Event details

The team of Radio Live returns to Princeton for the fourth time to present a new installment of their fascinating series: Vivantes.

Vivantes is a unique stage experience that transcends the boundaries between radio and theater. Conceived by Aurélie Charon and Amélie Bonnin, this hybrid work brings to life the voices of three remarkable young people: Oksana Leuta from Ukraine, Karam Al Kafri from Syria, and Ines Tanović from Bosnia. Through poignant personal accounts, filmed footage, and live drawing, they share their intimate stories and experiences, shaped by war and exile. They offer us a powerful perspective on resilience and commitment. In today’s world, where conflicts and migration are reshaping our reality, Vivantes speaks to the importance of intergenerational transmission in paving the way for better times.

“Radio live is a Noah’s Ark. The powerful echo of the world through its inhabitants.”
– Marie Plantin (Sceneweb)

“A great lesson in resilience and freedom.”
– Manuel Piolat Soleymat (La Terrasse)

Read a Daily Princetonian review of Radio Live from Seuls en Scène 2024

Photo Gallery

• Photo by Christophe Raynaud de Lage

• Photo by Christophe Raynaud de Lage

• Photo by Christophe Raynaud de Lage

• Photo by Christophe Raynaud de Lage

• Photo by Christophe Raynaud de Lage

• Photo by Christophe Raynaud de Lage

• Photo by Christophe Raynaud de Lage

• Photo by Christophe Raynaud de Lage

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Tickets

Free and open to the public; advance tickets required. Tickets available in late August through University Ticketing.

Performance Details

Show performed in English. Duration: 2 hours, 30 min. Content appropriate for ages 12+

See all shows in 2026 French Theater Festival

Trailer

Directions

Get directions to the Wallace Theater, located on the Forum level of the Lewis Arts complex, and find other venue information for the arts complex.

Accessibility

The Wallace Theater is an accessible venue with an assistive listening system. Visit our Venues and Studios section for accessibility information about our various locations. Guests in need of access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at 609-258-5262 or email LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week in advance of the event date.

About the Artists

Aurélie Charon

Photo courtesy Aurelie Charon

Aurélie Charon is a Producer at France Culture for L’Avant-scène (Saturdays 7:45pm) and coordinator of the radio creation space L’Expérience (Saturdays 4pm and original podcast). She is the designer of the project Radio Live, started in 2013, that she conceived with Amélie Bonnin and Caroline Gillet. A graduate from Sciences Po Paris, Paris III and New York University, she has been directing since 2011 documentary series on activism, commissioned by Radio France, including Underground Democracy in Gaza, Teheran, Algiers and Moscow. She has involved in a long-term work on French youth with Une série française (2015 France Inter), Jeunesse 2016 (France Culture) and the film La Bande des Français made with Amélie Bonnin for France 3 (2017). She recounts her travels in the book C’était pas mieux avant, ce sera mieux après, published by Éditions L’Iconoclaste.

Oksana Leuta

Photo courtesy Oksana Leuta

Oksana Leuta grew up in Ukraine during the period of crisis that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. Her parents were teachers, and she decided to study French in Ukraine before pursuing theater studies in France. In 2014, protests broke out, and the people of Kyiv occupied Maidan Square; she joined the medical team, spending weeks helping to organize and manage makeshift hospitals on-site. In recent years, she has worked as a teacher, an actress, and a night manager at a secret techno club in Kyiv that hosts queer parties. Since the start of the Russian invasion and the war, she has worked as a fixer and translator for international journalists, traveling with them close to the front lines to show the war to the world.

Ines Tanović

Photo courtesy Ines Tanović

Ines Tanović grew up in Mostar, Bosnia, the daughter of a Bosnian Muslim father and a Croatian Catholic mother. When war broke out in 1992, her parents were separated, and her sister was trapped in the Siege of Sarajevo for three years. Ines was nine years old when she was struck by a shell; she still carries shrapnel from it in her body. Today, she fights against ethnic divisions and advocates for participatory democracy and the cultural renewal of Bosnia.

Karam Al Kafri

Photo courtesy Karam Al Kafri

Karam Al Kafri grew up in Yarmouk, a city south of Damascus where Palestinian refugees had settled in the 1950s. In 2011, at the age of 18, he was taking his high school exit exams—but that was also the year the Syrian revolution began, and he took part in it from the very first months. His father decided to send him to Moscow to study because life was becoming too dangerous. He spent two years there before being able to join his mother and sister in Marseille. He comes from a politically active, atheist family. He acted in the film Meltem by Basile Doganis, released in March 2019. He currently lives in Toulouse and works as an aerospace software engineer. In February 2025, following the fall of the Syrian regime, he returned to Damascus with some of his family for the first time in 13 years.

Production Credits

Concept and direction Aurélie Charon
Advisors Amélie Bonnin and Gala Vanson
With, Oksana Leuta, Ines Tanović & Karam Al Kafri
and the participation of Anna Leuta
Music creation and live music Emma Prat
Live visual design Gala Vanson
Graphic identity Amélie Bonnin
Films and photos Thibault de Chateauvieux, Aurélie Charon, Hala Aljaber
Video editing Céline Ducreux, Mohamed Mouaki
Set design Pia de Compiègne
Lighting design, video and stage management Thomas Cottereau
Lighting technician Vincent Dupuy
Audio mixing and sound engineer Benoît Laur
Production management Mathilde Gamon
Encounters from the radio series and the travels of Aurélie Charon and Caroline Gillet

Production: radio live production – Mathilde Gamon.
Coproduction : Festival d’Avignon; Comédie de Caen – CDN de Normandie; MC93 – Maison de la Culture de Seine- Saint-Denis; Bonlieu scène nationale d’Annecy; Le Méta – CDN de Poitiers; MC2: Grenoble; Théâtre national de Strasbourg; Institut du Monde Arabe et le soutien de la Direction régionale des affaires culturelles d'Île-de-France.

Special Thanks

Aurélie Charon, Mathilde Gamon, Emma Prat, Corine Caffort, Oksana Leuta, Inès Tanović, Gala Vanson, Thomas Cottereau, Karam Al Kafri, and Benoît Laur.