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The profile · researched 7 October 2026
Three doors, a mirror and a banquet table: inside Freedom Ballet's The Wardrobe
The Wardrobe is the touring signature piece of Freedom Physical Theatre Company, the Kyiv dance-theatre troupe that made its English-language breakthrough at the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe. After a long autumn 2026 run through Austria, Germany, the Low Countries and Poland, it plays a single British date at the Hackney Empire in March 2027.
A Kyiv company that works between theatre and dance
The act billed simply as The Wardrobe is a production, not a person: it belongs to Freedom Ballet, which appears on British listings under its fuller name, Freedom Physical Theatre Company of Ukraine. The company is based in Kyiv and is directed by Olena Kolyadenko, credited on every listing for the current tour as both artistic director and stage director of the piece. Her house style is usually described by promoters as an existential journey rather than a dance programme, and reviewers have reached for the same framing — Edinburgh Guide, covering the company in 2022, called the work an experimental fusion of theatre and dance created by Kolyadenko.
The numbers attached to the company by the festivals that book it are substantial and consistent across markets: more than 5,000 dance and theatre performances, appearances in more than 30 countries, participation in more than 50 television projects, and collaborations with Cirque du Soleil and with the burlesque performer Dita Von Teese. The billing for its first Latvian appearance, at the Dzintari Concert Hall for the Laima Rendezvous Jūrmala festival, marked a 20th anniversary and put the cast at 14 dancers, which places the company's founding in the early 2000s.
That same Latvian billing described The Wardrobe as a summary of the previous decade of the company's work — a live museum of personal stories assembled from the pieces Kolyadenko had already made, rather than a single new commission. It also noted that part of the proceeds went to the Ukrainian army and to families affected by the war.
Edinburgh, August 2022: the breakthrough run
The company's reputation in the English-speaking market was built in one month. Ballet Freedom ran at the Pleasance @ EICC in Edinburgh from 4 to 28 August 2022, in the Lennox Theatre at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, playing at 9pm with occasional matinees. The run happened in the first summer of the full-scale Russian invasion, and the circumstances were part of how it was received.
Everything Theatre's review of that run credited the choreography to Nazar Didyk and Kostiantyn Hordiienko, and read the piece as being about displacement and loss, built from solos, duets and ensemble sections that mixed classical technique with contemporary floorwork and a good deal of comedy. The reviewer singled out the soundscape — an eclectic, multilingual score layered with whistles, huffs and audible breathing — and the moment when performers came off the stage and danced among the seats. The one reservation was that some of the group routines could have been tighter.
Edinburgh Guide gave the show five stars, with Vivien Devlin describing it as a masterpiece to be remembered for years. Her review pinned down the look: a large polished wooden wardrobe centre stage with three doors through which the dancers constantly arrive and leave, a design she compared to the Kit Kat Club in Cabaret, and an opening sequence of waiters in voluminous trousers and outsized pill-box hats. The score she listed includes Ravel's Boléro, a Goran Bregović tango and Justin Hurwitz's Quarantine. FringeReview also gave it a recommendation that year.
What the piece is built on
The premise is a keyhole. The promotional text, which has barely changed across markets, offers the audience a look into a wardrobe that holds other people's secrets and personal stories, with the twist that watching strangers turns into watching oneself — secrets, fears, buried memories, dreams that never happened. Kolyadenko's stated aim is narrower than a plot: the work is built out of joy, sadness, fear, disappointment and admiration, and the audience is left with one job, which is to feel.
The wardrobe does nearly all the scenic work. Reviewers of the Edinburgh run describe it as a door, a shower, a vestibule, a storage cupboard and a hiding place, with a mirror on the front that throws the audience's own reflection back at them — a deliberate comment on watching. Everything Theatre read the set as a nod to C.S. Lewis. FringeReview adds a banquet table and chairs, costumes that change for every number, and a sequence of distinct set-pieces: an opening for men in formal wear under purple light, a classical piano duet with lifts and sudden drops, a break-up scene played hard and physical, and a retro French number that drew the loudest response in the room.
