canada, event, usa

Ukrainian Festival Summer Guide 2012

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Making summer plans? Check out this comprehensive list of Ukrainian events happening all over North America:

 

Kingston Ukrainian Folklore Festival
June 8-10
Kingston, ON

The Ukrainian Club of Kingston this weekend presents Folklore 2012: the Lviv Pavillion with Ukrainian food, performances and exhibitions.

When: Friday June 8th – 6 – 10pm
Saturday June 9th – Noon  -10pm
Sunday June 10th – Noon – 6pm

Where: Regiopolis Notre Dame Catholic High School, 130 Russell Street, Kingston, ON

Admission: Passport $5 – At the door
(613) 549-5060

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150907500729257&10150116874699257.311454.561234256&type=1&ref=nf

The festival was recently featured in Kingston This Week

 

imageCanadian National Ukrainian Festival (CNUF)

August 3-5

Dauphin, MB

In the fresh air and sunshine, enjoy the incredible view and watch the world-class grandstand shows from the only 11,000-seat, hillside amphitheatre in Canada. Authentic, rich, uniquely Ukrainian and ultimately… delicious! Excite your senses with our all-day-available traditional cuisine. As we tell our stories through costume, song and dance, you will literally see and feel the past come alive. For one whole weekend, escape to become immersed in a new adventure. Let us put a fiddle in your hands, show you a few steps and teach you some Ukrainian songs. Then celebrate with us at the nightly Zabavas; parties thrown in honour of our guests… you!

http://www.cnuf.ca

 

imageHeritage Festival

August 4-6

Edmonton, AB

Vitaemo. Welcome to the Ukrainian Pavilion as we celebrate over 120 years of Ukrainian settlement in Canada. Come and experience the wondrous sights and sounds of our culture on our large outdoor entertainment stage, learn about our heritage in the Arts & Crafts tent, and savour our culinary favourites in the Food tent.

Here at the Servus Heritage Festival, delight in the beautiful Ukrainian traditional artisan crafts such as pysanky (Easter eggs), embroidery, weaving, jewellery, ceramics, as well as contemporary visual arts. Learn about Ukrainian roots through the genealogical and folklore displays. Watch the lively regional dancing and listen to some of our most talented musicians.

http://www.heritage-festival.com/pavilions/61/

 

imageUkrainian Day Festival

August 12

Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village, Alberta

A celebration of all things Ukrainian past and present, Ukrainian Day recognizes the rich tapestry of Alberta’s Ukrainian community today.

Ukrainian Day starts with a pancake breakfast, followed by divine liturgies, memorial services and recognition of east central Alberta’s centennial pioneer families. An afternoon concert features some of the finest musicians, dancers and performers. The ‘Taste of Ukraine’ food fair, the Ukrainian Community Showcase & Art Sale help enrich this celebration of Ukrainian culture, heritage in Alberta. This signature event is co-hosted by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress – Alberta Provincial Council.

http://www.history.alberta.ca/ukrainianvillage/specialevents/specialevents.aspx
http://www.uccab.ca/UkrainianDay/

 

Folklorama

August 15-18

Winnipeg, MB

Experience the true spirit of Ukraine! Enjoy our authentic varenyky, holubsi, borshch, kovbasa and kupusta for dinner and don’t forget to save room for a piece of delicious torte or cheesecake. Try our new Obolon premium lager or Khortytsa Honey pepper hot vodka, imported from Ukraine.

Learn about the Bukovyna Region of Ukraine, a historical region on the slopes of the Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining rolling green plains, and take in our explosive show featuring Ukrainian Comedian, Metro, and the Zoloto Ukrainian Dance Ensemble & Company.

After the show feel free to take a spin on the dance floor to the music of BMW.

Children can also have fun learning how to make Ukrainian paper dolls or join in on a mini Ukrainian Dance class.

http://www.folklorama.ca/index.php?option=com_pavilion&view=pavilion&Itemid=54&id=51

 

Windsor Heritage Ukrainian Festival

August 17-18, 2012

Windsor, ON

The festival will be held at St. Vladimir Orthodox Cathedral (2000 Tecumseh Rd, East). The festival will begin at 6:00PM on the Friday and end at 1:00AM. On Saturday it will run from 12:00PM (noon) to 1:00AM.

