Yara Arts Group presents "Song Tree" (12/17/00)

Yara Arts Group presents "Song Tree"

NEW YORK - La MaMa Experimental Theatre presents "Song Tree," Yara Arts Group's 10th theater piece which will premiere on December 21-23. Last summer, Yara's director Virlana Tkacz and video director Andrea Odezynska traveled to Ukraine. Together with Ukrainian artists Maryana Sadovska and Yaryna Turianska, they recorded ancient pre-Christian carols and winter songs in the villages of Poltava and the Carpathians.

The resulting creation "Song Tree" is a theater piece in which characters from ancient rituals of "Malanka" and "Koza" descend on a woman who has buried herself in work and science. The production, directed by Ms. Tkacz, features traditional polyphonic Ukrainian female singing and Gogol Bordello, an explosive Ukrainian ethno-avant-garde band.

The piece was created as a joint collaboration of Yara Arts Group, artists from Ukraine and the band Gogol Bordello. Video is by Ms. Odezynska, whose film, "Dora Was Dysfunctional," won awards at the Hamptons Film Festival and Rotterdam Festival and was an Academy Awards Short Subject Finalist. Music is by Ms. Sadovska and Ms. Turianska, and Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello. The show features the soaring vocals of Ms. Sadovska, as well as Yara artists Zabryna Guevara, Akiko Hiroshima, Jina Oh and Meredith Wright. The musicians of Gogol Bordello, Mr. Hutz, Sergey Ryabtsev and Alexander Kozachkoff, appear in the piece playing traditional Ukrainian music and their own brand of ethno-avant-garde. They are joined on stage by the singer Piroshka.

The piece is multilingual, but is easily accessible to English-speaking audiences. Its traditional Ukrainian songs are translated into English by Ms. Tkacz and Wanda Phipps.

Musical director and co-composer Ms. Sadovska was born in Lviv. She worked with the Les Kurbas Young Theater and with Yara on the group's first project in Ukraine in 1991, titled "In the Light." Since then she has been working at the Gardzienice Experimental Theater in Poland as actor and musical director.

Ms. Sadovska has organized expeditions to collect Ukrainian folk songs for the last 10 years. Co-composer Yaryna Turianska is an ethnomusicologist who has been collecting songs in villages near the Carpathians for 10 years. This summer she released the first world music CD in Ukraine titled "Black Stream." Gogol Bordello, led by Mr. Hutz, has become one of the hottest up-and-coming bands in America, packing the houses at Joe's Pub and the Bowery Ballroom. Mr. Hutz is a founding member of Nova Nomada and the author of the books "Newiurski Kazochky" and "Raised by Cats."

Founded in 1990, Yara creates original pieces that explore timely issues rooted in the East through the diverse cultural perspectives of the group's members.

Writing for the Kyiv journal Ukrainian Culture, Kateryna Talan so aptly characterized Yara as "a unique psychological and cultural experiment. Virlana Tkacz and her actors perform Ukrainian songs, legends and literary texts that speak to people of other cultures. At the same time Ms. Tkacz is consumed with what is unique and original about Ukrainian culture ... Thus, a dialogue arises between the past and present, between many cultures, creating a fascinating model of human understanding."

"Song Tree" performances are on December 21-23, Thursday-Saturday at 8 p.m., with matinees Friday at 5 p.m. and Saturday at 3 p.m. Tickets are $15. La MaMa is located at 74 A E. Fourth St.; box office, (212) 475-7710. For further information please visit the website at http://www.brama.com/yara.

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