DATELINE NEW YORK: The news from A to Z
by Helen Smindak
While "Dateline" was on hold for the past few weeks, cultural events kept on happening - and happening - and clamoring for attention. No two ways about it, only an alphabetical treatment can handle so much news.
Art and poetry
Ukrainian-inspired art, poetry and music encompassing the work of 15 visual artists, more than a dozen contemporary poets and three composers were combined in a recent three-day festival at the Ukrainian Institute of America - the latest "event" created by Virlana Tkacz and the Yara Arts Group she's been directing for the past 10 years.
"This year, considering how we could top last year's book party that celebrated the publication of 'Ten Years of Poetry from the Yara Theater Workshops at Harvard,' I hit upon the idea of installations," Ms. Tkacz explained.
"My whole concern is that Ukrainian poetry is not accessible to most of the people born here. Ukrainian poetry is very beautiful, and yet it's not getting the play in the community that some other arts are getting."
As a result, art installations based on Ukrainian poems were on view throughout the institute's rooms for an entire weekend, encompassing flickering candles, movie images, color and black-and-white photographs, sculptures, paintings, birds' nests, books, clothing and household objects.
Watoku Ueno mounded reams of white paper over lumber strips to create a staggering portrayal of Oleh Lysheha's 1989 poem "The Mountain," while Anya Farion filled a small room with bare branches, dry leaves and a solitary green pear for a striking depiction of Oksana Senatovych's 1990 work "Pear."
Olga Maryschuk, working with Judith Campbell and Laryssa Lawrynenko, set up a heart-wrenching installation that included children's art work and a forlorn kitchen table draped with embroidered cloths, to portray Oksana Zabuzhko's poem touching on the Chornobyl disaster "Prypiat: A Still Life."
Anka Sereda's poem "I Don't Want To Be A Poet" generated a tongue-in-check installation - several jars holding pysanky, sauerkraut, jagged pieces of Ukrainian-motif ceramics, and photos showing Kozaks, Ukrainian dancers and miniature folk figures, all "preserved" in liquid with bits of dill, basil, carrot and garlic.
The poems, displayed on the wall near the installations, were in English translation by Ms. Tkacz and Wanda Phipps, and included the work of Yuri Andrukhovych, Yurko Hudz, Yuri Kovaliv, Vasyl Makhno, Attila Mohylny, Maria Rewakowicz, Victoria Stakh and Pavlo Tychyna.
Among installation artists whose creations were unveiled at the Friday evening reception were Yarko Cigash, Annette Friedman, Petro Hrytsyk, Cynthia Karalla, Margaret Morton, Ana Rewakowicz, Joel Schlemowitz, Anna Sidorenko, Ilona Sochynsky, Sergei Yakunin and Hilary Zarycky.
Saturday evening focused the spotlight on Yara actors Cecilia Arana, Tom Lee, Ksenia Piaseckyj and Shona Tucker with a bilingual performance of their new work "In Verse." Julian Kytasty's live on-stage bandura accompaniment and the taped music of Obie Award-winning composer Genji Ito and composer Roman Hurko, were fused into the performance of poetry and song.
New works were read on Sunday afternoon by Ukrainian poets Ms. Rewakowicz and Taras Luchuk. Readings in English were offered by poets Kristina Lucenko and Christine Turczyn. Ms. Tkacz gave readings of some of her own works in both languages.
The show was curated by Ms. Tkacz and Ms. Maryschuk, with Alex Kytasty as sound engineer and Jason Eksuzian as production coordinator.
Bandurists from Poland
A bandura ensemble of six Ukrainian women from Peremyshl, Poland, stopped in at the Ukrainian National Home last month to give a concert of Ukrainian folk songs and classics. Headed by soprano and artistic director Olga Levchyshyn Popowicz, the group achieved a lively blending of voices in a presentation that included bandura-accompanied and a capella segments.
The ensemble's first offerings, comprising pensive melodies and wistful love songs, brought to mind ritual spring dances performed on the village green. Following intermission and a change from black gowns to white blouses and embroidered vests with dark skirts, the sextet turned to a livelier menu - Christmas and New Year carols that rang out with joy, and such folk songs as the happy "Oy, u Vyshnevomu Sadochku." For a finale, the singers chose the patriotic song "De Dnipro Nash," set to music by a native of the Peremyshl region, Mykhailo Verbytsky, the composer of Ukraine's national anthem.
Making up a colorful sidelight were the paper cutwork designs of artist Maria Mrychko, a teacher in Peremyshl's Ukrainian school, who was on hand to explain that this Ukrainian folk art can be symmetrical or not, as the artist wishes. Her own designs, some of which were framed, featured mainly floral configurations and animals.
Founded 20 years ago, the bandura ensemble is an energetic part of Peremyshl's Ukrainian community, which boasts a Ukrainian school with 275 students and an annual folk festival.
Baiul on ice
Though she placed sixth in the Equal World Professional Championships in Washington last January, figure skater Oksana Baiul looked great when she guest-starred on ABC-TV's March 5 special "Michelle Kwan Skates to Disney's Greatest Hits." The Olympic gold medalist, who spent three months in alcohol rehabilitation last year, appears slimmer and more confident than she did after her disastrous auto accident. Now 21, her long blonde hair caught back in an elegant chignon or a casual ponytail, she was able to clear most of her jumps easily and gracefully.
"I was living in a fairy-tale world; it's so much harder to live a real life," Ms. Baiul told a TV commentator recently.
