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Ukrainian Dance This page intentionally left blank Ukrainian Dance A Cross-Cultural Approach ANDRIY NAHACHEWSKY McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina, and London LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Nahachewsky, Andriy. Ukrainian dance : a cross-cultural approach / Andriy Nahachewsky. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7864-6168-4 softcover : 50# alkaline paper 1. Dance—Ukraine—Cross-cultural studies. I. Title. GV1664.U4N35 2012 793.319477—dc23 2011033871 BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE © 2012 Andriy Nahachewsky. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Front cover image: Dancers Ben Shank and John Onyschuk, Cheremosh Ukrainian Dance Company, Edmonton, Alberta, 2005 (photograph by Cindy Gannon) Manufactured in the United States of America McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box 611, Je›erson, North Carolina 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com Table of Contents Acknowledgments vi Preface 1 1. Basic Concepts 5 2. Purposes for Dancing 14 3. Ethnic Dance 24 4. Peasants Dancing 40 5. Geographic Zones 53 6. Historical Zones 67 7. Improvisation 73 8. Vival and Reflective Communities 83 9. National Dance Traditions 90 10. Typical Characteristics of National Dance 101 11. Variations in the National Paradigm 111 12. Recreational and Educational Dance 124 13. Spectacular Dance 143 14. Ballet and the Proscenium 157 15. Theatricalizing a Dance 168 16. Three Principles of Staging 192 17. Moiseyev and Virsky 202 18. First Versus Third Principles of Staging 213 19. Expanding Perspectives 224 Notes 233 Bibliography 245 Index 259 v Acknowledgments I am grateful to Professor Richard Wacko for his idea of organizing a long-distance course for his students of character dance in the Depart- ment of Ballet at the University of Utah. It was through his encouragement that I substantially reworked a course about Ukrainian dance that I had been teaching at the University of Alberta. I am grateful to the students at the University of Alberta and the University of Utah who helped me work out these ideas in various stages of the process. I have been very fortunate to attend a number of symposia of the Study Group for Ethnochoreology of the International Council for Tra- ditional Music. This lively and stimulating biennial conference is a gold mine for the study of ethnically salient dance; a supportive place where new ideas and images can be tested for consideration by some of the sharpest minds in ethnochoreology from Europe, North America, and elsewhere. Many good friends there have been the greatest of teachers. I am grateful to them all. I am thankful for the support and resources available through the Huculak Chair of Ukrainian Culture and Ethnography and the Bohdan Medwidsky Ukrainian Folklore Archives (BMUFA) at the University of Alberta. Professor Bohdan Medwidsky, Brian Cherwick, Alexandre Makar, Theresa Warenycia, Nadya Foty, Vincent Rees, Lynnien Pawluk and others helped me think through the ideas and struggle to focus on writing when the time came to leave administrative tasks for a while. I am also grateful for a research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada from 1994 to 1997, when part of the ideas and materials for this work were assembled. I also thank the members of the Folklore Department at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, who hosted me as a visiting researcher for the academic year of 1996–1997, when the first draft of this study was written. Other drafts were consolidated in the peace and beauty of “Writing on the Ridge” in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Joan and Joe Margel’s cabin on Lac St. Anne, and Russ and Nadine Samycia’s house in Fernie. Thanks, finally, to Kim, Lukash and Noah for the sacrifices they made at home. vi Preface The rise of folk dance and modern dance are the two major events in 20th century dance in worldwide perspective.