Dagadana: Trolls raise their heads as soon as harmony and friendship begin to exist between Poles and Ukrainians [WYWIAD]

When you founded Dagadana fifteen years ago, it started with folk music. For many people, folk music is still cheesy and trashy.

Daga: We never planned for a moment that we would play together in any way. We met at the “International Jazz Academy” jazz workshops. After two years, Dana was supposed to come to Poland for six months as a scholarship holder. She told me this in Lviv, when I was visiting friends from the workshops. I suggested that we start a band, and Dana was surprised that it would just be her and me. She agreed. When she came to Poland, she was convinced that our music-making together would not last longer than six months. The first meetings brought wonderful original compositions and arrangements of traditional music. It was folk that turned out to be an idea for understanding and getting to know each other.

Dana: For me, folk was the first music I encountered in my life. He was as natural as possible. I have lived in it since childhood and I still live in it today. Folk was never fashionable or unfashionable – it was obvious and ubiquitous.

Daga: It is this aesthetic that allowed us to show each other our countries and cultures. It turned out almost immediately that there were many common areas between them. On the one hand, we and our cultures are similar, but on the other hand, we have our uniqueness. These differences and similarities have become for us a wonderful source of the sincerest joy of being together and co-creating. The search for tradition brought us closer to each other and began to fascinate each other. You can hear it clearly on our records.

How has this changed over the last fifteen years?

Dana: Dagadana has grown up. She became more serious. Probably not because of the music, but because of the reality we have witnessed. The war that Russia started in 2014 has had a great impact on our work and what we do on stage. From 2022, it became even clearer. Earlier, when we were described as ambassadors of Polish and Ukrainian culture, I laughed to myself – it sounded too pathetic. Over the last year and a half, all pathos has disappeared. Suddenly it turned out that it is through art that we take up Ukrainian issues, ask questions about Polish and Ukrainian relations, and in countries where official neutrality towards Russian aggression does not allow for a full discussion, it is our work that draws attention to what cannot be talked about or it’s not appropriate. In this context, we also show the attitude of Poles to let their example inspire others.

Our songs have also changed. There used to be a lot of joy, love and youth in them. These were often cheerful songs. The albums “Meridian 68” and “Tobie” bring completely different emotions. We refer directly to the war, to the most difficult experiences and feelings. Some songs from these albums are very difficult for us to perform. Every time we tremble – we see faces, feel glances, specific images and specific people stand before us, boys from the Heavenly Hundred who died on Euromaidan from the bullets of the pro-Moscow regime.

Every concert is a scratching of the same wound.

Dana: This is very difficult. Very. For many years we thought we lived in a safe world, until suddenly it turned out that the largest tectonic fault runs under our houses. My husband has been in the war almost from the beginning. He fights as a volunteer. Since February last year, I have been living in constant and uninterrupted fear for him. I would really like to write simple, cheerful songs… Not to talk about Volhynia… Not to express the most difficult emotions, but to finally be an ordinary “human being” who is a musician by vocation and who lights the light in people. For now, fate has a completely different idea for us. For the third time, but finally and irreversibly, we cut the umbilical cord of the Russian mother. It costs us an unimaginable amount, but it also gives us real hope and strength.

You want to write ordinary songs, but you still get attacked by Russian trolls.

Dana: They raise their heads as soon as harmony and friendship begin to appear between Poles and Ukrainians. They cause fear and reluctance, they remind us of tragedies, completely disregarding today and the future. They feed on hatred.

Daga: Only an attempt to close old chapters will allow us to build a community for the future. Only in this way, future generations on both sides of the border will be able to live as the Republic of Poland lived in its greatest glory – when Jews, Armenians, Poles, Germans and Ukrainians lived together in harmony on one street. Back then, we spoke many languages ​​and took advantage of diversity, folklore and ethnicity. It was one of the pillars of our country’s strength and what we could be proud of. How can we live together peacefully again? How to do it? It is not simple. There are scratches on the common page of history that will always divide us. The question is whether we want to deepen the wound or heal it. Some people feed only on hatred. We are not one of these people. We focus on building something good and lasting. We count on wise actions by politicians and historians on both sides.

To paraphrase Katarzyna Nosowska, do you feel too Polish for Ukraine and too Ukrainian for Poland?

Daga: We feel like ourselves. They are Polish and Ukrainian, constantly expanding their horizons. As a band, we have played in over 30 countries. We are not more Polish or more Ukrainian, because thanks to opening ourselves to the world, we understand more and can explain more.

