard Theater (NJ).
Currently in France, with the support of Théâtre de Châtillon, Veronika is elaborating a solo theatre piece Un cours de langue/The Language Class, exploring language as a political, philosophical, and personal space through the experience of a Ukrainian learning French. Her latest Ukrainian project is the first Ukrainian restaging of Jérôme Bel’s Gala at Lviv National Zankovetska Theatre, where she worked as stage manager and second assistant director.
Having a background in ballet and contemporary dance, Veronika now works in contemporary socially and politically engaged theatre. As an artist in exile, she explores topics of war, identity, language, and the binary oppositions of connection/disconnection, isolation/integration.
Veronika`s artistic practice has developed between Ukraine and France, while she has also been working in the United States. From 2022 to 2023, she was an artist-in-residence with the Slovo Theater Group in Pittsburgh (USA), where she co-created and performed in a physical and documentary play about Ukraine. The piece toured across the U.S. East Coast, including the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and the A.R.T. Theatre in New York, and was created during residencies at the John David Mooney Foundation (Chicago), City Theatre (PA), and ArtYard Theater (NJ).
Currently in France, with the support of Théâtre de Châtillon, Veronika is elaborating a solo theatre piece Un cours de langue/The Language Class, exploring language as a political, philosophical, and personal space through the experience of a Ukrainian learning French. Her latest Ukrainian project is the first Ukrainian restaging of Jérôme Bel’s Gala at Lviv National Zankovetska Theatre, where she worked as stage manager and second assistant director.