—Alkis Raftis, 2000, UNESCO International Dance Council The terms “ethnic dance,” “folk dance,” “national dance,” and “character dance” are associated with a range of exciting, colorful, and popular dance activities. These words are used for dance activities that vary greatly in many aspects, but are all recognized as making reference to some specific culture in one way or another. Writing on modern dance rightfully reflects the many new ideas on culture and society that have arisen over the last century. The writing on folk dance however, remains relatively weak and fragmented. Earlier writers devoted to the elite Western theatrical traditions some- times include a chapter on “primitive” or “folk” dance in their surveys of dance history. In these chapters however, they tend to marginalize the phenomena as “crude,” “simple,” “exotic” and “art-less”—often simply an evolutionary starting point which was left far behind when “real,” “important,” “beautiful” dance (usually meaning ballet and contemporary) progressed to its lofty heights. The hundreds of folk dance repertoire books scarcely challenge these views. Folk dance has inspired less contemporary theorizing. Though there has been a tremendous increase in writing with a stronger cross-cultural perspective in the past several decades, it has generally not had powerful resonance with people who actually perform “folk,” “ethnic,” “national” and “character” dances today. Ukrainian dance is a visible and successful example of folk and ethnic dance, in Ukraine itself as well as in many other parts of the world. The dance is widely appreciated for its color and high energy. Ukrainian dance includes both the traditional dance heritage as well as many more recent, urban, and spectacular idioms with an ethnic element. Encompassing such a large variety of dance activity, Ukrainian dance is a fascinating phenomenon in its own right, and an excellent case study of broader issues in folk/ethnic/national dance. Ukrainian culture is clearly European and is part of Western culture in the broad sense, but is marginal in several respects: Ukraine has been isolated behind the Iron Curtain for much of the twentieth century and continues to have strong symbolic connections with peasantry. Many pre-modern traditions are still alive. Ukrainian dance is perhaps exotic enough for readers to see with fresh eyes, but familiar enough for many to identify with. The literature on Ukrainian dance can generally be divided into two main groups. Studies of traditional Ukrainian village dance are primarily descriptive, concentrating on the generic forms of selected dances and, to a lesser degree, on their contexts (Harasymchuk 1939; Humeniuk 1963; Nahachewsky 2008). Publications on Ukrainian stage dance are pri- marily prescriptive rather than descriptive: instructions for reproducing specific choreogra- phies, or advice on how to lead organized dance groups (Avramenko 1947; Bondarenko 1 2PREFACE 1966). This second type of publication is generally a-historical, and both of these branches of the literature tend to be non-comparative. Occasional studies of the historical context attempt to emphasize continuity and antiquity according to Romantic, nationalist, and Soviet preconceptions. A minority of publications attempt to bridge the two groups, engag- ing both with traditional social and ritual dance on the one hand, and stage activity on the other (V. Verkhovynets’ 1968 [1920]; Humeniuk 1969 [1962]; Harasymchuk 2008). In some cases, these publications give an impression that the staged performances are directly con- tinuing the village traditions, or that the traditional rural dances are somehow primitive stage compositions. Either way, the result is quite unsatisfactory. Unfortunately, the literature on Ukrainian dance illustrates the fragmentary nature of folk dance studies, and disconnec- tion from broader contemporary perspectives. This problem is exacerbated by the scarcity of publications in English: Researchers, writers and dancers in most Western countries have little or no access to the many materials in Ukrainian. The purpose of this study is to provide a broad framework for understanding Ukrainian dance. Since two of the key characteristics of Ukrainian dance are its legacy of peasant tra- dition and the power of stage dances derived from this peasantry, one main conceptual focus is along this axis. I use the terms “vival dance” and “reflective dance” to engage with this topic. Reflective dances are different from vival dances in that the participants are self-con- scious about connecting with the past; they think of the dance as “heritage.” Secondly, reflective dance traditions are quite diverse. The book explores how reflective traditions motivated by expressing national identity are different from reflective traditions geared for recreation. These are different again from those reflective traditions oriented to artistic spec- tacle. Each of these three main motives for performing reflective Ukrainian dance can pro- duce very different performances. This book does not attempt a comprehensive catalogue of traditional Ukrainian dance forms, nor is it a history. Rather it attempts to survey approaches to dancing, exploring the range of possibilities. It is hoped that such a strategy will allow a broad perspective, help untangle problematic definitions, and allow us to identify important trends and explain change. The project is cross-cultural