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Drama 4000 Creative Collaboration
Find Your Folk: The Slavic Edition
Dec. 3-5, 2026 | 7:30 p.m. nightly
Matinee: Dec. 5, 2026 | 1 p.m.
W420

Join the class of Drama 4000 for a showcase of collaborative creation and discovery, featuring two original works developed through a performance process facilitated by Drama faculty members Mia van Leeuwen and Julia Wasilewski, and graduate student Olympia Tomasta.

Drawing inspiration from folklore and cultural heritage, both works emerge through collective exploration, experimentation, and the sharing of creative perspectives. The showcase offers a glimpse into two distinct worlds taking shape through the collaborative process of making theatre.

Part I, Yaga Lands, is inspired by Baba Yaga, the ambiguous crone of Slavic myth who exists between menace and wisdom. Through ritual and remedy, Yaga Lands offers a fleeting glimpse into the many ways of perceiving Baba Yaga, embracing her shapeshifting nature and the complexities of her legacy. Drawing on pre-Christian Slavic folklore through a neopagan and ecofeminist lens, this short work serves as a challenge to contemplate nature’s role in shaping our cultures and traditions to consider what we can do to reciprocate the care and nourishment that the environment has provided for us.

Part II, Through the Poppy Fields, presents a work in progress of Olympia Tomasta’s graduate thesis project. 
Join us as we travel through a kaleidoscopic dreamscape. Through the Poppy Fields is rooted in Olympia’s Czech and Slovak heritage. Inspired by women’s traditional artistic work, domestic labour, cultural practices and the co-development of culture within diasporic communities. This piece examines how knowledge and cultural understandings are passed across generations.

Olympia's showcase will contribute to the development of a full-length performance to be presented at the University of Lethbridge in May 2027.