About

Seven actresses take musical instruments into their hands in order to create a life-affirming performance about love, freedom and beauty which at the end of the day – will save the world. Dakh Daughters create an atmosphere of a French saloon, where Mireille Mathieu befriends Marilyn Manson. On occasion, armed with full set of strings, keyboards and percussion, the women shake the audience with a roar in the manner of Laibach, but can swiftly exchange anger for kindness, turning into fun-loving Hollywood beauties of the 1950’s that dream of tropical vacations in the Caribbean.

Artist Links: Website  |  Facebook  | YouTube |  Soundcloud | VK 

Areas of Representation: North & South America, UK, Australia/NZ, Asia

Biography

Seven actresses with musical instruments in their hands create a life-affirming performance about love, freedom, and beauty which – at the end of the day – will save the world.
Already well known in Kyiv as actresses of the DAKH Theatre, band members can occupy neutral ground between the musical genre and dramatic art, in the right experimentally-creative space.
Dakh Daughters create an atmosphere of a French saloon, where Mireille Mathieu befriends Marilyn Manson. On occasion, armed with a full compliment of strings, keyboards and percussions, the women shake the audience with a roar in the manner of Laibach (Slovenian avant-garde group), but can swiftly change anger for kindness, turning into fun-loving Hollywood beauties of the 1950’s that dream of tropical vacations in the Caribbean.This completely unique group is ideologically related to the English band – The Tiger Lillies – which has the capability of hyperbolizing characters and involving the public in funny intellectual shows. Song lyrics of these semi-fairytale fairies are based on classical Ukrainian poetry, Nobel-prize winners, their own works, and fragments of popular hits of the past. Drawing on their experiences, the Dakh Daughters easily manipulate the emotions in the audience, changing the rhythm from slow to fast to pausing in just the right places at the right time. Together with their audience, they create rock-operas, demonstrating the desire not only to find new forms of popular music but also to develop the context needed for today’s world. Being one with the rhythm of time, enjoying the creative moment, and accumulating their own energy, the Dakh Daughters develop a space of enormous love around them, breaking the walls of boring routines…

Tour Dates

Videos

News

• Online activism and artistic resistance: Ukraine’s musicians speak out • FRANCE 24 English
  Sheltering in their homes in Kyiv and Baryshivka, Ganna from the Dakh Daughters cabaret troupe and rapper Alyona Alyona speak to us about the cultural sector’s role amid the war in Ukraine. The Dakh Daughters’ participation in an upcoming theatre production in France is now hanging in the balance; Ganna tells us why the all-female punk ...
• RollingStone Review: GlobalFest 2019 – Dakh Daughters
  Globalfest 2019: 5 Best Things We Saw

  As politicians feuded over walls, NYC revelers celebrated diversity at the annual cross-cultural bacchanal

  Will Hermes – Jan 9, 2019
  Dakh Daughters
  An Instagrammer’s dream, this Ukraine sextet seem to have stomped out of an Edward Gorey cartoon or a Brothers Quay film, with cellos, violin, string bass, flute, accordion, guitar and ...

• Dakh Daughters to Perform at globalFEST 2019!
   
  globalFEST Ticket Info Here

Press

“Dakh Daughters, on stage in an empty French theater, are an extraordinary mix of cabaret, pop, and folk-rock. In exile from their war-ravaged homeland [Ukraine], its members, seven women who also are actors, perform in kabuki-like white makeup, playing string and percussion instruments and accordion. The Ukrainian lyrics of their somber yet electrifying songs are untranslated, but the urgency, passion, and rage come through nonetheless.” ~ Pop Matters (2023)

” Dakh Daughters are alumni of globalFEST 2019. And they blew us away then, just that deep theatricality… They know how to get a message across; that is their craft. Everything is very deliberate, very intentional, and done with great integrity.”  ~ Pop Matters interview with globalFEST’s Shanta Thake

“An Instagrammer’s dream, this Ukraine sextet seem to have stomped out of an Edward Gorey cartoon or a Brothers Quay film, with cellos, violin, string bass, flute, accordion, guitar and a drum kit, and members in matching black-and-white leggings, goth tutus, mime-style greasepaint, false eyelashes, rouge, black nail polish, and at least one pair of skull earrings. There were plenty of headset mics to go around; headlamps, too. Oh, yeah, the music: spine-tingling Ukrainian folk harmonizing, French rapping and a reggae jam for good measure. There was a song about a cat with lots of meowing, and a risqué sort of can-can routine. The sound occasional recalled DhakhaBrakha, a previous Globalfest act that also hails from Kyiv. But the music might remind you just as much of Tom Waits or Regina Spektor.” ~ RollingStone

“seven women who bring equal parts musical and theatrical chops to performances that are witty, subversive and brash.” ~ NY Times

“Prepare to witness the sexiest accordion-fueled murder ballad ever performed.” ~ The Weirdest Band In The World (blog)

“[Since] their performance on Kyiv’s Maidan in December 2013… their civic and political engagement has made them one of the leading symbols of the fight for democracy in Ukraine.” ~ International Festival of Contemporary Art-Prague

“They are genuinely original – mixing classical minimalism with passionate Ukrainian folk and a touch of ‘freak cabaret’, delivered with punk energy. As far as lyrics go, they also have an original approach: essentially sampling words from the most inspiring and relevant places they know. One of their “hits” is a version of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 35, reworked as The Rose of Donbass (where armed separatists barred people from voting in the national elections last Sunday).” ~ The Guardian

“Vitaliy Medvedev, one of the Maidan self-defense fighters says he heard Dakh Daughters at Maidan, but couldn’t come closer to see them. ‘Then I saw the video and they are amazing,’ he says. ‘They are like witches in the process of some magical ritual, very cool.’” ~ Kyiv Post

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Downloads/Media

Technical Riders:

Dakh Daughters Rider: Download (pdf)

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