Kitka vocal ensemble to travel to Ukraine for performances, research (07/03/05)

Kitka vocal ensemble to travel to Ukraine for performances, research

OAKLAND, Calif. - Mariana Sadovska, Ukrainian vocal performance artist, composer and folklorist is leading the San Francisco Bay Area Women's Vocal Ensemble Kitka (whose name means "bouquet" in Bulgarian and Macedonian), on a three-week performance tour and research expedition to Ukraine that is being held June 12 through July 4.

The tour, which includes visits to the rural villages of Svarytsevychi, Havronschyna and Kriachkivka, as well as larger cultural centers such as Kyiv and Lviv, offers the group opportunities to collaborate with professional folk singers, village musicians, choral directors and contemporary theater artists, as well as to gather stories and songs from village elders and perform in concert with Ukraine's premier folk singers and ensembles.

The tour is being documented by New York-based videographer and director Lars Jan.

As part of the tour, festival-style anchor performances, titled "Enchantment Songs," were slated to take place in Lviv and Kyiv. The Lviv concert, which took place at the Les Kurbas Theater on June 17, featured Kitka in performance with Ms. Sadovska and Natalka Polovynka, director of the acclaimed vocal ensemble Maisternia Pisni (Song Workshop).

Kyiv's "Enchantment Songs" concert, slated for July 1 at the Les Kurbas State Center for Theater Arts, will feature Kitka, Ms. Sadovska, Ukraine's legendary singer Nina Matvienko, Kyiv's Drevo ensemble and traditional singers from the village of Kriachkivka.

Additional musical collaborators meeting Kitka in Ukraine include singer/actress/choreographer Joanna Wichovska (Poland) and Vladimir Zenevitch, folk singer, composer and choral director of Ensemble Gramnitsy (Belarus).

While on tour in Ukraine, Kitka will participate in the Troitsa Festival held in the village of Svarytsevychi and the traditional "Provody Rusalok" ritual festivities in Havronschyna, as well as gather rusalka (water nymph) lore from village elders.

All of these activities will serve as a basis for the creation of a new folk opera, "The Rusalka Cycle," which Kitka will premiere in Oakland this coming November. "The Rusalka Cycle" will weave traditional Slavic folk songs together with original vocal and instrumental music composed by Ms. Sadovska in a contemporary theatrical presentation directed by Ellen Sebastian Chang. Ms. Chang will also spend two weeks in Ukraine with Kitka.

Creative development workshops for the Rusalka Project, with Kitka, Ms. Sadovska, Ms. Polovynka, Serhij Kovalevych and Ms. Wichowska - were held in collaboration with the Les Kurbas Theater in Lviv June 15-22.

Development workshops with Kitka, Ms. Sadovska, Ms. Matvienko, Yevhen Yefremov, Tetiana Sopilka, Mr. Zenevitch and the Drevo ensemble - in collaboration with the Ivan Honchar Center for Folk Art and Les Kurbas State Center for Theater Arts - were slated to be held in Kyiv on June 24-July 2.

For more information on Kitka's Rusalka Cycle Project and Ukrainian tour, visit http://www.kitka.org.

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Currently celebrating its 25th anniversary season, Kitka began as a grassroots group of amateur singers from diverse ethnic and musical backgrounds who shared a passion for the stunning dissonances, asymmetric rhythms, intricate ornamentation and resonant strength of traditional Eastern European women's vocal music.

Since its informal beginning, the group has evolved into an internationally recognized professional ensemble known for its artistry, versatility and mastery of the demanding techniques of Balkan and Slavic vocal styling. Through a busy itinerary of live and broadcast performances, recordings, educational programs, master artist residencies, commissioning programs and adventuresome collaborations, Kitka has grown to earn recognition as a premier vocal ensemble, as well as a foremost interpreter of Balkan and Slavic choral repertoire in the United States. Kitka has been featured frequently on National Public Radio. The emotive power of Kitka's singing has been showcased in a number of film soundtracks, including "Jacob's Ladder," "Braveheart" and "Queen of the Damned," as well as in the American Conservatory Theater's critically acclaimed productions of "Hecuba."

In 2002, the group made a historic tour of Bulgaria, which included participation as international guest artists at the 50th anniversary celebrations of the world renowned, Grammy Award-winning Bulgarian women's choir, Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, held at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia.

