“Match in a Haystack” Finds Protest in Art
On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine and war has been waging on for over three years now. It’s a conflict that has been heavily documented, but Joe Hill’s Match in a Haystack offers a different perspective. One that isn’t shown on the news. It’s not about the various attacks, not directly. Instead, most of Match in a Haystack takes place in a dance studio. The sounds, fears, and effects of the war can still be seen and heard within the walls of the studio, but something else is also happening.
The premise of Match in a Haystack is simple: a group of women are preparing for a dance performance. At times, the documentary mirrors any film that follows people as they rush toward some event. There’s never enough time to prepare and always a crisis of faith, but what sets Match in a Haystack apart is its setting. These women are rehearsing in Kyiv while Russia is actively invading their country. When Yuliia, the brains behind the performance, introduces herself she says, in this order, “I’m Ukranian, a volunteer, and a dancer.” Had someone asked her to describe herself before February 24, 2022, she likely would have changed the order of those facts about herself. Now, she braces for each escalation of war while also preparing to stage her first dance performance since Ukraine was invaded.
courtesy of Match in a Haystack
In wartime, people from afar always like to say how important it is to continue to make art. That’s an easy sentiment to have when it’s not your home being bombed and your family fighting on the front lines. The women in Match in a Haystack are clearly overwhelmed by the decision to dance. Why would they spend their time dancing when they could be serving in the military or gathering aid for soldiers? How does dancing serve the war effort? As one of the women puts it, “nothing we create negates what’s happening outside of our window.” So why dance? It’s a question that’s answered gently and thoughtfully, and best left to experience in the documentary.
“We don’t know if we’ve seen the worst or if it’s still to come,” one of the women says about the war. “Should I really be in a dance studio?” ponders another. Match in a Haystack is not about how these women found themselves living through a war. It’s not about the years of social and political turmoil that lead to the invasion. It’s about people who are looking to find hope, resilience, and camaraderie in a time when a foreign power is actively trying to rob them of that every single day. To mount a production of any sort is an immense, Herculean effort, but to do it while listening for air raid sirens is something else entirely. Match in a Haystack is perhaps as close as the viewer can get to a situation like this without living through it because the women at the center of the film allow for such intimate access to their lives and their emotional states.
courtesy of Match in a Haystack
When Match in a Haystack finally gets to the final performance, it’s like a giant exhale. A temporary release of a tension that has been growing for years. It’s not merely the exhilaration that comes from live performance, but from the joy of getting to do the thing you love again. The performance isn’t going to end the war, but it’s still a meaningful act of pride that loudly says power still lives here. That Ukraine is not going anywhere. The final performance is shot so tightly that it’s less about seeing the larger picture and more about the visceral emotion that radiates from their bodies. Dance is a visual medium, expressing what words cannot, and Match in a Haystack puts the camera in the middle of it all to capture this fight to exist.
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