Toronto's waterfront filled with sights and sounds of Ukrainian culture (11/13/05)

Toronto's waterfront filled with sights and sounds of Ukrainian culture

by Olena Wawryshyn

TORONTO - Toronto's waterfront was awash in the sounds and sights of Ukrainian culture over Labor Day weekend as the city's Harborfront Center presented Zabava, a four-day festival of Ukrainian music, dance, food, visual art, crafts and films.

Every summer, the arts center features a series of international festivals focusing on different parts of the world. This year the organizers chose to put Ukraine in the spotlight during what is possibly their highest-traffic weekend.

The Zabava festival, co-produced with the Ukrainian Culture Festival, (which also produces the Bloor West Village Ukrainian Festival) featured entertainment representing a wide range of musical styles - from the traditional sounds of the bandura performed by bandura virtuoso Victor Mishalow and the Canadian Bandurist Capella to heavy-hitting rock.

The long line-up of entertainers, too long to list in full, hailed from Canada, Ukraine, the United States and Britain. Some of the notables performing were Canadian blues singer Suzie Vinnick, the prairie band Kubasonics, rock star Vika Vasilevich, the American Celtic-Ukrainian band Scythian and violinist Vasyl Popadiuk.

The performance of U.K.-based indie band, The Ukrainians, who flew over "the pond" for the Saturday night show, generated a lot of excitement. Their high-voltage reworkings of Ukrainian standards, including popular folk tunes and songs of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen had the audience on their feet. A couple of appreciative fans who stormed the stage on a number of occasions were dragged off by security officers, but re-emerged and were back dancing along with the enthusiastic crowd minutes later.

Luba Goy of CBCs Air Farce fame found time in between her stints on the national broadcaster's picket line to emcee a number of the shows, including the late-night cabarets, which featured musical entertainment by several entertainers, including Toronto actor and singer Lada Darewych on both Saturday and Sunday nights.

At an outdoor pavilion, visitors had a chance to see how "gerdany" (beaded necklaces) and "pysanky" (Easter eggs) were made and could learn about iconography from master painter Pavlo Lopata. The Shevchenko Foundation was represented through an exhibit about the life and contributions of Ukrainian folk dance master and choerographer Vasile Avramenko.

One of the big draws was the screening of "Mamay," Oles Sanin's 2003 feature film. On Saturday night, movie buffs lined up almost an hour ahead to ensure they got a seat, though the lyric style of the film left some in the audience scratching their hands afterwards. Dr. Yuri Shevchuk of the Ukrainian film club at Columbia University, fielded their questions. Dr. Shevchuk asked those in attendance to log onto the club's website to post their comments so that the directors in Ukraine could read them.

Other highlights included "Intersection," a small art exhibit curated by Darka Maleckyj-Griffin, which featured work by Vera Jacyk, Inya Levytsky, Olya Mistchenko, Terry Pidsadny, Olexander Wlasenko, Anna Yuschuk and Vladimir Zabeida. Over 30 photos of the Orange Revolution by Kyiv photographer Kyrylo Kysliakov were shown along with a video of the December 2004 events.

And what would a Ukrainian festival be without dance groups, especially one called Zabava? Modern dance artist Sasha Ivanochko presented "Is This Love?" a dance solo, and a number of dance groups performed.

Nobody went hungry: Several Ukrainian caterers set up shop at the festival and those interested in cooking could attend workshops on making traditional delicacies such as pasky, presented by Future Bakery, and borsch, presented by Hanya Cirka.

Kids were not forgotten as the Sunday schedule featured hands-on activities, readings and performances geared to them.

All in all, the festival was a great way to spend a weekend, soaking in Ukrainian culture, along with the sun by the water, on the last weekend of the summer holiday season.

Thanks were offered to a long list of generous sponsors - Labatt, CIBC, the federal government, the city of Toronto, the Ontario Arts Council and the government of Ontario. And, the price for festival-goers was right. Admission was free for all performances and activities, apart from a nominal $1 fee for some of the food-preparation demonstrations.

The article above was originally published in the Toronto-based newspaper New Pathway.

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