2012 Flyer
http://www.windsorbarvinok.com/wuhf/

 

St. Josaphats Ukrainian Festival

August 16-19, 2012

Rochester, NY

The  St.  Josaphat’s  Ukrainian  Festival  was  established  in  1973  as  an  effort  to  introduce  Ukrainian  Arts  and  Crafts,  Ukrainian  food,  and  Ukrainian  music  and  dance  to  the  Rochester  community.   Since  its  inception  the  Festival  has  offered  tradition  Ukrainian  foods  such  as  Varenyky  (or  pyrohy  or  pierogies)  a  potato  and  cheese  dumpling,  Holubets  (stuffed  cabbage  rolls),  Kovbasa  (Ukrainian  sausage),  Kapusta  (Ukrainian  style  sauerkraut)  and  Borsch  (beet  soup)  to  the  public. The  Festival  also  has  a  number  of  vendors  who  display  a  variety  of  Ukrainian  Arts  and  Crafts  such  as  ceramics,  embroidery,  wood  carvings,  jewelry  and  Ukrainian  Easter  eggs. The  Ukrainian  Stage  offers  a  variety  of  entertainment  including  Tradition  Ukrainian  Folk  Dancers  and  Singers  both  from  Rochester,  New York  and  Canada.

http://www.rochesterukrainianfestival.com/

 

Ukrainian Fall Fest Victoria Park

August 25

Regina, SK

Ukrainian Canadian Congress-Regina Branch proudly announces its annual outdoor cultural festival! The event aims to celebrate Ukrainian-Canadian culture and recognize its people’s contributions to Canadian society at all levels.  UCC Regina Branch coordinates the activities for 19 Ukrainian cultural organizations of very dedicated volunteers in our city and this event!  Come and Celebrate with us! Bring a lawnchair for your seating comfort!

http://uccruff.ca/

 

Ukrainian Folk Festival

August 26

Horsham, Pa

Exciting, spectacular, dazzling, breathtaking, exhilarating, spirited, soulful, enchanting, captivating, and intriguing – modest words which describe but by no means capture the essence of Ukrainian folk art, music, and dance. From the rich color and deep symbolism of the delicate “pysanka” (Ukrainian Easter Egg) to the thunderous, climatic, power, rhythm and strength of “HOPAK” – the world’s most exciting ethnic dance, and every brilliant “Kolomiyka” (polka) and soulful folk song in between, we invite you to experience the TWENTIETH ANNUAL UKRAINIAN FOLK FESTIVAL, celebrating the anniversary of our ancestral homeland’s independence. Enjoy a festival stage show, a public dance, Ukrainian foods and baked goods, BBQ pit, kid’s fun area, and Ukrainian hospitality.

http://www.tryzub.org/ukrainian-festival-2012.php

 

imageFriends’ Ukrainian Music Festival

August 26

Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village, Alberta

Catch the musical magic at the Friends’ Ukrainian Music Festival featuring an array of the region’s finest Ukrainian folk musicians. This dynamic event encompasses an abundance of entertainment, exhibits, children’s activities, a village market, and delicious foods. Visit the Historic Village where you can enjoy wagon rides and chat with historic settlers as they go about their daily routines.

http://www.history.alberta.ca/ukrainianvillage/specialevents/

 

Ukrainian Day at Golden Gate Park

August 26
San Francisco, CA

Ukrainian Cultural Program for Commemorating of 20th Anniversary of
Independence of Ukraine

http://www.stmichaeluocsf.org/Pages/Calendar.aspx

 

Montreal Ukrainian Festival

September 7-9

Montreal, PQ

Quebec’s Ukrainian community is 18,000 strong with active members in the development of Quebec in areas of art, culture, politics and business. In Canada, Ukrainians constitute more than 1,000,000 in population. Ukraine is an independent democratic state in Eastern Europe with more than 50 million people living in an area of 603,700 sq. km, an area larger than France and fifth in size by population in Europe

http://www.ukefestmontreal.org

 

Baltimore Ukrainian Festival

September 8-9

Baltimore, MD

Baltimore Ukrainian Festival Committee works to share the Ukrainian heritage & culture by providing the following:

Live Entertainment: Traditional Ethnic Dancers, Musicians & Singers
Serve traditional foods, breads & beverages of Ukraine the bread basket of Europe
Ukrainian Folk Arts:  Paintings, Carved Wood & PSYANKY Egg Demonstrations
Novelties: Ceramics, Embroidery Clothing, Jewelry, & Religious artifacts
History of Ukraine – Famine, Chernobyl, Orange Revolution

http://www.ukrainianfestival.net

 

Toronto Ukrainian Festival

September 14-16

Toronto, ON

The Festival was born in 1995 as the result of the twinning of Toronto and Kyiv. It then came under the umbrella of Ukrainian Canadian Congress Toronto Branch as one of its projects.  While attendance in the first year was estimated at 3,000, within ten years the Festival has grown to attract audiences of 350,000.

