УКР On April 28, Leleka Foundation, in cooperation with Yale's Ukrainian Program and Slavic Department, hosted an evening of contemporary Ukrainian theatre as part of Alina Sarnatska's U.S. tour, organized by Leleka. The staged reading of Balance — a play by Sarnatska, a veteran and former frontline medic — drew an audience to one of Yale`s auditoriums for an intimate encounter with war, survival, and what it means to remain human in its aftermath.
The play was read by Elise Morrison, Assistant Professor of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies at Yale. The reading was followed by a roundtable discussion, "Holding On: Women at War and the Search for Balance," bringing together an exceptional panel of voices across theatre, film, academia, and military service.
Alina Sarnatska opened by speaking about what it means to write from the inside of war. Before the full-scale invasion, she worked as a social worker and researcher. In 2022, she joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine as a frontline medic — with no prior military experience. She went where she was needed, learned what she could, and served in Bakhmut. Balance is the play that came out of that experience: a searching, intimate work about trauma, memory, motherhood, and the struggle to hold on to one's humanity. Sarnatska spoke about the particular burden women carry returning from war — not only PTSD and reintegration, but the invisible weight of being unseen, misclassified, uncounted.
Sahraa Karimi brought a perspective that echoed and deepened Sarnatska's story. The first woman ever appointed Director General of Afghan Film, Karimi was forced to flee Kabul when the Taliban returned to power in August 2021 — escaping with her life and little else. Now a scholar and filmmaker at Yale, she spoke about art as an act of resistance and survival, and about what it means to carry your country's stories into exile. Her presence alongside Sarnatska created a quietly extraordinary dialogue: two women from two different wars, on two different continents, who had both chosen to bear witness rather than look away.
Elise Morrison, whose current research explores theatre and therapy in the aftermath of war, offered a critical lens on what Balance achieves as a work of performance. She spoke about how theatre uniquely holds space for trauma — not to resolve it, but to make it visible, to allow an audience to sit inside an experience they could not otherwise access. Morrison's own work on surveillance, gender, and post-traumatic stress disorder gave the discussion a deeper framework for understanding why stories like Sarnatska's matter beyond the stage.
Genevieve Chase brought the weight of personal testimony. A decorated U.S. Army Reserve veteran who served two tours in Afghanistan, Chase was wounded in a suicide bombing during her first deployment — an experience that shaped the rest of her life and her decades of advocacy for women veterans. She spoke about the long road of reintegration, about being wounded and invisible at the same time, and about founding American Women Veterans to ensure that women who served would be recognized, supported, and heard. Her story drew an unmistakable line between the Ukrainian women on Sarnatska's stage and the American women who had walked a parallel path.
The discussion was moderated by Iryna Solomko Bonenberger, journalist, documentary filmmaker, and Head of Strategic Communications at Leleka Foundation. Bonenberger — who was among the first journalists to document the war in eastern Ukraine in 2014 — wove the panel's stories together through the lens of a journalist who has spent a decade bearing witness to what war does to women, and what women do in war.
The Yale event was the first stop of a four-city U.S. tour, continuing in San Francisco (April 30), Los Angeles (May 2), and Washington, D.C. (May 11,12).
All proceeds from the tour go directly toward medical supplies for Ukrainian field medics, purchased and delivered by Leleka Foundation.
