As of mid-August, 2008, I am in Ukraine with the director of the Ethnic Dance Theatre (www.ethnicdancetheatre.com) in search of what remains of authentic dance in the villages of Hutsulshchyna. The following was videoed on Sept. 2, 2008.
This video is a clip of the Hutsulka as it is danced in the village of Velykyj Kljuchiv, in the county of Kolomyja, in the state of Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine. Hutsulka is the preferred, contemporary name for this dance. This is according to Mykola Savchuk, who is the main dancer in this video.
Mykola Savchuk is a journalist, folklorist and performer (he sings on a number of recordings of authentic Hutsul music), and also a comedian (“humoryst”) with a degree of recognition in his part of Ukraine. His knowledge of traditional Hutsul culture is vast and inspiring. He is Hutsul and is from a village where some of the old Hutsul dances are remembered and still danced– nowadays mostly at weddings. Also in this video with him his mother, father, sister, brother-in-law and niece.
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