DATELINE NEW YORK: Catching up with arts/entertaiment (08/25/02)

DATELINE NEW YORK: Catching up with arts/entertaiment

by Helen Smindak

Ballet and folk dance

American Ballet Theater opened its spring season at the Metropolitan Opera with a gala benefit performance that featured only one of its three Ukrainian principals - Vladimir Malakhov. Maxim Belotserkovsky, who was ill at the time, went on as scheduled for the rest of the eight-week season. His wife, dancer Irina Dvorovenko, was out for the whole season due to a foot injury that required surgery; it's expected she will rejoin the company for the fall season at City Center.

The New York Times' Anna Kisselgoff, reviewing the performance of Act I from John Cranko's "Onegin," pointed to "the breathtaking pure line" that Mr. Malakhov lent to the role of Lensky. His airy leaps and skimming traveling brisees in "Giselle," a work crammed with dramatic detail, were noted by Jennifer Dunning in her review of the ballet in The Times. Mr. Malakhov also performed the role of a slave trader in a Turkish bazaar in the season's memorable "Le Corsaire," appeared as von Rothbart in "Swan Lake," and danced in the Tchaikovsky "Pas de Deux," the "Nutcracker Pas de Deux" and "Symphony in C."

Born in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, Mr. Malakhov joined ABT as a principal dancer in 1995. He was named "best male dancer" in the world by Japan's Dance Magazine for three consecutive years, 1992-1994, and is the subject of three films: "Bravo Malakhov" (1991), "The Dancer Malakhov" (1993) and "The True Prince" (1996).

Writing about Mr. Belotserkovsky as Albrecht in the eloquent cast of "Giselle," Ms. Kisselgoff said the dancer portrayed an impulsive young man whose "body soared, while at the same time his spirit seemed weighted down." The Times' Jack Anderson, reviewing "Swan Lake," noted that Mr. Belotserkovsky, as Prince Siegfried, was "a hero with a sunny disposition." Mr. Anderson went on to appraise the Black Swan pas de deux danced later that evening by Mr. Belotserkovsky and Nina Ananiashvili as "grand in scale, yet free of affectation." The handsome Kyiv-born dancer, also seen during the spring season in "Theme and Variations," "Symphony in C," "The Dream," "Onegin" and "La Fille Mal Gardee," is scheduled to travel to Japan in September for the company's two-week tour in that country. He has been with ABT since 1994 and was promoted to soloist the following year. Both he and his wife, who joined ABT in 1996, were promoted to principal dancers in August 2000.

Ms. Kisselgoff, bless her heart, knows the difference between Ukrainians and Russians. She showed that in her review of the Moiseyev Dance Company when it appeared at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in nearby Newark during its recent U.S. tour. (The company also performed on Long Island at the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, but did not make a stop in New York City.) Regarding old Moiseyev favorites inspired by the multi-ethnic population of the former Soviet Union, the reviewer pointed to "Gopak" - "Hopak to Ukrainians," explained Ms. Kisselgoff - which still sends a male dancer flying in a split over the ensemble. She was highly impressed by the amazing lightness of "the low-slung crouching dances of the men" that contrasted with "the flashing color of the women's dances."

Drama and street theater

Lydia Krushelnytsky's Ukrainian Stage Ensemble took well-deserved bows at two outstanding spring presentations: one a production based on the works of poet Taras Shevchenko at the Consulate-General of Ukraine in New York, the other a Sunday afternoon overview of the works of the late humorist Edward Kozak, known as "Eko" through his column in Svoboda and public appearances.

At the Shevchenko evening, the Stage Ensemble was joined by tenor Roman Tsymbala, a performer of leading roles with the Lviv Opera Theater who made his debut in the United States in 1992, acclaimed pianist Volodymyr Vynnytsky of New York, and stage/screen star Ivan Bernatsky, who has given excellent portrayals of Shevchenko in numerous productions and was named a National Artist of Ukraine in 1991. Mr. Bernatsky has been active with the Stage Ensemble as actor, choreographer and stage manager since 1999.

Ms. Krushelnytsky, accepting a floral tribute and acknowledging applause from an audience that included Consul General Serhiy Pohoreltzev and his wife, Svitlana, Ukraine's ambassador to the United Nations Valeriy Kuchynsky and his wife, Alla, and Ukrainian World Congress President Askold Lozynskyj, pointed proudly to her ensemble and exulted: "engineers, management associates, students, all of them professionals, all born in America, some of them third- and fourth-generation Ukrainian Americans!"