Kitka has recorded six albums on its own Diaphonica record label; its latest recording is titled "Wintersongs."

Comprising the singers of the Kitka woman's vocal ensemble on the Ukraine tour are Briget Boyle, Shira Cion, Catherine Rose Crowther, Juliana Graffagna, Lily Huang, Janet Kutulas, Eva Salina Primack and Moira Gwendolyn Smiley.

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Ms. Sadovska,who has spent more than 12 years collecting archaic songs and rituals in rural villages in Ukraine, is credited with breathing vigorous new life into the fast-fading folk traditions of her native land. A much sought-after vocal artist in Europe, she is also known for her work with the world famous Polish experimental/anthropological theater company Gardzienice, with whom she was a principal performer and composer-music director for over a decade.

A native of Lviv and graduate of the Ludkevych School of Music, Ms. Sadovska was affiliated with the Les Kurbas Theater in Lviv from 1988 through 1991, during which time she took part in such projects as the "Slavic Pilgrim Project" headed by J. Grotowski (Pontedera, Italy), and in the "Laboratorium of Theater Art" with A. Vasiliev (Moscow).

Ms. Sadovska's core acting, vocal and performance skills were formed during the years she worked with the Gardzienice, beginning in 1991. The company was founded in 1977 by W. Staniewski, and is known in Europe and North America for its original performances based on years of field work studying ancient cultures in isolated rural areas of the world.

Drawing on her years of experience with the Gardzienice, Ms. Sadovska has developed a system of exercises that enables participants to discover the link between movement and song, gesture and sound, rhythm and breath. Her workshops cover various singing techniques, with an emphasis on the open throat ("white voice") singing style of Eastern Europe.

To help participants feel the essence of each song, she shares her knowledge of daily village life to put each piece into context. Her repertoire includes calling songs, wedding songs, lullabies, ballads, healing songs and more. Her understanding of traditional song combined with her expertise as a theater practitioner and musician make her workshops a rare experience, valuable to professional singers and performers, as well as amateur singers who take pleasure in song traditions of the world.

As a gifted and experienced teacher, she has spent many years conducting numerous workshops in universities and theaters around the world, including Harvard, Princeton, the City University of New York, as well as at the La MaMa and Pig Iron theaters (U.S.A.), Grotowski Center (Poland) and the Royal Shakespeare Company (Stratford, England).

She has also taken part in theater festivals held in Japan, Brazil, Egypt, Bosnia, Russia and Wales.

Her collaboration with theater directors includes work with Virliana Tkacz (New York), Judith Wilske (Hamburg), William Docolomanski (Prague) and husband André Erlen (Köln). She has also worked with numerous musicians, such as Victoria Hanna (Jerusalem), Anthony Coleman (New York), Julian Kytasty (New York) and Frank London (New York).

This year Ms. Sadovska was a guest musical director for the Art Atelier Program at Princeton University curated by one of America's premier novelists and Nobel Prize laureate (1993) author Toni Morrison.

Ms. Sadovska, whose performances have taken her around the world, has gained critical acclaim for her transcendent voice and soulful connection to her audience.

Her discography includes "Budemo Vesnu Spivaty; Song Tree," released in Lublin, Poland, and a solo CD titled "Songs I Learned in Ukraine," a Global Village Music (USA) release.

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Ms. Chang, a director, writer, performer, and creative consultant, has served as co-founder and artistic director of Life on the Water, a nationally and internationally known presenting and producing organization at San Francisco's Fort Mason Center (1986-1995). Among her recent directorial credits are the critically acclaimed productions of Philip Glass' opera "Akhnaten" at the Oakand Opera Theater, Gamelan Sekar Jaya's "Kawit Legong: Prince Karna's Dream" at CalPerformances, and Stagebridge's "Being Something" at the Oakland Metro Theater.

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Mr. Jan, a theater director, writer and video artist, is artistic director of Early Morning Opera (EMO), formed with film and installation artists based in New York, Boston and London. Mr. Jan's video designs have been seen at the Kyoto Arts Center, NEST, the Painted Bride Art Center (Philadelphia) and MYX Gallery (Philadelphia).

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