Renowned dancer, choreographer Roma Pryma-Bohachevsky dies (05/30/04)

Renowned dancer, choreographer Roma Pryma-Bohachevsky dies

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - Roma Pryma-Bohachevsky, internationally renowned prima ballerina, choreographer and artistic director, died on Sunday, May 23, after a prolonged illness. She was 77.

Ms. Pryma-Bohachevsky began her dance career in Ukraine and continued it in Europe and North America. During four decades of work as a choreographer and dance instructor, she popularized Ukainian folk dance. She directed Ukrainian folk dance ensembles in the tri-state, New York-New Jersey-Connecticut area, and her students over the past 40 years numbered in the thousands.

She was known especially for her choreography of regional dances from Ukraine, as well as for her stylized character dances and interpretive numbers that drew upon Ukrainian dance forms, classical ballet and modern dance.

Ms. Pryma-Bohachevsky was born on March 3, 1927, in Peremyshl (today part of Poland) in Ukraine's Halychyna region, and was reared in Lviv.

She studied dance in Lviv and Vienna, graduating with high honors from the Vienna Academy of Music and Performing Arts, and was a member of the corps de ballet in the Lviv Opera Theater in 1939-1944, becoming its youngest soloist at age 14. She was prima ballerina with the Innsbruck Theater in Austria in 1947-1949, and afterwards performed in Canada, where she was a guest artist with the Winnipeg Royal Ballet and a soloist with the Ruth Sorrell Company of Montreal.

In 1951 she settled in New York City, where she worked with leading choreographers, among them Valentyna Pere-yaslavets and Martha Graham. All the while she continued to perform highly successful solo recitals in the United States, Canada, Europe and Central America.

She married the noted bass-baritone George Bohachewsky in 1963; the couple eventually had two children, Ania and Boris.

In 1963, Ms. Pryma-Bohachevsky established her own school of ballet and dance. Fifteen years later she founded Syzokryli, which evolved into a troupe of advanced dancers comprising her top students from her various dance studios - many of them college students and young professionals. The ensemble has performed extensively throughout the United States, at concert venues in New York, Washington, Philadelphia, and Newark, N.J., and in 1992 concluded a critically acclaimed tour of Ukraine, performing at the opera houses of major cities.

Since the mid-1970s Ms. Pryma-Bohachevsky also directed successful and highly popular dance camps and dance workshops at the Verkhovyna and Soyuzivka resorts in New York state.

As a dancer Ms. Pryma-Bohachevsky performed throughout the world, including in New York, Paris, Munich, Vienna, Geneva, London, Toronto and Athens. As a choreographer she created numerous dance pieces for her students, ranging from ballets like "Cinderella," "Kvit Paporoti" (Fern Flower) and "Peer Gynt" to thematic compositions such as "Strakhittia Viiny" (The Horrors of War), "Fight for Freedom" (commemorating the Chornobyl nuclear disaster), "Ivasiuk Suite" (dedicated to the late Ukrainian composer Volodymyr Ivasiuk) and "Icon" (celebrating the millennium of Christianity in Rus-Ukraine).

In 1990 the Roma Pryma-Bohachevsky School of Ballet and Ukrainian Folk Dance officially celebrated its 25th anniversary by presenting what was billed as a "Festival of Ukrainian Dance" at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. The New York concert presented highlights of the school's repertoire and served as an anniversary reunion of Ms. Pryma-Bohachevsky's dancers.

Ms. Pryma-Bohachevsky was honored in 1997 by The Washington Group with its "Friend of Ukraine" award for "outstanding contributions to the cause of Ukraine and the Ukrainian American community." She was recognized along with the noted actress and theater director Lidia Krushelnytsky at the October 11 banquet during TWG's Leadership Conference.

For New York City's New Year's grand celebrations marking the arrival of the new millennium, Ms. Pryma-Bohachevsky choreographed a three-and-a-half-minute Hopak that was performed by the Parsons Dance Foundation directed by world-renowned choreographer David Parsons. The dance was performed in Times Square on December 31, 1999, during the event billed as "The Global Celebration of the World."

Among her most recent achievements was a 2003 concert at New York's Town Hall that featured her Syzokryli troupe, along with the Cheres Ukrainian Folk Ensemble.

Surviving are Ms. Pryma-Bohachevsky's husband, George Bohachewsky; daughter, Ania Lonkevych, with her husband, Mark; son, Boris Bohachevsky; and grandchildren Alexander and Roma; along with extended family in the United States, Canada and Ukraine.

Memorial services were held on Wednesday and Thursday, May 26 and 27, in New York City. A panakhyda was offered at St. George Ukrainian Catholic Church on Wednesday, and a parastas was offered on Thursday at the Peter Jarema Funeral Home.

The funeral liturgy was offered on Friday, May 28, at St. George Church; interment followed at St. Andrew's Ukrainian Orthodox Cemetery in South Bound Brook, N.J.

Memorial donations may be made out to the Roma Pryma-Bohachevsky Ukrainian Dance Trust Fund/Scholarship Fund (please note account No. 33671-00), and sent to the attention of Paul Liteplo at Self Reliance New York Federal Credit Union, 108 Second Ave., New York, NY 10003.

The family has noted that the Roma Pryma-Bohachevsky Ukrainian Dance Trust Fund/Scholarship Fund has been established "to ensure that her vision and dream of future generations of Ukrainian dancers may successfully continue."

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