For the Kozak remembrance, which celebrated the 100th anniversary of his birth and the 10th anniversary of his death, veteran actor Volodymyr Kurylo and members of the ensemble brought to the stage some of Mr. Kozak's unforgettable humoresques - witty, comical views of Ukrainian American life. Especially enjoyable for the audience were Ms. Krushelnytsky's reading of Kozak's "Hryts Zozulia" and Lesyk Kmeta's humorous interpretation of the song "Hutsulka Ksenia."

Canadian-born actress Tannis Kowalchuk and her husband, Brad Krumholz, founders of NaCl (North American Cultural Laboratory), spent an extremely busy spring/summer season with their company in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The company recently took part in the 10-day Catskill Festival of New Theatre 2002 in Highland Lake, N.Y., and is presently appearing at folk festivals in Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. During a benefit variety show at St. Clements Church Theatre in Manhattan, Ms. Kowalchuk performed in the featured event "10 Brecht Poems," which she helped to create, and in "Invisible Neighborhood," an NaCl street theater work-in-progress. Company presentations of "Invisible Neighborhood," an epic outdoor extravaganza with acrobatic stilt dancing, live music, a capella song and physical theater, took place in Manhattan, Brooklyn and in city parks (The Village Voice said the production "conjures a magical world ... the visual effects mesmerize.")

Films and filmmakers

In a springtime salute to the Ukrainian filmmaker Alexander Dovzhenko (1894-1956), a great screen pioneer during the 1920s, the Lincoln Film Society presented a two-week retrospective of Dovzhenko films at the Walter Reade Theater.

While his contemporaries were influenced by the Constructivist movement of the time, Dovzhenko drew his inspiration from Ukrainian folk culture and celebrated his native land and the people who worked it, using visual metaphor and complex imagery in his work. These elements were highly evident in 14 Dovzhenko films that were screened, among them his debut film "Love Berry"; "Zvenyhora," steeped in gentle Ukrainian lore that invites comparisons to Mykola Hohol; "Ivan," Dovzhenko's first experience with sound cineme; and "Earth," a rumination on nature's cycle of death and rebirth that critics indisputably consider his masterpiece. Also shown were "Diplomatic Pouch," a spy thriller; "Battle for Soviet Ukraine," the first of Dovzhenko's wartime documentaries; and "Farewell, America," his unfinished final film, completed in 1995 by Mosfilm and Gosfilmofond Rossii. Silent films had live piano accompaniment by Donald Sosin, while the first two showings of "Earth" were accompanied with live music by the Alloy Orchestra.

The festival included a symposium on Dovzhenko's art and legacy, featuring scholars from Ukraine and the United States, and a gallery exhibition curated by the Dovzhenko Museum in Kyiv of posters and Dovzhenko self-portraits and drawings. Supported by the Consulate General of Ukraine in New York, the retrospective was organized by Seagull Films, Ukraine's Ministry of Art and Culture, and the Oleksander Dovzhenko Ukrainian National Center.

New York native Roman Paul Boychuk, a filmmaker currently living in Los Angeles, has informed us that his first feature film, "Glass, Necktie," has been released on video and DVD and received strong reviews from the LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times and Film Threat. The film is available in New York at Kim's Video on East Sixth Street in the East Village.

New York film writer/director Lisa Cholodenko has just completed her second movie, "Laurel Canyon," starring Frances McDormand, according to a New York Times story by Dana Kennedy focusing on the difficult path faced by women who want to both write and direct films. Ms. Cholodenko, 37, who wrote and directed the low-budget film "High Art" starring Ally Sheedy in 1987, thought a second film would be easy, "but nobody put up the money." Her new movie, costing only $5 million, about a freewheeling mother and her conservative son (Christian Bale), will be released by Sony Classics next year.

Would you like to have a look at New York's Ukrainian Institute of America in a full-length Hollywood movie? Watch for a soon-to-be released film called "A Smack in the Face," starring the famous Kirk Douglas and his equally famous son, Michael Douglas. A scene in the movie shows the two men gazing from a taxi window at a glittering ball in progress on the second floor of the institute.

Honorees

At a reception held at St. Stanislaus Hall on East Seventh Street in Manhattan, the Slavic Heritage Council of America honored four persons from the Ukrainian community for their commitment to the Ukrainian community in Greater New York. A non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of Slavic culture, the council is well-known to the general public for its annual presentation of the European Folk Festival at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall.

