Why I Still Answer the Call of the Stage

I never feared the stage. In fact, it has been part of my life since childhood. I grew up around a dance school run by my aunt, where kids constantly performed and collected prizes. I trained in ballroom dancing, I performed, I competed. Later, parties became another kind of stage for me — a space to release energy, to dance, to be seen. And in 2014–2015, I discovered VJing, where visuals and music collided into something greater than both.

That love for the stage never left me. It only transformed.

Today, I find myself working with SVET, a Ukrainian techno collective, creating large-scale AI-driven visuals for their shows. This summer I produced two video works for their season closing event — each one spanning three monumental screens, 8 and 6 meters wide. I couldn’t be there in person, because I live abroad due to the war, but through these works I felt present in Ukraine again.

Building a Myth on the Dancefloor

The concept was rooted in myth. I wanted Poseidon — the god of the sea — not as a static figure but as a force commanding serpentine sea creatures, guardians of the deep. They coil behind him, transform into waves, collapse into whirlpools. The visuals had to match the power of the track: anticipation, silence, drop, release.

This was not “just a background.” I thought in terms of storytelling:

• The beginning: where are we, what world is this?

• The middle: who is here, what do they do?

• The resolution: what action happens, how does it end?

That arc matters. It’s how visuals hit the dopamine of the audience — not only through motion, but through meaning.

Process & Tools

Concept definition is always the hardest part for me. It takes about two days of intense brainstorming: text concept, character roles, palette decisions. Once the palette is fixed, I apply it consistently not only to the main characters but also to secondary “b-roll” elements that tie the story together.

From there the workflow looked like this:

• MidJourney for high-quality image generation. Mood boards guided the style, but they often pulled in extra colors, creating palette inconsistencies. That’s the paradox: prompts alone don’t control the outcome — mood boards steer it just as strongly.

• Kling 2.1 for animation. This was a real breakthrough — consistency of video and characters is much stronger now.

• Higgsfield for transitions and effects: rolling transition, duplication, disintegration, and other presets that already live in my head.

• Adobe After Effects for compositing and montage. Here I rely on spatial thinking: structuring as if staging a scene, not cutting clips.

Challenges

Every project has its frustrations. For this one:

• Aspect ratio: Generative tools don’t support 3:1. Each of the three screens had to be built individually. You cannot simply multiply one image across; it breaks.

• Color inconsistency: Mood boards are double-edged. They create style cohesion but also introduce unexpected hues, shifting away from the fixed palette.

• Timeline: Normally a project like this takes months. We did it in three weeks.

By the end, I was exhausted and proud — and frustrated, as always, that it could have been better. That is the life of an artist.

Why It Matters

For me, these works are not just visual backdrops. They are performances in their own right. They tell a story, they create a world, they hold the audience.

And on a personal level, they give me a way to reconnect with Ukraine from abroad. The war displaced me, but through these collaborations I can still bring my art to the stage where I grew up — a stage that has always called me back.

After the premiere, we laughed and said: never again. But we both knew the truth. The stage always calls back.