>>PREVIEW
KATERYNA
Opens June 10
Suzirya Ukrainian Dance Theatre
Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium
Sergei Makarov wants to elevate the perception of Ukrainian culture above perogies, cabbage rolls and men high-kicking in the middle of dance circles at weddings. The artistic director of Suzirya Ukrainian Dance Theatre aims to bring a multi-layered cultural experience to the Albertan community in his company's new ballet opera, Kateryna. By fusing Ukrainian stereotypes with a professional approach to large-scale productions, Makarov uses his classic training and expertise, and the experience of his company, as a foundation on which to mount his newest piece, an epic folk-opera.
"My purpose is to show my nationality, not just to the Ukrainian community, but to make a high level (production) for everyone. We start with ballet first, not just Ukrainian dance. Every nationality, every dance nationality – Polish, French, Brazilian – in its professional dance, you have to go over ballet."
After graduating from the Kharkiv Ballet School in 1970 in Kiev, Marakov danced with the Virsky, the Ukrainian State Dance Company, and performed a fusion of classic Vaganova ballet technique and traditional folk dance, a style mimicked in the Ukrainian Canadian cultural centres of today. Marakov leads his company using the same premise, building Ukrainian folk dance choreography on the foundation of ballet culture. He also relies on the expertise of other members of the Calgarian Ukrainian community, professional dancers who, like him, trained in the Vaganova method in the strict ballet schools of the Ukraine.
Vaganova style is taught worldwide, including at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School, as one of the three main styles of ballet. Though Makarov produces only Ukrainian dance shows with Suzirya, he stresses the emphasis on the ballet technique as the foundation for his choreography.
"Vaganova is the alphabet. How can you read or write if you don't know the letters first? With Vaganova, you have to educate your muscles, your legs and your arms. It teaches a very emotional upper-body and very strict legs. It is sharp and strict."
During warm-up with his company, he often leaps onstage to demonstrate the next exercise, and when Makarov talks ballet, his back straightens while his emotions come out in his arm movements. He is passionate about his aspiration to create a professional-calibre performance with his amateur dance company and to add full sets and live music into the piece. The 25 dancers of Suzirya, whose name means "a constellation of stars," will perform for the first time with the Edmonton Ukrainian Male Chorus, a new addition to the ensemble for Kateryna.
Since his move to Calgary in 2001, Makarov has travelled back and forth to his homeland to develop the opera's story and original score with Yevgene Dosenko. Based on poetry by Taras Shevchenko, the 19th century founder of modern literature of the Ukraine, Suzirya's Kateryna is an amalgamation of three separate Shevchenko poems featuring a young peasant girl. Marakov promises this two-act production tells a nuanced story, beginning with a foreboding overture and complete with the staples of Ukrainian dance culture, the high jumps of the Cossacks and the wreath dances of young women.
"It's a very famous poem. It's a tragedy and it's very sad. It's interesting, because I'd like to show real character, from the 19th century, in this very old poem by Shevchenko – I would like to explain it to Canadian people. Same as you have Shakespeare in English, we have Shevchenko in Ukraine."
This ballet goes beyond the Ukrainian folk dances performed in community halls and brings traditional dances to the level of professional spectacles. It will be performed at both the Northern and Southern Jubilee Auditoriums. Just as Suzirya's name reflects the dance company's fusion of many individuals into one unique whole, so too does it reflect the combination of classic ballet with the vivacity of Ukrainian folk culture. With Kateryna, Makarov aims to bring his Ukrainian culture out of the dance hall and onto the professional stage. |
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