DATELINE NEW YORK: Village life, complete with rituals (09/05/99)

DATELINE NEW YORK: Village life, complete with rituals

by Helen Smindak

Manhattan's East Village teems year-round with artists, craftspeople, sidewalk vendors, New York University students and tourists. In the fall, winter and spring it also comes alive with intense Ukrainian activity that generally goes into hiatus during the warm-weather months. This summer, however, was different.

The area that harbors the largest concentration of Ukrainians in New York City has been surprisingly active in recent months: concerts by two touring ensembles from Ukraine (one of these, Dity Ditiam, or Children for Children, was movingly reviewed by Bohdanna Wolanska in the August 15 issue of The Weekly); a series of unique programs centering around off-beat poetry, music and folk rituals; participation by the Cheres folk ensemble in the annual summer concert series in Abe Lebewohl Park; an appearance by the Gogol Bordello ensemble at the popular Joe's Pub; and a turn at experimental theater by actress Tannis Kowalchuk at La MaMa Theater.

Abetting the performing arts, The Ukrainian Museum offered a summer exhibition of works from its fine arts collection. The Ukrainian Congress Committee of America hopped aboard the summer bandwagon, too, inviting the public to attend brown-bag lunches and hear speakers from Ukraine and the United States discourse on political topics.

Pikardiiska Tertsiia

Bearing the intriguing name of Pikardiiska Tertsiia, a six-man vocal troupe from Lviv held a full house spellbound at the Ukrainian National Home in June, sans microphones, musical instruments or printed programs.

In a non-stop 90-minute program, they beguiled the audience with harmonies that ranged from a heavenly sounding chorus of angels "Sad Anhelskykh Pisen" (Garden of Angels' Songs), folk songs like the yearning "Tuman Yarom" (Mist-Shrounded Hillsides) to hearty country-western and electrifying rock 'n roll music.

Along the way, the singers imitated the sound of guitar strings and mouth organs and the twang of the small, metal "drymba" (mouth-harp), and accompanied themselves with rhythmic clapping, foot-stomping, wordless crooning, humming and whistling.

Tenor Volodymyr Yakymets, the ensemble's director, explained the absence of amplifying equipment. "We want to bring our songs to you raw and fresh - without any apparatus."

Tertsiia's vocal formation also included tenors Andrii Kapral and Yaroslav Nudyk, baritone Roman Turianyn and basses Andrii Shavala and Bohdan Bohach. All are graduates of the Lysenko Music Institute in Lviv.

The blending of voices was smooth and melodious, the style unique. The sextet sang in Ukrainian, although English took over in two rock 'n roll pieces.

Among the liveliest selections were a Ukrainian folk song "Tam za Lisom, za Luhom" (Beyond the Forest, Beyond the Plain), jazzed up by variations of tempo and beat, and a rock 'n roll number that ended with a long, drawn-out "Oh, yeah." In the number "Tanok" (Dance), a piece written by Yevhen Stankovych as an exercise for his music students, the ensemble went to town with an entire gamut of sounds, as well as combinations of sounds and tempos.

Caught up in Tertsiia's fervor, the audience clapped along with the singers and shouted "sche, sche" (more, more) at the end of the show, and got more - a lively rock 'n roll number reminiscent of joyous Afro-American gospel singing.

Beginning its tour in Washington during the Joint Conferences of Ukrainian American Organizations, the ensemble swung through several Northeast states, making New York its final stop. Word of the group's outstanding presentation had preceded it to New York, attracting music lovers of all ages.

Tertsiia's manager, Roman Klymovsky, said the group is heading to appearances in Warsaw and Kyiv, and Peter Rybchuk, editor of Zakordonna Hazeta, which co-sponsored the tour with Air Ukraine/Uzbekistan Airways, added that the ensemble will be back in the U.S. during the Christmas season.

The name Pikardiiska Tertsiia? It's a musical term - picardy third that comes from the French "tierce Picardie." According to the Harvard Dictionary of Music, it was popular from 1500 to 1750 and denotes "the major third used for the final chord of a composition in a minor key."

