DATELINE NEW YORK: In the merry, merry month of May (05/11/03)

DATELINE NEW YORK: In the merry, merry month of May

by Helen Smindak

The Ukrainian Institute of America hosted an animated throng at the May 2 opening of Marko Shuhan's latest exhibition "33/6 Paint: Marko Shuhan." Friends and associates of Mr. Shuhan, most in their 30s and 40s, crowded the second-floor galleries to examine and admire his recent paintings - huge canvases covered with powerful abstract designs suggestive of Cy Twombly and Jean Michel Basquiat.

The joint was jumping with sound and movement. The three-man Wetpaint band supplied a jazzy musical background, while a gaggle of youngsters from age 2 and up who accompanied parents to the show scampered through the crowd. Among them were 5 1/2-year-old Ihor Severin and 19-month old Omelyan Panas, the offspring of Mr. Shuhan and his wife, Motria.

Scheduled for just a week's run (to May 11), the exhibit included close to 30 colorful works, with prices ranging from $800 a piece for small works to $5,600 for six-foot-high canvases titled "Mystery of Life," "Springs turn" and "When all the doubts are crystal clear." Intense emotions and drama were expressed in the works through vivid colors and bold, energetic strokes and spirals of paint.

A graduate of New York's School of Visual Arts, Mr. Shuhan began his career in 1984 with the Ukrainian Theater of New York as executive assistant to the late Walter Klech, senior set designer at the Metropolitan Opera. He advanced through a variety of art and illustrative positions with Park Theater Gallery in Union City, N.J., OHM Productions in Brooklyn and the Woodstock Artists Association, becoming studio assistant and fabricator at Arman Studios in New York in 1997.

His paintings have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia, as well as in upstate New York locales (Kingston, Woodstock, New Paltz). Born and raised in New York, the son of Olya Shuhan and the late Ihor Shuhan, he now makes his home in Accord, N.Y., with his wife and family.

Why the name "33/6 Paint: Marko Shuhan?" The artist said it was the choice of a friend who was present at the opening, Julian Lepcan, a hypnotherapist and numerologist who resides variously in New York, Los Angeles and San Paolo, Brazil. Mr. Lepcan, who happens to be the grandson of the late Julian Revay, the first executive director of the Ukrainian Institute, selected 33/6 because they are Mr. Shuhan's personal, or spiritual, numbers.

Exhibits galore

Taya Hayuk of Brooklyn, a freelance music photographer, illustrator and designer in New York, has been working for the last five years on painting installations with vibrant imagery and spectacular color created out of smaller pieces that stand alone just as powerfully as they do in conjunction with one another in groups.

Her new work, "Protype, "a series of paintings laid on the floor that have been fitted to be moved by the viewer/participant, was exhibited in a group show presented by the migrant gallery Transientnyc in lower Manhattan from April 5 to May 5. Ms. Hayuk, 33, who grew up in a Baltimore suburb, seems to be posing a question to her audience: Why don't we play more with our lives, beliefs and desires until we find a combination we are happy with.

Ms. Hayuk is a recent transplant from San Francisco, where she created a series of 5 x 7 posters for the bus shelters that run up and down Market Street. She undertook the project in 2001 as a recipient of the San Francisco Arts Commission Market Street Kiosk Project grant - "a huge honor" by Bay City standards, she says.

As this "Dateline" was being printed, three art exhibitions were opening or about to see the light of day in Manhattan. This weekend, Galerie LeLong was set to open a showing of work by Ursula von Rydingsvard, internationally known for her grand-scale sculpture assembled from cedar beams that are laminated, carved and often surfaced with graphite to enrich their color. Ms. Rydingsvard was born in Germany of Ukrainian and Polish parents named Karoliszyn. [The gallery is located at 526 W. 26th St., phone, (212) 315-0470).]

On May 13, the Solomon R. Guggenhemin Museum will open a gleaming exhibition of paintings and drawings by Kazimir Malevich, born in Kyiv but known to the world as "a master of the Russian avant-garde." The center of the show spotlights newly discovered paintings, said to be from the collection of Nikolai Khardzhiev, a Kyiv-born Russian critic who befriended leading members of the avant-garde as a young man and secretly preserved their art, manuscripts and memoirs long after such work was banned as subversively bourgeois. [1071 Fifth Ave., (212) 423-3500.]

Beginning May 15, the Ukrainian Institute of America will exhibit recent paintings by Crimean-born Anton S. Kandinsky, the great-grandson of Vassily Kandinsky, the abstract painter and theorist who is generally regarded as the originator of abstract art. The exhibit will include surrealistic still life and portraits by the young artist, who maintains a fine art studio in the Museum Mile vicinity. [Fifth Avenue at 79th Street, (212) 288-8860.]

