Virlana Tkacz, founding director of Yara Arts Group, a resident company at La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York, spoke at the University of Alberta on February 2 and 3. She gave one talk as part of the Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies seminar series and another as part of the Kule Folklore Centre Graduate Lunch talks. In addition to her formal talks, she visited Ukrainian language and folklore classes and shared her knowledge with students.
Tkacz is the creator of 21 original theatre pieces which have been performed all over the world. She shows her work not only at La MaMa and the Ukrainian Museum in New York; she has had shows in Ukraine and even brought her creations to the villages of Kyrgyzstan and Buryatia, Siberia. Tkacz creates her pieces by talking to people and by recording their stories and their music. A conversation with the acclaimed Ukrainian singer Nina Matvienko, for example, led to a piece about mothers and daughters and their inevitable parting as the daughters leave home. Tkacz combined Ukrainian lyric songs and laments, performed by Matvienko and her daughter, Tonia, with similar songs performed by Ainura Kachkynbek kyzy and Kenzhegul Satybaldieva to create the successful Scythian Stones which played in New York April 16 – May 2, 2010.
While in Edmonton Tkacz discussed her creative process. She described travelling to Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Buryatia and talking to people and collecting material. She showed pictures of the places she visited and the people she met. She described coaxing songs out of people in villages, a detail useful to graduate students who are themselves in the process of gathering information for their theses and dissertations. She also talked about working with local professional singers to help document village stories and songs. Not all of the material which Tkacz collected over the years has been used in her theatre pieces and she has published a number of books of songs, stories, and photographs, often providing parallel texts: the original and its English translation. She brought a number of these books to Edmonton and displayed them during her talks.
Tkacz also described the many special experiences that she has had while collecting material. She met whisperer-healers in Ukraine and a shaman in Buryatia. One of her most special discoveries is a group of koliadnyky in Kryvorivnia, Ivano-Frankivs’k region, Ukraine. These are men who, during most of the year, are ordinary villagers, working as the local blacksmith and in other typical village professions. But at Christmas time everything changes. These men become artists and magicians. They tour every house in the village and sing to every soul resident in that house. This means that they sing to each of the members of the household and also to all the ancestors whose spirits are still present. Tkacz hopes to bring a group of koliadnyky to Edmonton next winter and to do a series of shows where she would work with the musicians from Ukraine and local Edmonton talent.
For more information, please contact Tkacz at yara.arts.group@ gmail.com.