Kupalo rituals

Pre-Christian Ukrainians celebrated the end of the summer solstice and the beginning of harvest time by honoring Kupalo, the god of love and the harvest, and the personification of the earth's fertility. Though this pagan festival has been supplanted on the Christian calendar by the feast day of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, it has remained part of Ukrainian folk ritual as the festival of Ivan Kupalo. Nikolai Gogol (Mykola Hohol) drew world attention to the rituals in his short story "Nich pid Ivana Kupala" (The Eve of Ivan Kupalo).

On a warm summer evening in July, Virlana Tkacz, members of the Yara Arts Group, bandurist Julian Kytasty and others re-enacted Kupalo rituals for a multi-ethnic throng amid the lush plantings and rustic grapevine trellises of the Community Garden at the corner of Sixth Street and Avenue B.

Flickering candlelight led participants from one garden spot to another. Katie Takahashi recited water incantations and told fortunes beside a rock formation to the accompaniment of ancient Kupalo songs compiled by Ms. Tkacz and electronically processed by Alex Kytasty. At the gazebo in the garden's center, Irina and Genya from Kyiv assisted everyone in making wreaths of freshly picked wildflowers. Elsewhere, Mykhailo Andrec strummed his bandura, providing background music for simultaneous English and Ukrainian readings of Gogol's Kupalo story by Tom Lee and Taras Los.

Eugene Hutz, standing in front of a video projection of Vadym and Yuriy Illienko's 1967 film "The Eve of Ivan Kupalo" read original stories from his Ukrainian-language collection "New York Fables" to bandura accompaniment. Listeners showered him with buckets of water, Kupalo-style, at the end of each story.

In another corner, choreographer Dyane Harvey led participants in a candle dance to Meredith Wright's fascinating improvisations on the traditional folk song "Hold a Candle." Tristra Newyear, Eleanor Lipat and Julian Kytasty sang Kupalo songs in the traditional folk style known as "bilyi holos" (white voice), adding another entrancing facet to the evening.

Fortunes written by each participant and hung on the "hiltse" (branch) at the start of the evening were now plucked at random from this tree of fortune and eagerly scanned by the light of candles floating on water.

These Kupalo festivities formed a Julian-calendar follow-up to a Kupalo evening held in June at the Ukrainian Sports Club. That event featured a talk by filmmaker Andrea Odezynska and the screening of her award-winning film "Dora Is Dysfunctional," an uproarious look at the diaspora's attempts to preserve old country rituals in the United States. There were also excerpts of Kupalo scenes from such famous films as "Andrei Rublev," "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" and "Time of the Gypsies," improvisations on a Kupalo song by soprano Natalia Honcharenko and readings of water incantations by Ms. Tkacz.

The initial event of Yara's Nova Nomada series was held at the Big Bar on East Sixth Street, combining an ethno-electronic piece, "Bicycling in Transylvania" by the Staroviry trio (Mr. Hutz and the Kytasty brothers), a hilarious storytelling performance by Mr. Hutz and "Ukrainian-American" poetry by Ms. Tkacz.

At another event, New York author and Svitovyd editor Maria Rewakowicz piqued the interest of an audience at the Sports Club as she read selections from her books of haunting love poems, some in Ukrainian, others in English translation. Julian Kytasty offered flute and bandura improvisations, and Mr. Andrec performed the "Mosaic" bandura piece he composed with computer assistance. Yuriy Fedynsky of Raleigh, N.C., back from bandura studies in Lviv and Kyiv, simulated the sounds of a cascading waterfall in his "Bandura Piece No. 1." Mr. Hutz rounded out the program by acting as DJ for his special blend of electro-music.

Now that the momentum has begun, Ms. Tkacz says the Nova Nomada gathering will continue every two weeks, "tying together rock 'n roll, theater, poetry and traditional music in an untraditional manner."

Exploring new territory

Tannis Kowalchuk is drawn to projects that present a foray into new territory, so she enjoys working in a creative style that blends physical theater, song, stilt-walking, music and original text into a multi-layered experience that has been likened to "Beckett on stilts."

A core member and collaborator with Primus Theater, a prominent Canadian experimental theater troupe, the Winnipeg-born actress has been active in New York since 1997 as a co-founder and member of the North American Cultural Laboratory (NaCl).

