Almost a year after the start of the war, the ballet performed "Giselle" Wednesday night on the stage of the prestigious Kennedy Center.

An enthusiastic audience gave a long standing ovation to the dancers, who sang the Ukrainian national anthem hand on heart at the end of the premiere while waving their country's flag.

Continuing to dance despite the war is a way of fighting "on the cultural front", told AFP Yuliia Kuzmych, 27, one of its members, who was a dancer at the Opera in kyiv before to join the company.

This "United Ukrainian Ballet" based in The Hague, the Netherlands, brings together dozens of professional artists from all over Ukraine, whom the war has pushed into exile.

"It started as a small idea, and it ended up becoming something huge," says Dutch prima ballerina Igone de Jongh, who spearheaded the initiative.

The United Ukrainian Ballet in Washington on February 1, 2023 © Stefani Reynolds / AFP

It was first of all to offer a safe place to the dancers and to allow them to continue to dance, she explains to AFP.

But it is also "the best way to keep Ukrainian culture alive and visible", she adds.

"Slava Ukrainian"

If at the beginning, the dancers found themselves in the same place "due to tragic circumstances", they are "slowly becoming a company because they are all united by the idea that they represent the country", affirms famous choreographer Alexei Ratmansky, Ukrainian flag pin on jacket.

At the Kennedy Center in Washington on the 1st of 2023 © Stefani Reynolds / AFP

"They represent the culture of this country and are not soldiers. They are artists (...) and they fight in their field", continues the artist who worked at the Bolshoi, in Moscow, and who does not there are no words harsh enough for "the dictator" Vladimir Putin.

At the very beginning, only women were able to join the company, according to the choreographer, with men of fighting age having to obtain special authorization to leave the country.

But the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture, "which considered this project to be an important cultural message to the world", ended up issuing the permits to dancers.

This is how 30-year-old Oleksii Kniazkov, who worked at the National Opera in Kharkiv, was able to travel to the Netherlands.

At the time of the invasion, he was preparing to play "Romeo and Juliet".

"It was not so easy" to obtain permission to leave, which arrived in July, he told AFP before warming up for the second performance of "Giselle" in Washington.

Since then, he considers that his work within the "United Ukrainian Ballet" is of the order, "somewhere", of the "diplomatic mission".

Ukrainian flags waved on the Kennedy Center stage by the United Ukrainian Ballet on February 1, 2023 in Washington © Stefani Reynolds / AFP

"Our performances are important because we come into contact with ordinary people. We unite Ukrainians, Americans and people from other countries in emotion," he says.

"We are all fighting for Ukraine's freedom, and we do it through art," said Svitlana Onipko, 27, a dancer from kyiv who joined the ballet in The Hague in September.

On Wednesday evening, some of the Kennedy Center spectators waved national flags, while others wore brightly colored Ukrainian shawls.

"Slava Ukrainiani!"

(“Glory to Ukraine”), launched a young woman in the public under redoubled applause.

© 2023 AFP