“Does Tchaikovsky’s music kill or not?” questions Oleh Tokar, Stage Director of the National Opera Ballet in Ukraine, Commander of a Territorial Defense Unit in Kyiv, and the central figure in Adrenaline Film’s The Sky Was on Fire.
From its opening moments, The Sky Was on Fire establishes a striking duality: startling explosions and aching orchestral strings, crumbling buildings and pristine opera house stages, ruthless destruction and exhilarating creation… a dichotomy existing in uneasy tandem that blurs the once-distinct lines between wartime narrative and performance art.
Structured as a ballet – divided into acts that mirror the art form at its classical core – The Sky Was on Fire does not shy away from showing the full spectrum of Ukrainian artists’ responses to the war in their country, the common thread being how fighting for their culture and their lives are one in the same.
This framework provides rhythm and shape to stories that could easily overwhelm with their accumulated trauma.
The film also keeps the viewer’s attention by cutting from interviews to excerpts from the studio and stage, to print and broadcast news clips, the latter which helps in grounding the personal stories in the broader timeline of the conflict.
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The Sky Was on Fire: Ballet and War in Ukraine
Tokar is the first face we see, no doubt the soul that drives the narrative, the election made all the more clear when producer Julie Meyer shared with me the inspiration behind the making of the film:
“Throughout that day [during a fundraiser at the Dr. Phillips Center in Orlando], we spoke with many of the dancers and crew who had made the long journey from Ukraine. One encounter that stayed with me was with Oleh Tokar, the stage director.
He showed me a photo on his phone, taken just weeks earlier – he and another dancer dressed in military fatigues, holding rifles. They had literally been fighting to defend their country. And as we talked with others, we kept hearing stories like that – artists turned soldiers, people doing whatever they could to protect their families, their country and preserve their art.”
Over the course of the film, we witness this sensitive, determined man in his fifties navigate his daily existence training for military service training before heading to the theatre before the curtain rises. It is a disturbing, absurd reality.
There is a curious blend of acceptance and ambition that we see in all of the featured artists, each one demonstrating a confidence and strength that I can't stop admiring.
In Act II’s “Who Else But Me?”, the story of dancer Oleksandr “Sasha” Shapoval – who left the stage for the front line – is told through his wife Tatiana and frequent dance partner Khrystyna Shyshpor. He personifies the impossible choice facing Ukrainian artists:
Preserve your brief dancing career by becoming a refugee, or stay and fight, potentially sacrificing the limited years you have at your physical and artistic peak.
While Shapoval chose the former and eventually got killed on the battleground, Svitlana Onipko fled to The United Ukrainian Ballet in the Netherlands, initially feeling like a stranger but then finding purpose in sharing Ukrainian culture abroad and raising money for her country.
Vaganova-trained ballerina Kira Vyshnevetska joined the Ukrainian Volunteer Army, the wartime death of her cousin the catalyst for the dutiful defense of her country.
Each choice carries its own cost, its own form of sacrifice, and in The Sky Was on Fire, no judgement is passed about any of the paths chosen.
Perhaps no one embodies this cost more visibly than choreographer Krystyna Shyshkarova. Her dedication to supporting soldiers through volunteer work and tactical movement training – using her knowledge of body mechanics to help soldiers prevent injuries – and her creative artistic work ultimately lead to the dissolution of her marriage.
By the fourth act, Shyshkarova appears with a shaved head, no longer volunteering but completely devoted to choreography as a form of therapy following a 6-month battle with depression. Her insistence on showing Ukrainians as more than victims of war infuses her new work with intensity and purpose, and performed with a raw physicality that reads well even through a screen.
Conversely, the documentary’s early juxtaposition of Shyshpor dancing Fokine’s The Dying Swan amid abandoned building rubble feels somewhat melodramatic. Regardless, it certainly succeeds in capturing the complex layers of feelings dancers must be experiencing.
More successful is the tribal, raw quality of Totem Dance School’s contemporary work, which channels anger and sadness directly and viscerally.
One of the film’s most emotional dances may be Keeping Me Alive, choreographed by Shyshkarova for Olha Tokar, Oleh’s daughter.
Shot across various Ukrainian landscapes – on bridges, amidst trees, in the sand – the performance showcases the strength, talent, and hope of future generations. It ends with Olha laughing, a moment of joy that feels earned after the accumulated weight of loss and struggle.
In Shyshkarova’s daughter, we gain the perspective of another child. Varvara, who is studying at The Rock School in Philadelphia is also caught in visa limbo, able only to visit her mother briefly. These family separations, added to broken marriages and departed friends, compound the personal costs of war beyond the battlefield casualties.
Returning to the question of whether Tchaikovsky's music kills or not, there is a line of thought that supports an affirmative response.
Ukrainian theaters have pulled Russian composers from their repertoire, a complex decision given Tchaikovsky’s centrality to classical ballet. The film presents the ironic reality that arts funding ultimately becomes ammunition money, making cultural choices inseparable from material consequences.
Yet from this boycott emerges The Snow Queen, reimagined with Russian composers removed, new music added, and additional choreography. It stands as the first ballet in modern Ukrainian history performed during wartime, a symbol of cultural independence.
The final act of The Sky Was on Fire, “A Shield of Muses,” crystallizes the film’s argument that art and culture serve as protection and defense, not escape or decoration.
In their reflections, the interviewees return to their sense of responsibility to preserve culture, to share it, to make meaningful use of each day they are alive.
When Oleh Tokar speaks closing words about creating beauty for future generations, tears in his eyes but voice steady with hope, we understand that this shield of muses, fragile as it may seem against bombs and bullets, is forged from the same determination that keeps soldiers at the front and dancers on the stage.
Both are forms of resistance. Both are necessary. Both exact their price.
Additional Commentary by Julie Meyer, Producer of The Sky Was on Fire
Immediately after watching the film, I reached out to Julie not only regarding my curiosity about how the making of the film got started, but whether it was challenging identifying who they wanted to be featured. I wanted to know how they ultimately landed on the wonderful cast of artists.
“It really was challenging at first. When we arrived in Ukraine, we met so many extraordinary people – dancers, teachers, administrators – each with a story that could have been its own film. Every single one of them had been through something unimaginable, yet they carried themselves with such strength and grace.
From the beginning, we didn’t want to just highlight talent; we wanted to capture the full range of what it meant to be human in that moment – the heartbreak, the resilience, the humor, the hope. So instead of “casting” in the traditional sense, we followed the people who moved us, who opened up and let us in.
The artists who ultimately became the heart of the film – Oleh, Shyshkarova, Shyshpor and others – weren’t chosen because of their titles or achievements. It was because of their honesty, the way they allowed their real lives to unfold on camera. Over time, we built genuine trust, and that’s when the most powerful moments happened. In the end, I think we found our cast not because we picked them, but because they chose to share their stories with us.”
The next two screenings of The Sky Was on Fire will be held in Philadelphia: November 7th at the Museum of the American Revolution and November 12th at the Landmark Ritz Five.
Featured Photo of dancers of the National Opera Ballet in Ukraine overlayed on Oleh Tokar in military training. Photo courtesy of Adrenaline Films.