Dagadana Photo PD Kosmowska

Exactly. Travels. You were the only band from Poland to play at the largest rock festival in Europe – the legendary Glastonbury.

Daga: Without a doubt, it is an amazing festival. His coach has apparently been following us for a long time. I met him a few years earlier in Krakow at the “This is what the city sounds like” conference, although at that time I had no idea that he was the Glastonbury booker. After about a dozen months, when he invited us to the 2019 edition, he said: “You weren’t ready before.” However, if you ask me whether it was our greatest success, I would answer unequivocally that it was absolutely not. Of course, the concert was great and we are very happy that we were there, because it was a great honor for us, but it is actually another festival at which Dagadana played.

However, I will always remember when in Morocco’s Mersuoga we played for – as it turned out – dignitaries sitting on beautiful carpets under the portrait of the king, and ordinary people watched our concert from the dunes surrounding the stage. I will also never forget when in China, where we were told that the audience showed no emotions at all, tears began to appear in the initially empty eyes of the audience during our performances.

Dana: Or a concert at a music school in the mountain village of Malan in the middle of China, where we were the first Europeans. To welcome us, the children sang the Ukrainian song “Rewe ta stohne Dnipr szyrokyj” to the lyrics by Taras Shevchenko, also “Kukułeczka kuka” in Polish, and finally they played “Ode to Joy” as the anthem of the European Union on broken dulcimer. When we arrived, the entire village gathered and we were immediately taken to the best looking hut for the best meal. It was very exotic and although we are really open to new flavors, the hosts rocked it. This Ukrainian song with lyrics by Taras Shevchenko is not just any kind of song – it is a really complicated, large-scale and full-scale song with a capital “pe”. Tears came to my eyes when the sweet Chinese girls and boys who tried so hard to make us happy… It was one of the most beautiful moments of my life. I don’t transfer many things from one phone to another when I replace them, but I always have this recording with me.

What do you expect when you play for the first time at the largest cultural event of traditional music in northern Europe – the Oslo World festival? In addition to over 130,000 Poles, there are now several thousand Ukrainians in Norway.

Daga: We are often asked whether we expect many Poles or Ukrainians at our concert. Of course, we would like it to be so, but it will be even better if they come to our concert at Cosmopolite, a wonderful and unique hall, with their Norwegian friends, acquaintances and neighbors. Our silent dream is for this to happen. There are beautiful memories associated with Oslo. Two years ago, during the We Do festival, for the first time in our history we stage diving during a concert. That’s why we’re even more looking forward to this year’s Oslo World event.

Dagadana Photo PD Kosmowska

Do you feel that in these most difficult moments for Ukraine, your concerts are a source of comfort for your compatriots, a moment to forget about sadness, and allow you to cope with longing for a moment?

Dana: We’re definitely very close now. Much closer than we were. No DNA test is needed for us all to immediately know that we are one family at these moments. Once, when I met Ukrainians at concerts, of course it was always nice and friendly. Today there is something much bigger and stronger between us. We greet each other, hug each other, share where we each come from, what history each of us has with each other. Touching and much needed moments. Apart from giving faith, we try to teach our listeners that life should be lived here and now. This is the duty of those who are lucky enough to live in a world without war, because if we had this opportunity, others would give their lives somewhere else.

But you also find time to get into the studio. This time with Renata Przemyk.

Daga: Renata trusted us very much. First, we were just going to play with her at the Actor’s Song Festival.

Dana: In Wrocław. I emphasize.

Daga: Of course. In Wroclaw. It was supposed to be a single event. We got the material and started trying it out. And when we were about to start getting together, Renata fell ill with Covid. Drama. Her material, a serious festival, a serious performance, and we were left alone with material that was not our own, without the possibility of any rehearsals with Renata. We actually played her songs for the first time in Wrocław at a concert. It turned out great. Then we entered the studio. Take it easy now.

And the album was created… What will it be like?

Daga: This is not a stereotypical girls’ meeting. Many times I witnessed women’s bands falling apart because the girls couldn’t get along. And here Renata, with her wonderful life wisdom, invited us and simply let us make us feel at home, bringing out the best in us. Thanks to Renata, we are the best version of ourselves on the album, which will be released in January. For me, she was synonymous with my teenage rebellion, and today Dana and I, three mature women, sit down in the studio and play with the best cards in our artistic decks. It will be beautiful.

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Dagadana will play on November 4, 2023 at the legendary Cosmopolite as part of Oslo World. This will be the first performance of Polish artists in the thirty-year history of this largest ethnic music festival in Scandinavia.