Award-winning authors

Characters and episodes from Irene Zabytko's second novel, "When Luba Leaves Home," came to life at the Mayana Gallery recently when Ms. Zabytko read excerpts before an intimate audience. Ms. Zabytko, award-winning author of the novel "The Sky Unwashed," a story of the Chornobyl disaster, offered brief summaries of each excerpt before launching into a reading. Her new book, published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill (a Workman Publishing division), is a heart-warming story of how the children of America's melting pot grow up strong enough to carry their double identities.

Interwoven with bandura melodies strummed by Julian Kytasty and Mike Andrec, the readings were warmly received by the audience. Ms. Zabytko, a first-generation Ukrainian American who grew up in Chicago's Ukrainian Village section, is already working on her third novel. Her first novel, "The Sky Unwashed," was a Barnes and Noble Discover New Writers title, a Book Sense 76 pick and a New England Booksellers Association discovery.

Audience members stayed on to chat with Ms. Zabytko and have her autograph newly purchased copies of "When Luba Leaves Home." The evening, sponsored by the Ukrainian Art and Literary Association, was enhanced by an exhibit of dynamic black-and-white linocuts by Vitaliy Lytvyn (1937-2003), a native of the Rivne region in Ukraine.

The recently-published book "Shanar: Dedication of a Buryat Shaman in Siberia," co-authored by Virlana Tkacz, Sayan Zhambalov and Wanda Phipps, has been named a finalist in the 2003 Benjamin Franklin Awards competition in two categories, Multiculturalism and Religion. Coincidentally, Ms. Tkacz, director of New York's Yara Arts Group, has been selected as a finalist for this year's Alan Schneider Director Award from the Theatre Communications Group (the organization for professional theaters of America); the winner is to be announced next month.

From ballet to folk dance

Last Monday's opening night gala of American Ballet Theatre's spring season at the Metropolitan Opera house showcased the remarkable talents of the Kyiv-born husband-wife team of Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Belotserkovsky, though in separate performances. Ms. Dvorovenko was partnered by Ethan Steifel in Pas D'Action from "La Bayadére"; Mr. Belotserkovsky performed the Act 1 Waltz from "Swan Lake." Both dancers will continue to perform throughout the company's eight-week season. Vladimir Malakhov was not included in the first two weeks casting, and it remains to be seen whether he will be performing with ABT this season. (Tickets may be purchased online through ABT's newly designed website www.abt.org)

Principal guest artist Alina Cojocaru, on exchange from the Royal Ballet, makes her debut with ABT in the role of Nikiya in "La Bayadére" this weekend, with Angel Corella as her partner (the pair will perform in the same roles on May 12). Born in Bucharest, Rumania, she left home at 9 to study ballet in Kyiv. At 17, she won a scholarship to the Royal Ballet School in London, but stayed for only six months, lured back to Kyiv by the offer of a contract as a principal dancer with the national company there. Ms. Cojocaru's dancing is reputed to be dazzling, marked by flawless technique and innate musicality.

The Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg, in its spring outing at City Center, presented a full-evening work "Who's Who," a take on Billy Wilder's film "Some Like it Hot,"with Natalia Povorozniuk from Ukraine as Lynn. The witty and bright ballet combined ballet, modern, jazz, Broadway dance and a bit of tap to tell its American-inspired tale. Ms. Povorozniuk, born in Vinnyitsia in 1979, trained at the Perm Ballet School and was a soloist with the Perm Ballet Theater from 1997 until she joined the Eifman Ballet in 2000. The company also included Lviv-born soloist Maria Abashova and Nina Zmievets from Kyiv.

Exciting performances by the Syzokryli Ukrainian Dancers of New York opened and closed this year's European Folk Festival at the Fashion Institute of Technology's Haft Auditorium. The show began with the blare of trembity and a spirited circle dance from the Carpathian Mountains, and wound up with the explosive "prysidky" and sword play of the "Hopak" dance. Presented by the Slavic Heritage Council of America and directed by George Tomov, with all 200 performers in national costumes, the festival included six other folk dance ensembles - Bulgarian, Serbian, Macedonian, Slovak, Russian and Polish, as well as a Belarus music trio and, for the first time, an Irish dance troupe.

The ALLNATIONS Dance Company, forced to cancel a 23-day tour of northern China due to the SARS epidemic, hosted an open house performance at International House on Riverside Drive in mid-April. Dancer/choregrapher Andrij Cybyk, who is also Syzokryli's assistant director, performed with his customary balletic skill and pizzazz during the two-hour program.

