Harriman course augmented by cultural events (02/04/96)

Harriman course augmented by cultural events

NEW YORK - During the spring semester, the course "Cultural Currents in 20th Century Ukraine," taught by Prof. Yuriy Tarnawsky at Columbia University's Harriman Institute, will be augmented by two important cultural events.

During the months of February and March, the renowned Lviv-based Les Kurbas Theater will he in residence at Columbia University, invited by the Harriman Institute and the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theater Studies. Les Kurbas, the brilliant avant-garde Ukrainian stage director of the 1920s and 30s, perished in a Soviet concentration camp during the purges in 1937. The Kurbas Theater was founded in 1988 and is under the direction of Volodymyr Kuchynsky, a student of the well-known Russian director Anatoliy Vasilyev.

A number of the members of the company have studied at the Jerzy Grotowski Work Center at Pontedera, Italy. The company has also been working closely with the Cardzienice Center of Theater Practices of Lublin, Poland, under the direction of Wlodzimierz Staniewski.

While at Columbia, the company will conduct a workshop at the Hammerstein Center as well as at the New York-based Saratoga International Theater Institute headed by Anne Bogart. They will give two performances at Columbia's Kathryn Bache Miller Theater, at Broadway and 116th Street in Manhattan, on February 23 and March 22, both at 8 p.m.

The February 23 performance will be "Games for Faust," a play based on Fyodor Dostoyevski's famous novel "Crime and Punishment," which stresses the Faustian theme underlying the story.

The March 22 performance will be "Grateful Erodiy," a staging of a parable by the 18th century Ukrainian philosopher Hryhoriy Skovoroda, dealing with the issues of upbringing and the parent-child relationship. Both of the plays will be in Ukrainian, with English synopses provided for the public.

The admission price for each performance will be $15: $5 for students and senior citizens. For more information, please call the Miller Theater, (212) 854-1633/854-7799; or the Harriman Institute, (212) 854-4623.

On March 19, Virko Baley, the internationally known Ukrainian American composer, pianist and conductor, will give a lecture on Ukrainian avant-garde music. Mr. Baley is the founder, conductor and artistic director of the Las Vegas Symphony Orchestra, the principal conductor of the Kyiv Cammerata and the Kyiv Music Festival, and the producer of the International Ukrainian Music Festival.

His most recent engagements include performances with the St. Petersburg, Moscow and Kyiv Philharmonics, the Kyiv Opera Orchestra, the Young Russia State Orchestra and many others. He has devoted a lot of energy to promoting Ukrainian classical music. especially that of the avant-garde composers.

The lecture will be given as part of the Columbia Music Departments Composer Colloquia series and will be held in 708 Dodge, on the university campus at 116th Street, at 4-6 p.m. The lecture is open to the public.

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