The Toronto Ukrainian Festival is a celebration of Toronto’s diversity. It has established itself as one of the premier Ukrainian festivals in North America. The Festival takes pride in showcasing contemporary professional and amateur artists and performers of Ukrainian heritage who celebrate Ukrainian culture through music, dance and visual arts.

http://www.ukrainianfestival.com

 

Barrie Ukrainian Festival

October (TBA)

Barrie, ON

http://www.ukrainianfestival.ca

 

Sudbury Yarmarok Festival

October (TBA)

Sudbury, ON

http://sudburyyarmarok.webs.com/entertainment.htm

sports, ukraine

BBC’s controversial documentary on hate for UEFA EuroCup in Poland and Ukraine

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Episode image for Euro 2012: Stadiums of HateLast Monday the BBC’s documentary show ‘Panorama’ aired ‘Stadiums of hate’ showcasing discrimination and violence in Poland and Ukraine as they prepare to host the UEFO EuroCup with a strong message: Don’t travel there to see the tournament, especially if you’re a visible minority. Since the airing, many groups have taken issue with the documentary, claiming it too sensationalistic by focusing on fringe groups that are in a minority.

Here’s the documentary in full:

(Here’s a backup link in case the first no longer works)

Rogers visits a stadium in Lodz, Poland, where supporters known as “Ultras” abuse the opposition with chants like “Jewish whore” and “Hey, hey, who’s not jumping is a Jew.”

Then he goes to Warsaw, where a white supremacist group known as “White Power” has formed around one of the city’s biggest clubs. They flash supremacist symbols at matches and break out in fights with opposition and police.

And that’s just Poland. While in Ukraine, Rogers witnesses monkey chants at black players and supporters… and police present at the match don’t do a thing about it.

Read more

But many criticisms of the documentary have appeared about the way the BBC looked to sensationalize this story by not interviewing experts or showing relevant statistics:

There were reports the BBC allegedly did not use material, such as a police statement and statistics which are said to not support the claims made in the programme.Aviram Baruchyam, a Jewish midfielder of Polonia Warsaw, allegedly admitted that he never had a problem with Poles and their behaviour towards him, but this did not feature in final cut.

Why did they not interview Jewish footballer Maor Melikson, a fans favorite, who plays on the wing for Wisla Krakow? The same goes for Saidi Ntibazonkiza, Burundian striker of similar position to Melikson, but on the other side of Blonie park, at Cracovia.

The BBC did not include statistics which reveal that over the last three years, out of 460,000 British visitors not even one have reported a racist incident in Poland.

Read more

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has responded to the video, demanding an apology:

"I believe BBC must apologize for this film, which portrays Ukraine and Poland as countries of hatred and racism. BBC has edited a whole film from single pictures and drawn wrong conclusions," the official (Oleh Volosyn) said.

Voloshyn also noted that the issue of racism had not been discussed at the official level. On the contrary, Ukrainian officials have considered measures to secure Ukrainians from British fans, known for their aggression and racist moods, he added.

According to the official, the given series of episodes may be a deliberate provocation, initiated by British football clubs’ representatives, who want to keep ‘big football’ within the Western Europe.

Read more

As well Poland’s Foreign office has responded to the video:

“One could not find there the statements of foreign experts regarding the field of security,” Bosacki said.

“No one turned to the foreign ministry, or the Polish Police,” he said.

Similarly, Bosacki rejected England player Sol Campbell’s claim that black football fans “could come back in a coffin” if they attend the tournament.

Meanwhile, PL.2012, the official Polish body charged with organising the event, has invited Mr Campbell to Poland.

“We have invited Sol Campbell to come to the European Championships, so that he csn get to know our country, and then he will be fully entitled to express opinions about Poland,” said Mikolaj Piotrowski, communications director for Pl.2012.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk has already pledged that “nobody who comes to Poland will be in any danger because of their race.”

Read more

Soccer star Andriy Shevchenko also came out to defend Ukraine:

"We don’t have a real problem here about racism.” Shevchenko told the BBC.
"The country’s very quiet and people are very friendly.
Campbell claimed that Uefa should have researched the threat thoroughly before sanctioning Poland and Ukraine as hosts of such an important tournament.

