YARA'S NEW SHOW "KUPALA" TO BE PERFORMED IN UKRAINE
"Kupala" A New Music Theater Piece
UKRAINIAN ARTS NEWS
ArtUkraine Information Service (ARTUIS)
Washington, D.C. and Kyiv, Ukraine
November 4, 2002
NEW YORK CITY.......The Yara Arts Group from the La MaMa
Experimental Theatre in New York City will perform its new music theatre
piece "Kupala" this month at several locations in Ukraine. Actors from the
Yara Arts Group are working with singers from Oira, a music group in
Kharkiv, Ukraine and actors from the Ev Theatre Studio in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Virlana Tkacz is the director of the production, while Mariana Sadovska
is the musical dramaturg.
The first show in Ukraine will be performed to celebrate the folk
singers of the village of Kraichkivka in the Poltava Region where Mariana
Sadovska and Virlana Tkacz previously recorded songs. The show
will take place on Saturday, November 9 at 7 p.m. in the Kraichkivka
village culture club.
The second set of performances will be part of the international
festival "Ukrainian Diaspora Theatre" held in Kyiv and will be staged
at the Molodyi Theatre on Prorizna 17 on Thursday, November 14 at
2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m.
The third set of performances will honor the singers of the village
of Svaritsevichi in the Polissia Region and will be on Saturday November
16 at 7 p.m. at the Svaritsevicki village culture club.
In the show "Kupala" the past meets the present, as ancient songs
become the bridge between cultures. Returning to the source the artists
draw strength for their journey. Some of the songs in the shows were
given to them by the singers of Kriachkivka and Svaritsevichi. The
teachers are therefore the first audiences. They will hear how their songs
sound performed by singers from Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, and
Kyiv, Kharkiv and Symferopil, Ukraine.
For the past few years Virlana Tkacz has created with Yara both
traditional and non-traditional Kupala events in New York. An important
part of these events have been the workshops in traditional songs
conducted by Mariana Sadovska for singers of various ethnic back-
grounds. Among the artists who participated were Yara actors Akiko
Hiroshima, Zabryna Guevara, Jina Oh, and Marina Celander, now part
of this show.
Virlana first met the Crimean Tatar students at the Theatre Institute
in Kyiv in 1997. Recently, they formed the Ev Theatre Studio and two
founding members, Elzara Batalova and Zarema Tupikova, are part of
the Kupala project. Virlana meet with Oira in Kharkiv this fall and Oira
members Halyna Breslavets, Olha Harasimova, Marina Tkachenko and
Olha Voropaieva sing in the Kupala project.
Virlana Tkacz created Yara Arts Group in 1991 at the world
renowned La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York and has created
twelve original theatre pieces with Yara. She is now in Kyiv on a Fulbright
Fellowship and has initiated the "kolo nas" poetry and music series.
Mariana Sadovska was born in Lviv and worked with the Lviv Les
Kurbas Theatre and Gardzienice Theatre Center in Poland and Yara. For
the last twelve years she has organized folklore research expeditions and
has collected Ukrainian songs in the villages of Ukraine. She recently
formed "Evoe" Creative Group in Düsseldorf, Germany. (end)
===================================================
For Further Information Contact:
Yara Arts Group
306 East 11th St., #3B
New York, NY 10003 USA
Phone/Fax: 212-475-6474
E-mail Virlana Tkacz at: