World's Only Ukrainian Dance Museum

The first part of the morning has been fairly confusing. It was originally scheduled for us to have a workshop with Vasyl Bosyi in Khutir Nadia (somewhere a short distance away) and then come back to prepare for our show which is tonight. Tyler and I went to bed quite late by the time everything was organized. My wifi has not been able to connect and Tyler doesn’t have the Tryzub group chat configured on his. So we didn’t see the messages that the schedule has changed for today. Looks like the workshop is cancelled today/deferred to tomorrow and now we are having a sightseeing morning and then spending the rest of the day preparing for the show.

We started with breakfast at the hotel where we learned of the schedule changes. Bus call was at 8:30 AM and we headed to the studios in Kropyvnytski where Prolisok Ensemble rehearses (and where Yatran ensemble used to rehearse). We had a tour with a man named Anatole who manages the studios. I’m not sure if that’s where the workshop will be tomorrow but there were about five studios there.

Next we travelled to Khutir Nadia, about an hour away from Kropyvnytski. This is where the Ethnographic Choreographic Museum of Ukrainian Dance is, the main attraction of our visit here. We learned about the first dancers that brought Ukrainian dance to the stage in 1875. We learned that the hopak was awarded the best dance in the International Folk Dance Festival in 1935 in London. We had the opportunity to learn more about Virsky Ensemble and that many other regional professional ensembles were created after Virsky was the first. One of the rooms in the museum is dedicated to Ukrainian dance groups outside of Ukraine. Shane has worked closely with Vasyl Bosyi who created the museum and the poster for our show along with information about Tryzub is included there. There aren’t many Canadian groups featured there so this is a huge honour. I feel like there was much more to see and learn but we didn’t have much extra time.

The bus ride back for me was spent mostly with hair braiding. Kristen braided my hair and then I braided the hair of two other girls.

Now we are back in our room preparing our costumes for the show. A tiny breather before the hectic and stressful afternoon/evening ahead!

BrookeRead more