The Ukrainian Shumka Dancers are living up to their name -- which means whirlwind -- as they whip through the rehearsal hall, dancing to within a few centimetres of the bench where artistic director Gordon Gordey is sitting.
Gordey is unfazed, as he should be. He's been associated with the 40-year-old Edmonton-based dance troupe -- known for its high-energy steps and gravity-defying kicks -- since 1966.
Shumka is performing a run-through of its latest show, Cinderella -- a full-length narrative dance that gives the classic fairy tale a Ukrainian twist -- and the dancers have their moves down to the last perfectionist swirl and well-placed kick.
The rehearsal hall, Gordey notes, is slightly shorter than the actual stage size this troupe will use as they tour Canada with their 40th-anniversary show. Hence, the dancing right up to the edge of the hall.
After a particularly furious number, the music slows a bit and the dancers slacken their pace. Gordey explains that this segment is where renowned Ukrainian composer Yuri Shevchenko, commissioned to write the score, has deliberately allowed for a more languid dance moment. "I wanted to contrast the show-offy bits with the softer choreography," the director explains.
The dancers are doing what Gordey calls the "flirtation dance" where the blind-folded menfolk are searching for their beloved -- all except the dancer playing Cinderella. She hasn't met the Prince yet and doesn't have anyone to dance with. Gordey says the flirtation dance is an actual Ukrainian wedding tradition where a blindfolded groom is made to search for his bride. It's perfect for a fairy tale dance show that's essentially "a search story."
This "search story" -- where good intentions and appropriate actions are rewarded with a satisfying romantic ending -- is a fitting metaphor for the Shumka troupe itself. After all, how many other amateur ethnic dance companies can mount a lush $2-million production and launch a 12-city national tour (their ninth) with an all-volunteer, dancer-run, 55-member company.
John Pichlyk, Shumka's resident choreographer, sees this show as a culmination of the company's 40 years of hard work, a "right of passage" and a sign that it has arrived as a mature company.
In terms of box office alone, Shumka ranks fourth among Canada's major professional dance companies, going nose to nose with companies like the National Ballet of Canada and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet.
This makes for impressive numbers on the ledger page. But more importantly, it means that every time Shumka tours thousands of Canadians get introduced to Ukrainian dancing only to discover that the art form isn't what they expected.
"There's this stereotypic image of Ukrainian dancing," Pichlyk says. "You know what I mean, the Cossack red boots, the puffy pants, the peasant village settings, the ribbons and colourful costumes and all these steps tied to the earth and the agricultural life of Ukrainian settlers."
While aspects of that image are accurate, Pichlyk underlines that Ukrainian dance is anything but static and has evolved immensely from the seven basic steps that formed the core of most repertories a few decades ago.
"There's a huge lexicon of movements in modern Ukrainian dance," he insists. "It's not a museum piece."
The average Shumka dancer has spent 12 years in dance training prior to auditioning for the company. Some of that will be through one of the thousands of Ukrainian dance groups and schools across the country (including Shumka's own school), but dancers also bring their experience from ballet and modern dance. For its previous tour, Shumka collaborated with celebrated post-modern dancer Brian Webb. With this production, Victor Lytvynov, artistic director of the Kiev Ballet, was invited on board as guest choreographer.
Asked how Shumka has managed to evolve in such a postmodern way, Andriy Nahachewsky, associate professor of the Ukrainian Folklore program at the University of Alberta, puts it this way: "It's a living art form that's evolving as theatre art using theatre process -- a form that has given it much success in Canada's urban centres."
Authenticity was always a concern for Ukrainians in Canada, separated by distance and politics from their homeland for much of this century. "While Greek folk dancing might be seen as more authentic, they [Greeks]had the option of being able to go back to Greece and check out the dancing in the villages," says Nahachewsky. "Ukrainians never had that option until very recently."
Ukrainians in Canada, especially western Canada, were seen as having "kept the beacon of Ukrainian culture alive," says David Marples, U of A history professor and acting director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.
Young Ukrainians who couldn't speak the language could always do their part by dancing -- and dance they did in huge numbers. Dance helped unify a community that had emigrated to Canada over the better part of a century from different parts of Ukraine with different religious backgrounds and socioeconomic roots.
The first major immigration -- 170,000 farmers -- took place between 1891 and 1914 as Canada actively solicited agricultural workers from Europe. Between the two world wars, a second wave brought some 70,000 more, a mixed group seeking political and economic asylum. Then between 1947 and 1954, Canada welcomed a further 34,000 Ukrainians, displaced people and the most complex socioeconomic group yet. While the Prairie provinces were the beneficiaries of the first two waves, this third influx settled mainly in Ontario.
Dancer Larissa Banting, an Ontario-born Shumka veteran returning to play the role of the Voroshka in Cinderella (the Fairy Godmother in the traditional telling), knows first hand the importance of Ukrainian dance as a unifying agent. It provided her an immediate entry point to the Alberta Ukrainian community when she moved to Edmonton a decade ago. "I auditioned for Shumka not long after I arrived in Alberta and found a ready-made community there for me," says Banting.
"I didn't grow up with Ukrainian spoken in the house so I related to the culture in song and dance," adds Banting, whose mother was the daughter of a second-wave Ukrainian immigrant and who's father was Irish (and a relative of Frederick Banting).
The interview with Gordey comes to an end just as the troupe wraps up its rehearsal of the first act. Surveying the dancers, who look surprisingly energized despite their vigorous workout, Gordey smiles and says that with Cinderella under the company's belt, he looks forward to making time for other priorities, such as mentoring emerging choreographers and artistic visionaries.
No one knows for sure what lies in store for the Shumka dancers, but if the past 40 years are any indication, it's going to be quite the ride. The Ukrainian Shumka Dancers perform in Brandon tonight. Other stops on the tour, which runs through April 9, include Saskatoon, Regina, Cranbrook, Kelowna, Nanaimo, Victoria and Vancouver.