The honorees were Vasyl Sosiak of Ozone Park, Queens, Lydia Krushelnytsky of Manhattan, and John and Wanda Senko of Hempstead, Long Island. Mr. Sosiak was cited for 25 years of service; he was head of the parents' committee at the Ozone Park Ukrainian Saturday School, worked with the Moloda Dumka children's chorus in Manhattan, and is currently the auditor for an umbrella organization that includes the Dumka Chorus, Promin vocal ensemble, the Ukrainian Stage Ensemble, the Syzokryli Ukrainian Dancers of New York and the Mriya Dancers of Hempstead. Ms. Krushelnytsky, an actress and opera singer in western Ukraine and Austria before coming to the United States in 1949, took over the drama school established by renowned Ukrainian actress/director Olympia Dobrovolsky and eventually formed the Ukrainian Stage Ensemble. Mr. Senko, chairman of the Civil Service Commission for Nassau County and a director of Holy Spirit Cemetery in Hamptonburgh, N.Y., has been active in charitable work such as the Ukrainian Gift of Life committee at St. Vladimir Ukrainian Catholic Church in Hempstead and, with his Polish American wife, assists Ukrainian émigrés in any way he can.

In the news

The five Hewko brothers of Northampton, a Pennsylvania town that's known for its production of cement, may not be celebrities per se, but they recently received the same recognition as movie idols or singing stars. Around Memorial Day, the five sons of Ukrainian-born Aksenty and Anna Hewko were saluted by Peter Jennings on ABC's 6:30 p.m. news broadcast and were honored with a front-page photo and story in USA Today. The five brothers went off to war between 1941 and 1944. Three nearly died; two won Purple Hearts.

John Hewko, 78, and brother Wass, 79, who did push-ups with the cadets at an Army-Notre Dame football game two years ago to entertain the crowd, marched down Main Street in the local Memorial Day parade in their Navy blues. Their brothers are Ben, 81, who spent two hours floating in 54-degree water off the D-Day beaches when his destroyer was sunk, and received a Purple Heart; Peter, 82, the only Hewko who did not join the Navy (he went into the Marine Corps); and Alex, 83, the fighter pilot, who never told his brothers about his Purple Heart (they learned about it from USA Today reporter Gregg Zoroya). Although John remained a lifelong bachelor, the other four married and had eight children among them. Count in sisters Pauline Woyewoda, 84, Stephanie Nederostek, 70, and Mary Lorenz (a fourth sister, Olga Sokalsky, died in 1992), and their families, and you have a large crowd for family reunions - and Memorial Day celebrations.

According to a story by Paul Tharp in The New York Post, Zenia Mucha, 45, who gave up work as adviser and press officer for former Sen. Al D'Amato and Gov. George Pataki at the start of 2001 in favor of working as a $400,000-a-year senior publicist for Disney in Los Angeles, is now in charge of everything at Disney, including ABC - from being chief spokesperson to all corporate positioning and global strategy. Ms. Mucha faced Hollywood TV critics for the first time when ABC unveiled its new fall line-up, with Susan Lynn making the presentations and taking questions with Ms. Mucha's help.

New York Post columnist Cindy Adams noted on June 25 that Regis Philbin (star of ABC's "Live with Regis and Kelly" show) chatted at length with Ms. Mucha when he was introduced to her at the Madison Avenue restaurant Fresco. On his show the next day, Ms. Adas wrote, he "mangled her Ukrainian name and strangled her affiliation, saying she previously worked for (New York Mayor Rudolph) Guiliani." Mr. Philbin seems to have a knack for making mistakes about Ukrainians; on a recent show, he referred to champion heavyweight boxer Volodymyr Klychko as "Russian."

Ukrainian-born actress Milla Jovovich received attention on TV's "ET" (Entertainment Tonight) show, sang and played a guitar on the Carson Daly show and was praised by Libby Callaway in The New York Post for the pretty dresses and lovely jewelry she wore at the Cannes Film Festival.

Olympic figure-skating champion Oksana Baiul, paired for a New York Post snapshot with man-about-town Tyson Beckford at Conde Nast's Ford Thunderbird 2002 launch, was described in the caption as "former ice skater/bad girl Oksana Baiul." Some weeks later, The New York Times spotted the Ukraine-born skater as she "went slinking through the lobby of the W Hotel in Times Square in a short black dress and a pearl necklace."

Coats richly embroidered with a rainbow of needlework and braid, now being worn in New York and Paris and pictured in The New York Times in an array of photographs by Bill Cunningham, were described in the accompanying story as "colorful as Ukrainian Easter eggs." The Times said the prized coats, which often come from Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Far East, are a new discovery for women seeking an alternative to commercial plainness, just as the hippies and flower children of the 1960s rediscovered folkloric clothes from Romania, Hungary and Ukraine. From New York's Fashion Avenue comes word that this summer's Bohemian and peasant influence in women's wear, particularly in blouses and tops, is going to continue through next summer, so Ukrainian blouses like the embroidered fine cotton beauty may have purchased at Surma's Ukrainian shop in lower Manhattan are still very much in vogue for street wear, cocktail wear and just about anywhere.

Helen Smindak's e-mail address is HaliaSmindak@aol.com.

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