A Ukrainian Summer: where to go, what to do...
Canada's summer season is characterized by festivals galore
by Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau
TORONTO - Whether or not El Nino wreaks havoc on this summer's weather, Ukrainian happenings in Canada during the warm and easy season will continue their cyclical dance.
Many events have maintained their place on the calendar and showed renewed strength, despite the rash of various government cutbacks and transition in the community at large.
UKRAINIAN FESTIVALS
Dauphin
The country's best known festival of Ukrainian doings is Canada's National Ukrainian Festival held in Dauphin, Manitoba (about 150 miles northwest of Winnipeg); this year it will mark its 33rd year, and will take place July 31 to August 2.
A large bazaar of folk art, music, books, children's stuff and extreme kitsch rages throughout the weekend.
Musically, the festival features everything from modern experimental music by Ukrainians to the usual gamut of hot dance groups such as Edmonton's Vohon, Toronto's Arkan, as well as local heroes, Canada's National Riding and Dancing Cossacks and Zirka.
This year, the festival is celebrating the 100th anniversary of Dauphin's incorporation as a town and the 100th anniversary of the St. Michael's Ukrainian Catholic Church, among Canada's oldest Ukrainian shrines.
According to a report by Yuriy Diakunchak in this year's summer issue of "The Magazine of Ukrainian Things," Zdorov, "the [Dauphin] site offers plenty of unserviced campsites, split into two sections, quiet and festive. Six to eight bus tours are expected and inquiries about the festival have come in from as far as California."
Gardenton Festival
Another Manitoba fest, closer to Winnipeg (70 miles southeast), also in its 33rd year, will be held July 11-12. The Ukrainian Museum and Village Society helps pay for operating costs of their impressive 3,000 square foot facility by organizing this annual do.
The museum is devoted to the 100-year plus historical record of local Ukrainian Churches, and is graced with displays of traditional costumes, farm and household implements, as well as other artifacts related to the history of Ukrainian settlement in Canada.
The festival includes a baseball tournament that involves about 14 teams made up of players from various ethnic backgrounds, as well as a zabava.
Vegreville Pysanka Festival
On July 1- July 5, the Vegreville Cultural Association will host its 25th anniversary festival, which is a year older than The Egg/Pysanka that has brought the town notoriety. The Mega-kitsch Monument was put up 24 years ago to mark centennary of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The jam-packed program will include daily band showcases, pioneer crafts shows, multicultural shows, trade shows, dance competitions, and cabarets. A parade will be held July 3 and an ecumenical moleben will be concelebrated on the festival's last day.
The Mounties will not be there this year in any official capacity, so those with an aversion to cops should definitely make it a point of attending 1998's festivities. In 1999, the Vegreville festival will commemorate the 125th anniversary of the famous (among Canadians) March West of the Northwest Mounted Police (the RCMP's predecessor), and there will be red shirts everywhere.
Cawaja Beach
As alluring as any beach sounds during the summer, this festival and bazaar grew out of the habitual migration of Ukrainians to this sandy lakeside where cottages abound. The festival and bazaar is held at the Ss. Volodymyr and Olha Church, not far from the beach, usually on the second or third weekend in June.
Ukrainian Independence Day
After seven years (a much cooler number to celebrate than the banal five or 10) Ukrainians in North America are getting the hang of celebrating this date. Sure it's starting to seem more "theirs" than "ours," but wouldn't you rather celebrate independence in the summer than in January?
Last year, Toronto's branch of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, jointly with various business, professional and community groups, held a street festival along the stretch of Bloor Street West known as "Ukrainian Bay Street" (the Canadian equivalent of Wall Street). This year's reprise has been expanded to a two-day, two-venue event that will begin with a parade down Bloor between Runnymede and Jane streets on August 22, followed by a stage show, with a bazaar and food court set up throughout.
On August 23, the festival will continue at the St. Volodymyr Cultural Center in Oakville, Ontario, about a half-hour's drive outside Toronto. A formal concert with dignitaries from Ukraine participating, more foodcourts, beer gardens, folk art kiosks, and a dance in the evening will round out the program.
Most major cities in Canada have a branch of the UCC, and most organize Ukrainian Independence Day celebrations, so interested patriotic revellers are directed to their local branch.
MULTI-ETHNIC FESTIVALS
Winnipeg Folklorama
This 40-pavilion multicultural fête in multiculturalism's heartland (Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau announced his government's adoption of the policy at a Ukrainian Canadian Congress quadrennial) is not to be missed; it's open to the public from August 2 to August 15.
For Ukrainians not only will it be multicultural but multipolitical (well, mostly ideologically polar). In the festival's first week, until August 8, the Association of United Ukrainians of Canada, otherwise known as "the Komunisty," will be greeting the public at the Lviv Pavilion with three shows per night of acts put on by the AUUC's School of Folk Dancing and the Tryzub Dancers, as well performances of the Winnipeg Mandolin Quartet under the direction of Myron Shatulsky.
In the second week, the 29th annual edition of the Kyiv Pavilion hosted by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress will take over, with theme rooms showcasing Ukrainian traditions for Rizdvo, Ivana Kupala and weddings. Among the performers at the pavilion's shows will be the Hoosli Folk Ensemble, the Dumka choir and the Oleksander Koshetz choir.
Free bus service between all the pavilions will be available.
Toronto Caravan
After years of contributing the highest number of pavilions to a weeklong international extravaganza (six at the zenith), Ukraine's only pavilion scheduled for this year's event will be the Odesa pavilion at the St. Vladimir Institute.
But what a pavilion it will be! From June 12 to June 20, virtual reality multicultural travellers will visit "The Boom Town on the Black Sea," with three shows nightly, featuring performances by the Arkan dance company, members of the Ukrainian Dance Academy, as well as recently immigrated maestros from Ukraine, accordionist Serhiy Demenchuk and tsymbaly player Valerie Samolienko (formerly a Kyiv-based composer/arranger for Veriovka).
Displays will include a replica of the Odesa market, Prymorsky Boulevard, and the Potemkin steps, as well as a museum exhibit on the Trypillian legacy display, fortune tellers and portraitists/caricaturists. The pavilion will also provide dining and "wharfside" entertainment, emceed by Andrea Lawrentiw, all overseen by "Princess" Ksenia Slywynska and "Mayor" Mark (not Gurvits) Fedorowycz.
Sound of Music Festival
Depending on your bent you'll either yearn for or dread the possibility that people dressed in Von Trapp family costumes might appear at this festival, but you'll be off the mark either way.
On June 26-27, dance and musical groups of various backgrounds will perform. At the Ukrainian pavilion there will be evening concerts at 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. featuring dancers of the Tyrsa Ukrainian Dance School and the Barvinok ensemble from Mississauga. Comedians Taras and Paraska will emcee the events, and a zabava will be held each night with the Zolota Pidkova Polka Band providing the tunes.
SUMMER CAMP WITH A TWIST
After all the kids are back from summer camps on resorts or in the wild, here's a way to get them readjusted to things urban. The St. Vladimir Institute in downtown Toronto will follow up on last year's very successful "camp in the city" with a reprise known as "Spadina Camp." From August 10 to August 21, Camp Director Larissa Spolsky will oversee a full-day program (9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.) integrating trips around Toronto, to Centre Island, arts and crafts and other activities.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, June 7, 1998, No. 23, Vol. LXVI
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