DATELINE NEW YORK: Through the air with the greatest of ease (10/20/02)

DATELINE NEW YORK: Through the air with the greatest of ease

by Helen Smindak

Ukrainian artists and performers are flying high in the Big Apple this season, metaphorically speaking. One who's flying high these days both metaphorically and physically is acrobatic aerialist Tatyana Petruk, a member of New York's Team AntiGravity, who wowed hundreds of spectators at the outdoor extravaganza that opened Macy's 100th birthday celebration.

Performing 40 feet above the ground from a metal truss built specially for the occasion, the Kyiv-born World Cup and European acrobatics champion thrilled the crowd as she and two other aerialists - seemingly attached to long strands of white tricot fabic - spiralled flexible bodies through amazing gyrations. In abbreviated white costumes, poised in mid-air with fabric twisted around arms, legs or midriffs, Ms.Petruk and her partners performed straddles, splits and moves akin to ballet and figure-skating maneuvers, complete with pirouettes and en pointe positions. At ground level, male members of the team assisted the aerialists by twisting and turning the tricot strands.

The crowd gasped when Ms. Petruk plunged headlong to the ground, her dive halted just short of the stage floor by the fabric coiled around her ankles like a bungee jumping rope. It was the finale to a remarkable performance of athletic prowess, grace and endurance acquired through years of practice and experience.

In a later AntiGravity appearance, Ukrainian-born Tatyana Brikulskaya, an acrobat whose specialty is a spectacular ribbon-twisting routine, capered across the stage like a lithe gazelle as she circled the AntiGravity performers.

The evening show, held outside the spotlighted Herald Square entrance of Macy's - billed as the world's largest department store - also featured performers from the hit musical "Chicago" and a host of Broadway stars, among them Adam Pascal, Liz Callaway, Jonathan Freeman, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Alix Corey and Judy Kaye. Also appearing were the cartoon character Big Bird, music legends Darlene Love and Fred Payne, and Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham, a former Macy's employee, who extended greetings to everyone present. The program, which included recorded narration provided by famed TV commentator Walter Cronkite and a three-foot-high birthday cake, ended in a burst of pyrotechnics and confetti.

At 28, Ms. Petruk has an international performance history that includes France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, London, Japan and Malaysia. During 2000-2001, she performed in the United States in shows for Microsoft in Atlanta, George Lucas in San Francisco and Chrysler in Detroit. Here in New York, she has been seen in the Broadway show "Crash Test Dummies" and in other AntiGravity programs involving acro-duet, aerial gymnast, hammock, tissue and bungee jump work.

Speaking with this reporter after the Macy's show, Ms. Petruk said she has been involved in sports activities from age 6 and trained in sport acrobatics for 10 years. She started her career with gymnastics activities on the USSR National Acrobatics Team, becoming the USSR national champion in sport acrobatics in 1989 and again in 1991. She was a member of the women's trio that won the 1989 World Cup championship in sport acrobatics in Riga, Latvia, and the USSR championship in sport acrobatics in both 1989 and in 1990, the year in which she also travelled to Tokyo as a member of the Sport Acrobatics World team.

Transferring to aerial sports after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ms. Petruk turned to show business - the circus became her prime medium for seven years as she traveled with various circus companies to a number of countries. Now based in Brooklyn, Ms. Petruk said she has just completed a three-month stint with AntiGravity in Atlantic City. Looking forward to performing at a convention the next day at the Marriott Hotel in Manhattan and to upcoming AntiGravity engagements, she also plans to begin teaching her art to aspiring acrobatic aerialists.

You may have seen the aerialist pictured in a characteristic spread-eagle pose on the front page of The New York Sun (September 24). If not, think back to the TV coverage of the star-studded closing ceremonies of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City; Ms. Petruk was right there in the midst of the AntiGravity troupe and its high-flying maneuvers.

Author! Author!

"The Art of Profitability" is the intriguing title of Adrian Slywotzky's latest book, published last month by Time Warner. It reveals the invisible but important governing principles that can mean the difference between business failure and success. The book's 23 chapters, each presenting a lesson and a profit paradigm that will open minds to the many ways to make profit happen, follow the fictional account of strategy teacher David Zhao and his young student with wit and insight. Mr. Slywotzky, a graduate of the Harvard Business and Law Schools and a vice-president of Mercer Management Consulting, is the co-author of the bestseller "The Profit Zone" (1998) and author of "Value Migration" (1996). He is the son of Manhattan residents Mr. and Mrs. Stepan Slywotzky.

