Dateline New York: Wrapping up events of year 2000 (PART I) (01/14/01)

Dateline New York: Wrapping up events of year 2000

by Helen Smindak

The final months of year 2000 and the summertime, when "Dateline" was on vacation, brought in such a wealth of material that time and space did not permit everything to be used in this column. As the year winds down (by the Julian calendar), "Dateline" wants to share with readers all the goodies - and a couple of sad obituaries - still languishing in its "In" basket.

BANDURA, the quarterly magazine devoted to the national instrument of Ukraine, the bandura, and to Ukrainian folk music, is now appearing as a bilingual journal in Ukrainian and English. Originally edited by the late Nick Czorny-Dosinchuk of New York and now by Ola Herasymenko Oliynyk, the magazine is published by the New York Bandura Ensemble as a communication bridge between bandura soloists, ensembles and schools from all over the world. It also provides a critical and unique source for instructional and archival materials, music and discourse. Issue No. 71-72 (with the next issue already on the way to subscribers) offers a feature article about the blind kobzari who performed historical epic songs called dumy, a report on the Bandura Festival 2000 held in Toronto last spring, news of bandura schools and festivals in Ukraine, and a listing of new bandura recordings. For information and subscriptions, contact: School of Bandura, 84-82 164th St., Jamaica, NY 11432, or e-mail [email protected].

BAIUL, BESEDIN, PETRENKO and POLISHUK - the Ukrainian figure skaters who won fame in Olympic and world competitions - have been polishing the ice in recent televised skating extravaganzas. Among shows to which Oksana Baiul and Viktor Petrenko have contributed their superlative talents this winter season were "Grand Slam Super Teams of Skating," seen on Fox 5, and NBC's "Superstars on Ice." On January 1 the comedy duo of Vladimir Besedin and Oleksiy Polishuk of Kyiv performed in the Brian Boitano Skating Spectacular on NBC-TV, offering a hilarious parody of "Swan Lake" that included handstands - the slightly-built Polishuk standing upside down with both hands on the shoulders of the burly Besedin or balancing on his partner's head, with one hand.

THE BUILDING FUND of The Ukrainian Museum, which received a tremendous boost last month in the form of a $3.5 million gift from Eugene Shklar and his wife, Daymel, is not taking a breather - not by any means. Since $1 million of the Shklar donation was designated as a "challenge grant," matching every dollar (up to $1 million) that the museum raises by January 31, 2002, the museum is determined to do its utmost to reach that goal through additional gifts or grants, and sheer hard work. This very weekend, the museum's celebration of its 25th anniversary commences with Malanka 2001 at the enchanting Tavern on the Green in Central Park, with all proceeds earmarked for the building fund.

Planned by a committee headed by Tatiana Tershakovec, the evening features baritone Nestor Kyzymyshyn and the Montage Orchestra fronted by George Hrab. At the December 9 press conference announcing the Shklars' generous gift, Anya Hnateyko and Olenka Czerwoniak Terleckyj told the press and museum officials they were already planning a Bike-athon 2001 that they hope will surpass the $30,000 raised through last year's Bike-athon.

LYDIA BYCHKOVA, a leading soloist of the Taras Shevchenko National (Kyiv) Opera for many years and a laureate of the Glinka International Competition of Vocalists, gave an excellent recital at St.Vladimir Ukrainian Orthodox Church auditorium a few months ago. Ms.Bychkova made her New York recital debut in 1996, shortly after appearing at Riverside Church as a guest soloist with the Kyiv Symphonic Choir and Orchestra directed by Roger McMurrin. Endowed with a strong, rich soprano voice that is especially pleasing in the lower register, Ms. Bychkova offered a group of musical selections during a December seminar at the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences (UVAN) that introduced a new publication about the late artist/sculptor Mychajlo Czereszniowskyj.

