The twilight mist surrounds the swamp like a silk veil concealing a secret. A figure emerges from the fog – a seductive and at the same time ghostly Mermaid. Her movements are predatory graceful, her gaze is the mystery of the primal element. Is she an unworldly beauty or a terrifying myth?
The Mermaid’s seductive dances have attracted the One Who Breaks the Dams – the spring wind, a wild force that breaks trees and bridges every year to fly here again, to his one beloved. Their love lasts forever, but each time it is new, as if for the first time. This is the ideal, free love of forest chimaeras. However, Vodyanoy, the lord of the forest waters and the Mermaid’s father, is always angry. He is unhappy with his daughter’s romance and considers it indecent. He separates the lovers again and again, but thus only fuels their passion.
In the forest thicket, a field Mermaid appears, dreamy and indifferent to everything except grass and boundless steppes. After her, like a storm, flies Mavka – the fiery soul of the forest. Behind her, Perelesnyk, the burning spirit of autumn, her lover. He jokingly tries to catch, hug and kiss his forest beauty.
Everything in the forest is an ideal world of mythical creatures: harmony, movement and dance rule here. A world where chimaeras live by their own laws, free as the wind. But suddenly… everything changes.
A human appears in the forest.
It is Lukash, a young musician, immersed in his own music, seeking inspiration in nature. His appearance excites the forest. The chimaeras sense a stranger. They want to scare him, drive him away, but Mavka stops them. She is enchanted. She sees something unknown and magical in Lukash.
Lukash also cannot take his eyes off the beautiful stranger. To get closer to her, he puts headphones on Mavka. His music is his soul, which turns inside out in front of the world. From the very first note, Mavka falls into a new reality – human, forbidden and sweetly painful. She feels that Lukash is not just a human. He is the sound of her heart.
The forest spirits, however, are not happy with the misalliance between a forest creature and a human. They are unable to forget how people have destroyed nature, broken their body and soul. To save her friend from disappointment, the Mermaid orders the poterchas to lure Lukash into a swamp and, with the help of all the forest creatures, drown the uninvited guest with exquisite cruelty.
Against the will of the forest spirits, Mavka saves him. She throws herself into the whirlpool of love, even realising that it is doomed. Lukash and Mavka love differently: he hears the world around him, and she only hears the beat of his heart. Lukash is unable to withstand the rhythm and power of her passion and gradually fades away. In the end, he leaves Mavka alone – beautiful, unworldly, but completely different.
The ex-boyfriend, Perelesnyk, tries to comfort the abandoned and miserable Mavka. His embrace is familiar and at the same time strange. He whirls her in a whirlwind of freedom, but she longs for only one thing – for the one who changed her forever…
Meanwhile, Lukash is back in the human world and meets the modern beauty Kylyna, a confident, effective and business-like woman. She is the embodiment of the present: precise steps, stability and clear plans for the future. Everything is simple and clear next to her.
Mavka sees them together, and her heart is broken.
Her forest friends are begging her to forget about this devastating love and to heal the wounds, but Mavka is adamant. She rejects the forest, relatives and herself. Mavka no longer radiates light, but only smoulders. Suffering from the insane pain of loss, she is emptied, like a ghost.
At the same time, Lukash understands that his soul withers next to Kylyna. Her cold logic is like ice that extinguished his flame. He leaves her, but still cannot find peace. Lukash is no longer a human, and neither is a chimaera. He is a ghost.
And here is a meeting of chance. Lukash and Mavka.
They discover true love, which changes them forever from the inside. Lukash becomes a part of the forest, and Mavka becomes a part of the boundless Universe…
Modern ballet performance in two acts based on a poetic play “The Forest Song” by Lesya Ukrainka. Performed with one intermission.