She has created and performed roles with NaCl in "The Secret Storey" and "A Canon for the Blue Moon." Last year, premiering in Cleveland and New York in the one-woman avant-garde production "The Passion According to G.H.," she dramatized a life-changing encounter with a huge cockroach simply using her body, voice and costume.

Ms. Kowalchuk returned to the New York stage a few months ago in another original, highly unusual piece, "Asphyxia and Other Promises," a modern absurdist tale based on an Italian fairytale. Written by poet/playwright Henry Israeli, "Asphyxia" tells the story of a woman who is tricked into giving up her unborn child to the Order of Disorder, and the child is raised in a magical cloister by a giant, insect-like stilt figure, ministered to by mischievous spirits and tutored by a mad and rebellious "Sister."

During its three-week run at La MaMa, the experimental theater company on East Fourth Street, "Asphyxia" stirred patrons with its dramatic imagery and revolutionary sounds. Ms. Kowalchuk, playing the roles of Asphyxia and Sister, and Allison Waters, as Beatrix, the child, turned in dynamic, finelycrafted performances.

Ms. Kowalchuk has performed in Canada, Italy, France and Denmark, taught a unique approach to physical and vocal training in universities and schools in North America and Europe, and created a children's performance, "Journey of the Dragon Boy," which was produced in Canadian regional theaters.

The actress and her husband, Brad Krumholz, who directed "Asphyxia," founded North American Cultural Laboratory in order "to create situations for communication and human interaction between fellow theater artists and spectators from all walks of life." Together with Ms. Waters, they practice daily actor-training sessions and spend four months to a year on each project created by NaCl, a resident company of La MaMa.

Cheers for Cheres

This past July, the Ukrainian folk ensemble Cheres assembled in Abe Lebewohl Park in front of historic St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery to give a noontime concert of Carpathian music. Attired in traditional Hutsul garb, the group of musicians led by director Andriy Milavsky performed on native woodwind and string instruments.

It was the group's second appearance in three years in the series of summer musical programs started by local institutions to encourage neighborhood residents and visitors to use the park. Originally named St. Mark's Park, it was renamed Abe Lebewohl Park to honor the memory of the philanthropic owner of the Second Avenue Deli who was murdered in 1996.

The series is sponsored by the Third Street Music School Settlement and the 10th and Stuyvesant Streets Block Association in cooperation with St. Mark's Church, and receive funding from several local institutions.

Last season, Cheres enjoyed successful runs at Karpo's Restaurant on Blecker Street, as well as what the troupe described as "really wild" weekend gigs at Brewsky's Tavern on East Seventh Street. The ensemble appeared at Harvard University this summer in conjunction with Mr. Milavsky's lecture on Hutsul music for students of Harvard's Ukrainian studies summer school.

Mr. Milavsky, who began his career at the exclusive Kyiv School of the Arts as a teacher of woodwind instruments in both classical and folk genres, recently formed a classical woodwind quintet in New York. He also teaches jazz, plays in the Amato Opera orchestra and serves as choir director at All Saints Ukrainian Orthodox Church. He and his wife, Lila Dlaboha, a professional editor who handles perscussion instruments in the Cheres ensemble, are working on a Cheres video that they expect will match the popularity of the Cheres CD "From the Mountains to the Steppes" released in 1998.

Gogol Bordello

"If you can make it there, you'll make it anywhere," goes the popular Frank Sinatra song "New York, New York." Those words could be the theme for the Ukrainian surrealistic punk cabaret band Gogol Bordello. The four-man group, fronted by singer/songwriter Eugene Hutz, has appeared in almost every New York club that presents punk cabaret music. Now Gogol Bordello has added a hip new club - Joe's Pub - to its list of "been there, done that."

Open seven nights a week, Joe's Pub is the Joseph Papp Public Theater's new nightclub on Lafayette Street, offering a changing roster from ethnic music ensembles and spoken-word artists to promising young musical-theater composers and performers. Celebrities like Georgio Armani, Donald Trump and composer-songwriters Adolph Green and Betty Comden ornament the place.

Says Mr. Hutz, "Gogol Bordello 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 expects his group will be invited to Joe's Pub for a return engagement.

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