CAROLS rang out joyously in Ukrainian halls and reception rooms on Second Avenue in mid-December as guests welcomed the Christmas season with traditional koliadky. At The Ukrainian Museum's pre-Christmas bazaar, visitors took time out from shopping for art work, ceramics, books, jewelry and tree ornaments to join Ludmilla Hrabovska and bandurist Alla Kutsevich in such popular carols as "Na Nebi Zirka" and "Schedryk" (Carol of the Bells). A few blocks away, at the Ukrainian School's St. Nicholas program sponsored by the New York branch of the Ukrainian American Youth Association (SUM), Bohdanna Wolansky, director of the Promin Vocal Ensemble, strummed her guitar, providing accompaniment for students' skits and a carol songfest by young and old. Further down the avenue, the Ukrainian American Veterans, New York Post No. 7, currently headed by Oleh Lopatynsky, gathered with wives and guests in the clubrooms of the Selfreliance Association of American Ukrainians for a bountiful feast and a capella carol singing under the direction of Lydia Zakrewska.

CAROLS also took the spotlight in the auditorium of St. George's Academy in the East Village when students of the Self Reliance Association's Ukrainian School presented their annual Christmas concert on December 9. Olga Kekish, director since 1986, welcomed parents and guests, including parents' committee head Erica Slutsky, and introduced Grade 12 student Oles Semeniuk, who described Ukrainian Christmas traditions with perfect diction and poise. Groups of bright-eyed youngsters aged 3 to 12, from the pre-school class to Grade 7, gave appealing performances in Ukrainian, with the youngest children occasionally requiring a bit of prompting from teachers - all part of the excitement of the Yuletide season. The pastor of St. George Ukrainian Catholic Church, the Rev. Lavrentiy Lawreniuk, commended students and teachers for an inspiring, heartwarming performance. Participants included music teacher Maria Olynec and teachers Valentina Bodnaruk, Volodymyr Fedorak, Daria Genza, Ulana Hanuschak, Yaroslava Kunitska (event coordinator), Maria Lysetska, Iryna Saramaka, Laryssa Sonna and Luba Wytwytska.

CHRISTMAS CAROLS, "koliady," that is, were heard in other parts of Manhattan in December, as well. The Russian Chamber Chorus, offering a winter celebration of Slavic liturgical and folk music at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and the Church of St. Luke in the Fields, included a selection of Ukrainian carols in its program. Soprano Lesia Hrabova, who has performed with the DiCapo Opera of New York, teamed up with bandurist Olia Stashchyshyn of Lviv to present a medley of Ukrainian carols at the DiCapo annual Christmas concert on December 21, repeating a program presented earlier at St. John's Ukrainian Catholic Church in Irvington, N.J. The Dumka Chorus of New York, trooping around the Metropolitan New York area with its annual gift of carols, will sing at St.Vladimir's Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Manhattan today during a special moleben commemorating the Chornobyl closing, and then performs its concert of carols. The chorus, which will be recording a CD of Ukrainian carols in the near future, is scheduled to sing at St. George Church in Manhattan on January 21 and at St. Michael's Ukrainian Catholic Church in Yonkers, N.Y., on January 28.

THE CHERES UKRAINIAN FOLK ENSEMBLE, led by woodwind maestro Andriy Milavsky, had a busy fall/winter season, what with two engagements at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in connection with the "Gold of the Nomads" Scythian exhibit and playing at a round of parties and festivals. Mr. Milavsky had solo assignments as well - playing piano and improvising jazz harmonies for performances of the Laika Dance/Music/Theater's "Raw Material" at the Danspace Center on Broadway, where he also strutted his stuff on the pan flute, clarinet, drymba (jaw harp) and bells. He was a guest artist with the Zlatne Uste Balkan Brass Band in the Off-Broadway production "Remembering the Funky Chicken," a dance program choreographed by Pat Catterson and Tina Croll for a four-day project at St. Mark's Church in the Bowery. The entire Cheres company, along with Syzokryli dancers and vocalist Maruska Lazorova of Presov, Slovakia, performed in two showcases last Sunday for the annual APAP Arts Presenters Conference at the Hilton Hotel.

Baritone OLEH CHMYR, formerly a principal artist with the Ekaterinburg Opera (1984-1992) and later with the Lviv and Wroclaw opera companies, joined soprano Elena Heimur of New York in presenting a musical interlude during the Aid to Orphans in Ukraine meeting at the Ukrainian Institute of America in October. A talented singer of art songs, Mr. Chmyr teaches voice at the County College of Morris in Randolph, N.J. Ms. Heimur, 1995 winner of the prestigious Puccini Foundation/Licia Albanese Award competition, has sung for audiences throughout the United States, Canada, Italy, Russia and Ukraine; in New York she has appeared with Opera New York and the New York Grand Opera companies. Accompaniment was provided by pianist Volodymyr Vynnytsky, a laureate of the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud International Piano Competition in Paris who has gained a reputation as a distinctive musical personality and a brilliant chamber music performer.