But Shevchenko believes that Euro 2012 will pass without any such incidents.
"I know the country did everything to make this competition very good," he continued.
"I know how much work the country tried to do: airports, in streets, stadium in the last five years.
"We never have heard problems about racism."
Former Arsenal player Oleg Luzhny, who has represented Ukraine 52 times, supported counterpart Shevchenko’s comments.
"No, no, no, I never heard about this. We have Nigerian players…and I never heard about racism," Luzhny added.

Read more

I would recommend giving the video a watch and decide for yourselves.

canada, event

Carassauga 2012 this weekend!

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Carassauga Festival

Another year, another Carassauga showcasing the tastes and sights and sounds of multiculturalism in Mississauga. The award-winning Ukrainian pavilion will be out in full force this weekend:

Carassauga – May 25-27, 2012

Address: St. Mary’s Dormition of the Mother of God Ukrainian Catholic Church – 3265 Cawthra Rd, Mississauga.

Friday, May 25: 7:30pm – Midnight
Saturday, May 26: 12:30pm – Midnight
Sunday, May 27: 1pm – 7pm

Tickets: $10 advance/$12 at door

Free shuttle buses to all the different pavilions.

The full itinerary for the Ukrainian pavilion can be found here.

We’ve covered the past 4 Carassaugas in a row, with lots of photos: 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008!

 


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canada, video

The long-lost CBC documentary – Ukrainian-Canadians: A Time to Remember

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In 1988 the CBC produced a great documentary exploring the history of Ukraine, its culture and its politics as it reached across to Canada through 100 years of immigration. It covers the origins of Ukrainian nationalism, the waves of immigration to Canada and their challenges, and even looking forward as to what it means to be a Canadian of Ukrainian descent – before the collapse of the Soviet Union! It was produced in commemoration of 1,000 years of Christianity in Ukraine and I highly recommend a watch, if for anything the 80’s hair-do’s and aviator glasses Smile:

[Ukrainian-Canadians: A Time to Remember]

Please keep in mind this off a VHS tape, so the quality isn’t as great as the videos nowadays. I just happened to stumble across this video at the library, and I couldn’t find any more information about it online, and had never heard about it before. It has no DVD version that I’m aware of, and is not on the CBC Archives site.

As the government dismantles their libraries , and the CBC abandons their music archives, along with the transition to digital, I wonder how many great Ukrainian works will be lost to time? It’s happened to civilizations before us.

book, canada

Book Review: Ukrainian Dance–A cross-cultural approach

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Professor Andriy Nahachewsky of the University of Alberta chronicles Ukrainian dance across borders and time in his new book Ukrainian Dance – A cross-cultural approach, analyzing traditional village culture as it expresses national identity as a an art form.

Ukrainian dance is a vibrate, colorful and full of high energy with a European style that has survived the Iron curtain with strong symbolic connection to its peasantry as a living heritage.

The book delves into Ukrainian dance and folk in general, how it is similar yet varied across countries and highlights the differences in dance between western and eastern Ukraine, skilled and unskilled, male and female, old and young, rich and poor. It challenges many previous elite Western theatrical traditions that would usually only dedicate a small chapter to such an antiquated and ‘crude’ art form.

The book identifies Ukrainian dance into two key characteristics: its legacy of peasant tradition and experience of the moment (vival dance) and the power of diverse stage dances  connecting with the past as heritage (reflective dance). Reflective dances are broken down in the book into national dance, recreational, education and spectacular.

Readers should be aware that is not attempt to chronicle a history of Ukrainian dance, you won’t find much illustration or instruction to help you identify particular dances at functions or educate you on their histories, but rather it surveys approaches to dancing, to identify important trends and explain change.

The book’s cross-cultural approach also shows how Ukrainian cultural is a larger part of ‘Western culture’, including significance of romantic nationalism, secularization, folk revivals,  as well as many non-Ukrainian examples.

Ukrainian Dance–A cross-cultural approach is available at local retailers and online at Chapters, Amazon, Google Books and Barnes and Noble.

Professor Andriy Nahachewsky is the Director of the Kule Centre for Ukrainian and Canadian folklore, with a Masters degree of fine art in dance who has studied in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe for the past 40 years.

The book launches this Tuesday, May 8, 2012: 7PM at the UNF Hall at 145 Evans Ave. The author will give a brief talk, followed by Q&A. Books available for sale and autograph. Light refreshments.


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