Following up on four previous novels, Oregon-based Chuck Palahniuk, who inherited his Ukrainian surname from his father, has completed his new novel "Lullaby," described by Doubleday Publishing as "a chillingly pertinent parable about the dangers of psychic infection and control in an era of wildly overproliferated information." The plot centers around 40-ish newspaper reporter Carl Streator, who is assigned to do a series of articles on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Mr. Palahniuk's previous works are the bestselling "Fight Club," which was made into a film starring Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter, "Survivor," "Invisible Monsters" and "Choke."

A book that will keep you laughing out loud is Jonathan Safran Foer's first novel, "Everything is Illuminated," told in narrative form by a fictional young Ukrainian named Alex who is enchanted with everything American and loves to use the English language - but, according to The New York Times review, speaks English like someone who has taught himself by painstakingly translating a really abysmal novel with the help of a badly outdated dictionary. As a translator for Heritage Touring, the travel agency at which his father arranges trips for American Jews who wish to explore their roots in Poland and Ukraine, Alex sets out across Ukraine with Mr. Foer, accompanied by an overly amorous dog named Sammy Davis Jr. and Alex's grandfather as their driver. Published by Houghton Mifflin, the book was on the New York best-seller list for several months.

A new and noteworthy paperback is Claire Messud's "The Hunters: Two Novellas," a Harvest/Harcourt publication. For Ukrainian readers, interest will focus on the first novel "A Simple Tale." An aging Ukrainian woman who has led an unrelentingly bleak life of exile and endurance (she and her husband moved to Canada after surviving German work camps) comes to wonder at what point she can abandon the past. Reviewer Miranda Seymour called the tale "a marvelously subtle and poignant work" of "near miraculous perfection."

Seeing stars

These days, TV viewers are seeing Ukrainian stars before their eyes almost every day of the week.

On Sunday, fans of the highly popular HBO series "The Sopranos" can look for Oksana Babiy, (whose new stage name is Oksana Lada; she appears in two episodes this season as the Russian mistress of crime boss Tony Soprano (10 p.m. ET). The long-running "Jeopardy" show appears every weekday on ABC with Canadian-born host Alex Trebek belting out answers to questions which must be provided by panelists, while viewers can play along by testing their knowledge at home) (7 p.m.). On Tuesday, Kyiv-born Mila Kunis joins a teenage group in the hilarious Fox comedy "That `70s Show" (8 p.m. ET). Wednesday night is de rigeur for NBC's "The West Wing," the award-winning series that stars Emmy winner John Spencer as the president's chief of staff (9 p.m. ET). And Friday there's the new NBC drama series "Hack," with character actor George Dzundza as Tom "Grizz" Grzelak, a priest and close buddy of ex-police officer Mike Olshansky played by David Morse (9 p.m. ET).

In the news

The media was agog last month about two Miss Universe 2002 winners - Miss Russia Oksana Fedorova, 24, who was awarded the title at the Miss Universe pageant, and first runner-up Miss Panama Justine Pasek, 23, who became Miss Universe 2002 when pageant organizers NBC Inc. and New York real estate mogul Donald Trump terminated Ms. Fedorova because they said she failed to fulfill her duties. Ms. Fedorova, the first Russian woman to hold the title in the pageant's 52-year history and the first winner to lose her crown, declared that she gave up the title because her career as a police lieutenant and studies for a law degree were her priorities.

But the big news for Ukrainians is that both women have a Ukrainian connection - Ms. Fedorova has a Ukrainian father, according to Katie Couric of NBC's "Today" show, while Ms. Pasek was born in Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine, the daughter of a Panamanian chemistry student and a Polish engineering student. Ms. Pasek lived in Kharkiv for a year, until the family moved to Poland and eventually to Panama.

The New York Post recently carried a story about Louis Nigro, the proprietor of the Peter Jarema Funeral Home in the East Village, who adopted a reclusive Ukrainian man from the neighborhood, John, and cared for him until he died earlier this year at the age of 82. Mr. Nigro, who is of Italian-American heritage and became co-owner of the funeral home founded by Ukrainian Peter Jarema, gave John a top-of-the-line funeral and acted as a relative. The funeral director was recently named a "Citizen of the Year" by the Polish World newspaper for his work in the Polish-Ukrainian neighborhood.

An article in the September/October issue of AARP magazine, "Lasting Impresssions," which points out that the legacy one leaves doesn't have to be monumental, quoted Archbishop Antony (John Scharba) of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A.

Archbishop Antony became a monk, then one of Eastern Orthodoxy's most charismatic prelates because of his aunt. "From my earliest memory I was enthralled by the faith exhibited by my Aunt Mary, who raised a family of 10 of her own children in the faith, along with 20 or 30 nieces and nephews. In spite of the enormous difficulties she endured, the joy on her face as she led us all in weekly worship and the peace that flowed from her inner being throughout the week drew me into an ever deeper spirituality."

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

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