The content is adult and the listings say so. Continental venues rate the show 16 and over and recommend it for audiences with some life experience behind them; the Hackney Empire lists it at 18 and over. FringeReview's content warnings cover nudity, sexual scenes, adult themes and audience interaction, and the same reviewer noted that erotic movement dominates long stretches of the running order.
Where the company stands now
The Wardrobe is in the middle of the company's biggest western European run to date. It played the Savoy Theatre in Helsinki on 5 February 2026, and the autumn block opens at the Wiener Stadthalle's Halle F in Vienna on 18 October 2026, with doors at 6pm, a 7pm start and an expected finish of 8.40pm; that date is promoted by the Berlin company Grusha Media. From there it runs to the Admiralspalast in Berlin on 20 October and Die Glocke in Bremen on 21 October, both at 8pm, then Maastricht on 24 October, the Stadsschouwburg Antwerpen on 25 October at 7pm, Schouwburg Hengelo on 26 October, the AFAS Circustheater in Scheveningen on 27 October, Duisburg on 29 October and Amsterdam on 31 October.
After that the tour continues to Warsaw on 2 November 2026 and Chișinău on 14 December 2026, then picks up again in spring with Kraków on 3 March 2027, Poznań on 9 March and Divadlo Broadway in Prague on 11 March.
The British leg is a single night: the Hackney Empire in London on 16 March 2027 at 8pm, with tickets from £59 to £129 plus a £1.50 per-ticket booking charge and a £2 building restoration levy. That is the only UK date currently on sale, and it lands the company in a 1,200-seat east London variety house rather than a Fringe studio — a different proposition from the EICC run that made its name here.
Reception, and one thing worth checking before booking
The critical record is short but mostly warm, and it is almost entirely from 2022: five stars from Edinburgh Guide, a recommendation from FringeReview, and a positive notice from Everything Theatre with the caveat about ensemble precision. There is no substantial body of recent English-language criticism of the current tour, which is partly a function of the routing — most of the 2026 dates are one-night bookings in cities where the company is sold to Ukrainian-speaking and wider European audiences rather than to a press list. An audience review posted on the German ticketing page in May 2026 called it one of the most beautiful things the writer had seen recently.
Running times differ between listings and are worth noting. The Wiener Stadthalle, and the Latvian and Finnish billings, all give 1 hour 40 minutes including an interval. The Hackney Empire lists approximately 1 hour 30 minutes including a 20-minute interval, which implies a shorter programme or a rounder estimate. The age guidance also differs — 16 and over on the continent, 18 and over in London — so the London edit may not be identical to the one touring the Netherlands and Germany this month.
The show, now
A night of The Wardrobe runs about 1 hour 40 minutes with an interval, and is sold as one continuous theatrical evening rather than a bill of separate dances. A tall polished wardrobe with three doors stands centre stage and does most of the scenic work — dancers enter and exit through it, and it becomes a shower, a doorway, a cupboard and a hiding place as the evening goes on, with a mirror on its front reflecting the house back at itself. A banquet table and chairs fill out the rest of the stage. There is no support act; the 14-strong company carries the whole programme, which moves through formal-wear ensemble numbers, a classical piano duet with lifts and drops, a hard-played break-up scene and a retro French number, scored from an eclectic mix that has included Ravel's Boléro, a Goran Bregović tango and Justin Hurwitz's Quarantine, layered with the dancers' own breathing, whistles and huffs. Immersive sections are built in: performers dance in among the seats and the audience is twice drawn into the action, at the 2022 Edinburgh run including being asked to help carry a dancer. Reviewers of that run described a feeling of togetherness when the fourth wall came down, and praised the costume changes and the pacing while noting that some group sequences were loose. Listings carry warnings for nudity, sexual scenes and adult themes; continental venues rate it 16 and over, the Hackney Empire 18 and over.
Researched from freedom-ballet.eu · hackneyempire.co.uk · stadthalle.com · edinburghguide.com · everything-theatre.co.uk · fringereview.co.uk · kontramarka.de · laimafestival.lv