CHORNOBYL has been closed down and, coincidentally, a miniature replica of that famous structure has been taken off the market. Boym Partners of New York say it was "per our original intent" that the production of souvenirs for the End of the Century would come to an end on December 31, 2000. According to Boym, the souvenirs enjoyed enormous popularity and acclaim "beyond any of our expectations" during their three-year-long run. Featured in over 100 publications and shown on CNN, ABC and the Metro Channel, the souvenirs have been acquired by the Museum of Modern Art for its permanent collection. The Chornobyl replica, cast of bonded metal, was hand-finished and priced at $95.

Journalist/geologist LUBOV ARTEMIVNA DRASHEVSKA of New York was honored on the occasion of her 90th birthday by The Ukrainian Museum and the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences (UVAN), two institutions that have benefitted greatly from her untiring work as a journalist and press correspondent. At the September opening of the museum's Halyna Mazepa art exhibit, UVAN General Secretary Assya Humetsky told the gathering: "We respect Lubov Drashevska as a journalist, editor, author, translator, archivist and humanitarian, we value her work highly, and we wish to tell her that we esteem and love her deeply." Born in Kharkiv, Ms. Drashevska studied at Kharkiv, Frankfurt and Columbia universities, worked for Voice of America and Radio Liberty, authored "The Geology of Paterson, N.J." (1976) as well as various Ukrainian works, and was an associate editor of Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopedia, Volume 1. She was a longtime associate of UVAN as a member of its executive and a co-editor of its publications. She served The Ukrainian Museum for many years as a member of the board of trustees (she was a member of the first board when the museum was founded in 1976), was in charge of Ukrainian press reports, edited Ukrainian text in museum catalogues and prepared the museum's Ukrainian page in Svoboda. The birthday tribute was organized by Nadia Svitlychna, a former member of The Ukrainian Museum staff and a devoted friend of Ms. Drashevska.

IRINA DVOROVENKO and MAXIM BELOTSERKOVSKY, Kyiv-born and -trained principal dancers with American Ballet Theatre who have been getting rave reviews from critics, were spotlighted in an interview in the November 13 issue of People magazine. In the feature story "Flirty Dancing," writer Jim Jerome notes that the husband-and-wife couple has a natural chemistry which is being put to good use by ABT. During the fall season the pair danced duets from "The Sleeping Beauty" and "Swan Lake"; in the spring they will perform together at the Metropolitan Opera House in six full-length productions, including "Giselle," "The Merry Widow" and "Don Quixote." Ms. Dvorovenko, 27, is the daughter of a renowned ballet dancer, Olga Dvorovenko, and her husband, Vladimir, a former member of the Virsky folk ensemble, who now live in Brooklyn. Mr. Belotserkovsky, 28, is the son of Mark Belotserkovsky, who was an architect and engineer, and his late wife Galina, who also worked as an engineer. The two ballet stars started dancing together on a 1993 "Russian stars" tour and eventually married. They rehearse 10 hours a day, six days a week, dissect their duets after the curtain falls and view scores of their own taped pieces at their Upper West Side apartment. In a December 23 story by Jennifer Fisher in the Los Angeles Times, "Yes, the Slipper fits," their life is compared to the tale of Cinderella, one of the ballets they danced as a couple during a two-week ABT engagement in Los Angeles.

Actor GEORGE DZUNDZA, whose career spans the Broadway stage, television and motion pictures, has displayed his considerable talent working with some of America's finest film and television actors and directors. He has appeared with Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington ("Crimson Tide"), Michael Douglas ("Basic Instinct"), Clint Eastwood ("White Hunter, Black Heart"), Robert De Niro ("The Deer Hunter"), Kevin Costner ("No Way Out"), and Richard Gere ("No Mercy"). His television work includes "The Ryan White Story" and the NBC mini-series "Cross of Fire" as well as NBC's crime/drama series "Law & Order." He's also done comedy, to wit, the ABC sitcom "Open All Night" and NBC's "Jesse." Reared in New York's East Village, Mr. Dzundza recently appeared in a starring role on the CBS series "Touched by an Angel," in which he co-hosts a TV show with his wife (Tess Harper). When the show is cancelled, the couple's 15-year marriage is endangered, since the loss reminds them of the heartbreaking loss of their baby years ago; the angels (Roma Downey and Della Reese) step in and help them save their marriage.