The Ukraine-born skater and her longtime friend, Olympic champion Viktor Petrenko, will be among the headliners in the 1999 summer tour of the John Hancock Champions on Ice show, scheduled for Madison Square Garden on April 16. Other bookings in the New York area include Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, N.J., on May 8 and Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, Long Island, on May 9. Presented by Tom Collins, the tour begins in Baltimore on April 9 and is scheduled to visit 45 U.S. cities.
Derkach and Kerouac
Guitarist Terry Derkach, a native of Winnipeg who now makes his home in the East Village, recently appeared with Winnipeggers Brian Hassett and Bill Hodgson and Toronto poet Robert Priest at the popular club The Living Room in lower Manhattan. The foursome celebrated the work of author Jack Kerouac with music, readings and improvisational profundity.
According to Mr. Hassett, Mr. Derkach (who could not be reached for comment) has formed a new company, Global Band Artists. "Dateline" has yet to learn about the scope and purpose of the new enterprise.
Dzundza on TV
Actor George Dzundza appears to be having the time of his life on Thursday nights as the tavern owner in NBC's popular series "Jesse." While the show keeps him and his audience happy, Mr. Dzundza must be chuckling over the serious roles he has played in films in the past, now bringing in residuals from TV showings. Recently aired on WPIX was "Basic Instinct," a riveting murder mystery starring Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone. Just last Sunday, NBC showed "Crimson Tide," a Navy nuclear-submarine command feud, with Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington.
Eternal memory
A historical documentary about Ukraine that had its U.S. premiere last summer at Lincoln Center during the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival was shown at the Ukrainian Institute on February 19 before a capacity audience. The 81-minute film, "Eternal Memory: Voices from the Great Terror," focuses on the Stalinist purges and terror in Ukraine during the 1930s and 1940s. Directed by David Pultz, the film incorporates a poignant off-camera narration by award-winning actress Meryl Streep.
Among historians and public officials interviewed in the film are Robert Conquest of Stanford University, Roman Szporluk of Harvard University, former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, former President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk and former KGB official Mykola Holushko. Witnesses and survivors recount the horrors of labor camps and wholesale executions that took the lives of 20 million Ukrainians.
Director Pultz, who teamed up in 1991 with Canadians George Yemec and Marco Carynnyk to produce the documentary, took questions from the audience after the screening and spoke about his first trip to western Ukraine in the fall of 1991, made at the time of the Soviet Union's break-up. He and his crew were among the first from the West allowed to travel and talk freely with citizens of newly independent Ukraine.
The film showing was organized by Alla Leshko, cultural affairs convenor for Branch 113 of the Ukrainian National Women's League of America. Mrs. Leshko told "Dateline" that it is hoped "Eternal Memory" will be shown on public television.
Writing about the film and its haunting moments in The Ukrainian Weekly last June, freelance writer Adriana Leshko quoted festival director Bruni Burres, who said the documentary gave a "really comprehensive historical analysis along with great storytelling."
"For me, (Eternal Memory) exemplifies three of the most important elements of film-making, that it touches you emotionally, that it's of very high artistic quality, and that factually it's very strong," Ms. Burres said.
Gogol goes cabaret
A four-man Ukrainian band specializing in surrealistic punk cabaret music is fast becoming a hit on the New York club scene. Gogol Bordello, fronted by Kyiv-born Eugene Hutz, has been appearing at many clubs in the past year - but avoiding rock clubs and night clubs, said Mr. Hutz. Most recently, the band played at Coney Island High Club in the East Village and the Cooler Club on West 14th Street.
Mr. Hutz, who sings and composes for Gogol Bordello, said he was a drum school student "heavily involved in the underground [music] scene in Kyiv" before moving a year ago to the city where he always wanted to live: New York.
Because he felt that rap music and rock were losing their power, Mr. Hutz and his band initiated a punk cabaret style of music that puts the accent on theatrics and storytelling, and is heavily influenced by Ukrainian, Romanian and Gypsy folk music. "We're a very live act: we don't stand around," he points out. "We don't try to be avant-garde or retro, but be with the times."
The name Gogol Bordello, Mr. Hutz explains, was selected because "Gogol is definitely a Ukrainian writer known throughout the world" while Bordello "puts a more playful connotation" on the name. He admits he actually chose the name after reading a book about Gogol's sexuality - "a confusing subject and basically a big riddle."
Singing in English, Mr. Hutz is backed by Aleksandr Kazackov on accordion, Vlad Solovar on guitar (also back-up singer) and Elliott Ferguson on drums. The group is recording a CD "Mussolini vs. Stalin," which will be released in April or May.
Krychevsky to Ukraine
The works of impressionist painter Mykola Krychevsky (1898-1961), which have been part of the Krychevsky family collection, will soon be relocated from California to the permanent collections of various museums in Ukraine. The move is being made at the request of Mr. Krychevsky's niece, Kateryna Krychevsky Rosandych.
In anticipation of the migration, The Ukrainian Museum brought 112 Krychevsky works to New York in order to photograph and document them, and replaced acidic mats on watercolors with acid-free mats.
To give New Yorkers a chance to take a look at famed Krychevsky oils and watercolors, director Maria Shust and her associates selected 56 pieces for a two-week exhibit at the museum that opened on February 21. All the Krychevsky works were subsequently shipped to the Embassy of Ukraine in Washington for a March 10 exhibit in connection with the embassy's commemoration of Taras Shevchenko.
Mr. Krychevsky, who came from a renowned family of painters and artists in Kharkiv, studied art with his father, Vasyl Krychevsky Sr. and with Y. Bokshai in Uzhorod, and graduated from the School of Industrial Design in Prague. He moved to Paris in 1929 and is best known for his watercolors, with scenes of Paris and Vienna earning him international praise.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 14, 1999, No. 11, Vol. LXVII
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