The Current Reconstructionist Dance Revival in Ukraine
17 March 2025
Presented by:
Lesia Kosakovska, (Lutsk, Ukraine),Candidate of Art History, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Choreography, Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University
Andriy Nahachewsky, (Brussels, Belgium), Professor Emeritus, University of Alberta, Huculak Chair of Ukrainian Culture and Ethnography, Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, University of Alberta, 2005 to 2018.
This Folklore Lunch will be recorded and subsequently uploaded to the YouTube channel of the Kule Folklore Centre.
About the presentation:
Ukrainian dance is often conceived as having one stable, spectacular, and monumental “staged folk” dance revival orientation since 1937, however this view is overly simple. The goal of this presentation is to describe a participatory reconstructionist folk dance revival in Ukraine which is gaining momentum. Somewhat similar movements (a more “rooted,” “authentic,” “traditional,” “intimate” alternate expression in counterposition to the previously dominant spectacular staged folk dance scene) arose in central Europe in the 1970s, others consolidated in the 1990s, while a related process is taking place later in Ukraine. Our approach is to survey the pre-existing context for this reconstructionist revival, to describe several diverse groups within the movement, to report on how these groups’ activities contrast with the staged folk dance “establishment,” and finally, to explore some of the impacts of the Russian war.
About the presenters:
Lesia Kosakovska (Lutsk, Ukraine), Candidate of Art History, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Choreography, Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University. She has studied and published on dance history, the representation of ethnic groups in ballet and staged folk dance, on vernacular dance in her local area, and issues of pedagogy for the 21st century. She is influenced by Dr. Mykhailo Khai’s theories and has engaged in academic-reconstructionist projects for traditional dance of the Volyn region.
Andriy Nahachewsky (Brussels, Belgium) He occupied the Huculak Chair of Ukrainian Culture and Ethnography (1990-2018), at the University of Alberta in Canada. His publications deal with ethnic dance, Ukrainian traditions in the 20th century, material culture, the Ukrainian Canadian experience, and ethnographic methodology. He has conducted fieldwork projects in Ukrainian communities in a dozen countries. He serves as Secretary for the ICTMD Study Group on Ethnochoreology.
Kosakovska and Nahachewsky have recently collaborated on several projects, including a study of the new “Reconstructionist” participatory dance revival in Ukraine.