The FASHION INDUSTRY received a jolt, and so did the Ukrainian community, when designers Tara Subkoff and Matt Damhave of the avant-garde Imitation of Christ fashion house presented a showing of special-occasion apparel at the Jarema Funeral Home in the East Village. Focusing on discarded clothing that's been recycled, customized and updated, the show was presented as a wake, complete with mourners. According to stories in The New York Post and Women's Wear Daily, community activists protested, since the Jarema Funeral Home is the place where the surrounding community holds its wakes. Although the fashions were considered chic, fashion writers reactions' ranged from fashionably blase to uncomfortable to offended. There have been no further developments, however, and life is proceeding normally on East Seventh Street.

"GOLD INSIDE!" That's the message shouted by the sign outside the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and that's exactly how The New York Times' January 2 feature story on museum director Arnold L. Lehman begins, along with an explanation: A close reading of the small type reveals that what lies inside are not gold chains or nuggets, but "Gold of the Nomads," the remains of the Scythian civilization from the first millennium B.C. If you haven't been to the Brooklyn Museum to see this exhibit, presenting over 170 rare gold and silver artifacts from four museums in Ukraine, you should do so very soon; the show closes next Sunday, January 21. Incidentally, complimentary tickets to the "Gold of the Nomads" exhibit are available at the Selfreliance Association, 98 Second Ave. in New York (see Oksana Lopatynsky) and at St. John's Ukrainian Catholic Church in Irvington, N.J.

ALEXANDRA GOROKHOVSKY, a native of Kyiv who studied violin at the Kyiv State Conservatory, joined the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra in 1995. Ms. Gorokhovsky received prizes in regional and national solo and chamber music competitions in Ukraine. After moving to the United States with her family in 1989, she studied with Oleh Krysa, Glenn Dicterow, Michael Gilbert, and Yoko Takebe at the Manhattan School of Music, where she received bachelor's and master's degrees.

A HANNUKAH lamp from Galicia, Ukraine, an intricately worked 18th-century sculptural form, is included in the huge display of Hannukah lamps from various places and centuries that forms the piece de resistance of the Jewish Museum's permanent exhibition "Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey." The museum is located on Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street in Manhattan.

LUDMILLA HRABOVSKA, newly elected president of Branch 125 of the Ukrainian National Women's League of America, whose members are all recent newcomers to the United States has been performing in the "Lisova Pisnia" duo with Alla Kutsevich, former artistic director of Lviv's Ostap Stakhiv Theater and now an instructor with the Ukrainian Music Institute and the New York Bandura Ensemble. The two are planning to stage a traditional "vertep" (manger scene) and lead the singing of "koliadky" and "schedrivky" at the Ukrainian National Home on January 21 (2.30 p.m.) with the assistance of Branch 125 members and the Promin Vocal Ensemble directed by Bohdanna Wolansky.

New York-based performers and first-generation Americans KATJA P. KOLCIO and JULIAN KYTASTY used their expertise in traditional Ukrainian and East European folk culture, music and dance to present a collaborative project at Ohio State University and Antioch College in central Ohio in December. The program, titled "Duma: Memorysongs," began with a lecture/demonstration in traditional Ukrainian music as Mr. Kytasty took listeners on a tour from ancient historical songs and the epic songs of Ukraine's blind bards - the kobzari - through 20th century adaptations of this material by sighted urban bandurists to contemporary experiments that draw on the past to create new music for the instrument. He performed on several different banduras, providing a rare opportunity to experience the beguiling music of the bandura. A group of 12 dancers, including Ms. Kolcio, presented a contemporary dance/music performance incorporating these traditional sources. Choreographed by Ms. Kolcio, the innovative work was performed to an original score by Mr. Kytasty and an electronic score by Alex Kytasty.

Helen Smindak's e-mail address is [email protected].

PART I

CONCLUSION

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