Twenty Nineteen…
Red Boot Suitcase
“When my Baba and Gido found out what my parents decided to call me, they scrunched their noses and said “what kind of a name is that?! It doesn’t sound very Ukrainian”. To make up for that misstep, my Mother had me enrolled in Ukrainian Dance at the age of 4, and I didn’t stop for the next 17 years. Towards the end of my dance career, I had travelled to Ukraine 3 times to study choreography and my heritage and toured internationally as a folk-dancer.
Modern folk choreography invokes aspects of a culture that have been muffled by modernity. As a child, I performed abundance rituals under fluorescent lighting to ensure the success of crops which existed within the memories of ancestors long deceased. I frolicked with friends in the “mountains of Transcarpathia”, playing pranks for the attention of the village hunk, little Ivan. Through dance I learned about Cossaks, Domovoi, and the old way of life left behind. It felt so special to share and pretend with kids of all ages, while wearing a matching uniform of cat eyes, peacock feather eyeshadow, and ruby red lipstick.
Once I got older, I began to realize that I was performing an idealized identity that my ascendants left at the door when they assimilated into Canada; a nationalized Ukrainian pride born from many generations of survived genocide, made possible by Vasyl Avramenko. I began to realize how lucky I was to be encouraged to celebrate my heritage in this way. My grandparents, and great-grandparents were always so proud to see their grandkids explore their heritage because they did not have the opportunity to do so themselves. Folk dance was seen as unCanadian in the context of 1940s-1950s rural Alberta.
Without access to dance, I assume my greatest connection to Ukrainian heritage would be through Vereniky, Nelesniky, Koubasa and the stories of farming techniques that my grandfather chose to share. Life was hard in the motherland, and many stories were left in the past. I have no doubt that my experiences with storytelling through dance are to blame for the strong connection I feel with the Ukrainian half of my cultural heritage – after all, I rarely feel particularly British, Mennonite, or whatever else might be lingering in the genes… This led me to wonder; how are the universal and hidden languages of dance used as a time machine? And what can be learned about a culture from its traditional dances?
Land Management
Installation at The Paint Spot as part of Nextfest | Exploration of the human tendency to “manage” the landscape they inhabit.
