DakhaBrakha calls what they do “ethno chaos,” and if you’ve spent any time with their music — the deep percussion arriving like weather, four voices braiding into something that can hold in perfect stillness before it fractures, and then hold again — the phrase earns itself. The Ukrainian quartet brings that sound to the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington on Saturday, January 30, touring behind Ptakh, their first full-length album in five years.
About the Show
Founded in 2004 at Kyiv’s Center of Contemporary Art “DAKH” by avant-garde theatre director Vladyslav Troitskyi, DakhaBrakha has built a sound that refuses a single origin: Ukrainian polyphony set against rhythmic structures drawn from India, Arabia, Africa, and Australia, anchored by cello, darbuka, tabla, djembe, accordion, and trombone. The group describes their music as “intimate then riotous, plumbing the depths of contemporary roots and rhythms.” That theatrical foundation shows in the architecture of their songs: scenic effects rooted in theatre, slow accumulation before the break.
Touring in support of Ptakh, released December 25, 2025 and recorded in Kyiv at Kaska Records, the quartet blends pre- and post-invasion material across 14 tracks. Awards include the S. Kuriokhin Grand Prix, the Shevchenko National Prize in Musical Arts (2020), the globalFEST Artist Award (2023), and France’s Chevaliers of the Order of Arts (2023). Festival credits span Glastonbury, Bonnaroo, and WOMAD. Their stated purpose is to serve as “troubadours, activists and educators,” presenting Ukraine as cosmopolitan rather than monolithic, a conviction embedded in the band name: DakhaBrakha means “give/take” in old Ukrainian.
Venue & Logistics
The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, Massachusetts is a 681-seat theater on the Hudson Valley touring circuit, and for this stop it gives a group accustomed to festival stages one of the more focused rooms on their North American run. DakhaBrakha’s performance tradition incorporates scenic effects rooted in theatre; that theatricality tends to work differently in an enclosed house than it does on a festival ground. The Great Barrington date is the second stop on their January–February North American leg, arriving the night after Somerville Theatre (Jan. 29) and two weeks before Webster Hall in New York City (Feb. 4). Show time is 8:00 p.m.
Tickets
Tickets are $39 (Limited Upper Balcony), $49 (Reserved), and $59 (Premium), plus processing fees. Youth ages 30 and under: $15, available at the box office or by calling 413-528-0100 (Wednesday–Saturday, noon–4 p.m.). Members receive $5 off each ticket. Buy tickets.