1988: A LOOK BACK
New and notable in the arts
There were rather interesting developments during this year in the realm
of arts - many of them having to do with the diaspora's emerging contacts
with the homeland, Ukraine.
Among those developments were the following.
- Ivan Ostafijchuk, a prominent artist from Ukraine, arrived in Toronto
on January 14 to begin a new life in Canada. He is known primarily for
his graphic art, including a series of lithographs depicting the Hutsuls
of the Carpathian mountains, and illustrations to works by Ivan Franko,
Lesia Ukrainka, Marko Cheremshyna and Lina Kostenko.
- The Virsky Ukrainian State Dance Company arrived in the United States
in January for a 10-week tour - its first in 15 years - with its new director
and choreographer, Miroslav Vantukh.
- "Religious Music of Ukraine," a concert dedicated to the
Millennium of Christianity in Ukraine, was presented on February 14 at
Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. The concert was sponsored by the Mazepa
Foundation in association with the National Millennium Committee and the
Ukrainian National Association. It featured the talents of the Choral Guild
of Atlanta, conducted by William Noll, and such opera greats as Paul Plishka,
Vyacheslav Polozov, Gilda Cruz-Romo, Marta Senn and Andrij Dobriansky.
The concert was repeated two weeks later in Atlanta at the Druid Hills
Methodist Church.
- In March, Soviet Ukrainian writers Ivan Drach and Dmytro Pavlychko
and filmmaker Yuriy Ilyenko were welcomed in North America. Mr. Pavlychko
was one of three speakers making the rounds of Canadian universities for
the sixth annual Shevchenko Readings. Messrs. Drach and Ilyenko, meanwhile,
were in Canada and the United States to promote five films made in the
USSR in the 1960s, some of which were had been shelved for more than 20
years. All had interesting thoughts to share with their American and Canadian
audiences, among whom there were many Ukrainians.
- Virko Baley, a composer, conductor and pianist, developed the Ukrainian
Cultural Foundation, an organization designed to promote the works of Soviet
Ukrainian creative talent in the West. The foundation had been in the making
for a number of years, but it actually took off this year.
- An exhibit of "Contemporary Art from Ukraine," featuring
106 works by 13 artists living and creating in the Ukrainian SSR, was on
display in October at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Hazell Center
Gallery, and the following month at the Ukrainian Institute of America
in New York. Among those attending the opening at NJIT was Gennadi Oudovenko,
the Ukrainian SSR's ambassador to the United Nations.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, December
25, 1988, No. 52, Vol. LVI
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