Celebration of Ivan Kupalo ritual benefits Chornobyl relief efforts (08/15/99)

Celebration of Ivan Kupalo ritual benefits Chornobyl relief efforts

by Alex Kuzma

CANTON, Conn. - A consortium of musical groups on June 26 presented a re-enactment of the ancient Ukrainian midsummer ritual of Ivano Kupalo in a special benefit performance for the Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund.

The performers included a number of Connecticut-based artists, including the Yevshan Chorus, the Zolotyi Promin Dance Ensemble, a bandura quartet and recording artist Olya Chodoba-Fryz.

The outdoor concert was hosted by Lou and Judi Friedman, well-known as environmental activists in New England and long-time supporters of the Chornobyl relief mission. The Friedmans' home, located near the Roaring Brook Nature Center in Canton, Conn., provided an ideal setting for the Kupalo ceremonies, with picturesque woodland trails, meadows, ponds and cattail marshes.

Before an audience of over 200 guests, the ritual unfolded on an upland meadow nestled between tall stands of white spruce and oak. Soloists Ms. Fryz and Christina Jamahian began the ceremonies with an incantation to the summer solstice, singing "Ivanku, Ivanku" from an outdoor balcony. As they finished their duet, members of the Yevshan Choral Ensemble emerged from different corners of the outdoor theater behind the audience, singing a haunting arrangement of a Kupalo chant by the Canadian musicologist Edith Knock. The singers converged at the center of the meadow and continued to sing the Kupalo round until they had all assembled on a knoll overlooking the audience.

Next, dancers from Zolotyi Promin, dressed in folk costumes from the Poltava region, greeted the audience with a traditional welcoming dance ("Pryvit").

Ms. Jamahian welcomed the guests and gave a brief explanation of the Kupalo ceremony, which incorporates ancient courtship rituals with the feast of St. John the Baptist. Dating back to pre-Christian times, Kupalo has been celebrated for centuries as a commemoration of the summer solstice, and a celebration of the power and enchantment of nature.

Ms. Jamahian traced Kupalo's common threads with Celtic, Scandinavian and other European festivals, including the mythical figures and stories made famous by Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Eve."

Following this introduction, the Yevshan Chorus sang "Tsarivna," an evocative chant describing the mystical courtship between the forces of spring and summer.

After several more folk songs rendered by Yevshan and Ms. Fryz, the choir led the audience on a half-mile walk along a woodland path lined with ferns and hemlocks. Along the way the group encountered a wood nymph ("mavka," played by Melanie Bonacorsa) who greeted them with traditional promises of secret treasures, enchanted love and magical spells hidden among the ferns.

The woods echoed with the calls of thrushes and catbirds mingled with human voices as the choir, occasionally joined by members of the audience sang "Tuman Yarom," "Soloviyu" and other Ukrainian folk songs as the nature walk continued.

Eventually the choir and guests emerged from the forest and gathered around a small pond where the "mavka" invoked the purity of the water, reciting an old Ukrainian blessing translated by playwrights Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps. The choir sang "Oi, Hyllia," a favorite love ballad from the villages of Ukraine, and moved on to a second pond where the Zolotyi Promin dancers waited on a large deck overlooking the water. The dancers, under the direction of Orlando Pagan (an alumnus of the Roma Pryma-Bohachevsky School of Dance in New York) performed a suite of Hutsul and Bukovynian dances. The Yevshan Chorus continued with a series of love songs, including "Verbovaia Doschechka" with soloist Daria Richardson.

In keeping with Kupalo tradition, the women's ensemble from Yevshan lit candles and set them on wreaths of flowers that were cast adrift on the water. The wreaths were retrieved by several male vocalists and the symbolism of the ritual was explained.

In one of the more remarkable moments in the program, the chorus sang the Avdievsky arrangement of the love ballad "Whose horse is this" ("Oi chyi to kin stoyit?"). Simultaneously, along the shoreline of the pond, hostess Ms. Friedman escorted a chestnut-colored horse adorned with bells and flowers braided into its mane. Sitting astride the horse was dancer Larysa Oprysko, who dismounted and performed a slow pas de-deux with Stephen Dmyterko in response to the verses of the song.

The program concluded with a grand finale on the deck of the pond featuring the principal dancers from Zolotyi Promin and a rousing rendition of "Susidka" by Yevshan.

The artistic program was followed by a pot-luck reception on the patio of the Friedman home. Among the guests was Igor Sikorsky Jr., a Rocky Hill attorney who is the son of the aviation pioneer and helicopter inventor Igor Sikorsky who emigrated from Kyiv in the 1920s and later established the Sikorsky Aircraft manufacturing plant in Connecticut. Mr. Sikorsky made a special presentation of historic photographs of his father's pioneering flight from St. Petersburg to Kyiv. He thanked the Friedmans for hosting this event, and he expressed his support for the Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund and its relief mission to Ukraine.

Earlier CCRF Executive Director Nadia Matkiwsky had presented Ms. Friedman with a richly embroidered Ukrainian blouse from the Ternopil region as a token of her esteem for the Friedmans' strong commitment to the protection of the global environment. Mrs. Matkiwsky thanked the hosts not only for their work on behalf of the Chornobyl children, but also for their tireless efforts to raise public awareness of environmental hazards.

The Kupalo fund-raiser resulted in over $6,000 for the CCRF. Plans are under way for similar programs next year. The CCRF is an award-winning charity that recently completed its 23rd airlift to Ukraine. The fund is planning a training conference for neonatal specialists this fall and is developing long-term hospital partnerships with Ukrainian medical facilities in eight provinces.

Contributions to CCRF are fully tax- deductible and may be sent to: Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund, 272 Old Short Hills Road, Short Hills, NJ 07078. For further information call (973) 376-5140.

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