CONCERT REVIEW: Songs and dances performed by Ukrainian National Army (10/26/97)

CONCERT REVIEW: Songs and dances performed by Ukrainian National Army

by Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau

TORONTO - The Ukrainian National Army Song and Dance Company managed to fill all of the good seats in Roy Thomson Hall here for two shows on September 21 as part of its 32-stop North American tour, coordinated by Thunder Bay's Marko Zhuravynsky (MZ Productions).

The crowd appeared to have been drawn by a mix of motives: service (other military and diplomatic types, Ukrainian Canadian community jobholders), duty (children and rapt DPs) and multiculturalism (some Asians, African Canadians, some men in yarmulkes, some obvious WASPs, and a gan of boisterous Germans sitting right behind me and having a grand time).

According to the official program, three different artistic groups comprise the company, made up of through-and-through professionals.

Indeed, even before the dancers hit the stage, it seemed that the UNASDC was a choir that had met a large polka outfit, melded with a large swing band, and that was before the folk costumes came out after intermission.

The principal conductor (Volodymyr Zibrov, artistic director and Moscow Conservatory graduate) was like something out of the Glenn Miller Story. Any thoughts that the ensemble would be stiff and stuffy in the Red Army mold was quickly dispelled by Mr. Zibrov's casual demeanor. He often conducted while sauntering around and holding his hands at waist level and below, and clowned around with soloists. But he was good, and the ensemble was tight.

Jackie Gleason-style comedian Serhii Tyshchenko kept the audience loose with a good raspy laugh and a wide ranging bird-whistle repertoire.

Numbers such as "Vesna, Polkovnyku, Vesna" (It's Spring, Colonel) were done in a very charming Hollywood/Broadway style. Even "Vziav by Ya Banduru" was a gauzy Sunset Boulevard drive into Shevchenko's blues, with some basso profundo fireworks from soloist Serhii Yaroshenko.

There were also moments of quiet beauty, which suggested the choir could handle subtle liturgical material without a stretch. Even when the music got loud, such as in Shevchenko/Lysenko's "Reve ta Stohne Dnipr Shyrokyi" (The Wide Dnipro Roars), they stayed on the tasteful side of bombast - not bad for an army ensemble; they're not usually noted for subtlety.

Soloist Yurii Chubarev sang a gentle version of "O Sole Mio" with a supple, distinctly un-Slavic tenor.

Of course, the uniforms did keep the paranoid voice in the back of the mind active. The Soviet-style, radar-dish-like hats of the chorus were bad enough, but when the blue berets, striped shirts, and camouflage and black fatigues of the notorious OMON police took the stage, it was hard to shake the memories of cracked heads outside the Verkhovna Rada.

(Maybe another five years during which no journalists are shot or hanged in Ukraine will allow me to concentrate on the fact that these guys and dolls are clearly talented young dancers.)

On the other hand, the "Dance of the Army and Navy" was so brash, familiar and youthfully exuberant that I was expecting Danny Kaye to fly out from the wings. It was a moment when their sailors and GI's really did look like the ones on this side of the ocean, at least in the 1940s and 1950s.

At the intermission, a number of old folks were complaining that the program lacked patriotic material and leaned instead on folklore. The Sich Riflemen's "Oy u Luzi Chervona Kalyna" (The Song of the Guelder Rose) and "Oy Vydno Selo" (I See the Village) were strangely not performed, although they were in the listings.

The ensemble did do a fairly watery version of "Liubit Ukrainu" (Love Ukraine, a number that got a few people in trouble in the 1970s).

Unfortunately, the evening didn't have the feel of the shows of the 1960s and 1970s that nobody wanted to end. I guess that's the difference between freedom and forbidden fruit.

Then again, it was a good night of entertainment - colorful and vivacious. It also had a lingering effect. After the flag-waving finale of "Zaspivaymo Brattia" (Let's Sing, Brothers) a man going home with his family on the subway was making the halls echo with his version of the song as I stood on the platform.

When I complimented him on his voice, he said, "Wasn't that great? It was like Ukrainian USO." Right, except by the troops instead of for the troops.

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