Making music

The hullabaloo is not yet over for John Stetch's "Ukrainianism" CD, and here he is with another solo CD recording. As you might guess from the title "Standards," the Justin Time Records release includes such popular music and jazz classics as Jerome Kern's "All the Things You Are," Gershwin's "Embraceable You" and Thelonious Monk's "Pannonica" - interpreted in Stetch's inimitable jazz style, with verve and virtuosity, so that these time-honored chestnuts sound new. There are renditions of "Out of Nowhere," "Like Someone in Love" and an ethereal version of "Stella by Starlight."

Based in New York, the Edmonton-born pianist was featured on WNYC's "Soundcheck" this past Friday, playing songs from the new CD and giving a live interview. Mr. Stetch is scheduled to perform with the John Stetch Trio at the Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St., on May 14, and will follow up with a solo concert at the Ukrainian Institute on June 20. Solo concerts are also coming up at the Montreal and Monterey Jazz Festivals.

Soprano Oksana Krovytska, busy in recent months with performances of "Madama Butterfly" (January), an opera concert with the Toledo Symphony (February) and two performances as Mimi in "La Bohéme" with the Austin Opera in Texas, is preparing to appear as soprano soloist for five performances of Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony" with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Zdenek Macal. She will perform at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark on May 14, 17 and 18, at the State Theater in New Brunswick on May 15 and at the War Memorial in Trenton on May 16.

A memorial concert honoring composer/conductor/pianist/teacher/musicologist Antin Rudnytsky (1902-1975) and his wife, operatic soprano Maria Sokil (1902-2002), was recently held at the Ukrainian Institute through the auspices of the institute and the Shevchenko Scientific Society of New York. Reviewing the accomplishments of the Rudnytskys' careers, Roman Sawycky noted that Mr. Rudnytsky was a leading organizer of Ukrainian American musical activities and wrote a historical survey "Ukrainian Music: A Historical Critical Survey" (1963), as well as a collection of articles published posthumously. Ms. Sokil, a soloist in opera theaters in Kharkiv and Kyiv who appeared in concert halls across Europe, became a lecturer at the Philadelphia Music Conservatory and Music Academy in 1958.

Film fragments from Mr. Rudnytsky's opera "Anna Yaroslavna" (1967), sponsored by the Ukrainian National Association on the occasion of its 75th anniversary, and tape recordings of Ms. Sokil's voice from 1940 were presented. These, together with personal reminiscences by their son, pianist Roman Rudnytsky, who sat down at the piano to play works by his father and other composers, brought home the special significance of the two honorees.

Soprano Lydia Bychkova, a member of the choir and the cultural-educational convenor of St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in New York, contributed the rich, full sound of her voice to a recent gathering of the World Federation of Ukrainian Women's Organizations in Philadelphia honoring the memory of Ukrainian heroines. Ms. Bychkova, a former soloist of the Kyiv Opera Theater, opened proceedings with Ihor Sonevytsky's uplifting prayer "Our Father," to piano accompaniment by Lesia Penkalska. Later in the program she offered heartfelt interpretations of "Syrota" (Orphan) and Lopatynsky's "Khmary" (Clouds).

The Cheres Ukrainian Folk Ensemble, continuing its popular concerts both upstate and in the Big City, recently performed at the new Cloisters museum in upper Manhattan and at Unison Arts in New Paltz, N.Y. Often engaged for Ukrainian weddings, the ensemble is currently working up a website and preparing a video and a new CD.

Director Andriy Milavsky, who gives recorder lessons privately and at an elementary school in the Bronx, says he can't forget the public acclaim won by the ensemble during its Midwest tour last fall. "We gave 34 concerts in two weeks - that's three concerts a day - at high schools, elementary schools and some colleges. People loved our concerts, and there were great newspaper reviews," he related.

Mindful of Ukraine's proud past, Mr. Milavsky always takes time to interject tidbits of Ukrainian history and culture into the ensemble's programs and let audiences know that "Ukraine is the biggest country in Europe, we're (an) older (civilization) than the Russians, and our time is coming."

John B. Torchyn (birth name Torczynowycz), who grew up in West Babylon, Long Island, and his buddy Doug Frantin will bring their six-member rock'n roll band DoJo to Kenny's Castaways, 157 Bleecker St., on May 17. Based in Florida, both musicians are composers and songwriters and perform vocals and guitar, with Mr. Torchyn also handling keys and percussion. The group, whose music has been aired on the Internet on the "Jonathan Clark Show," appeared at the elbow room and Kenny's Castaways last February.

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

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