Ukrainian Dance - Modern History

Modern History

Ukrainian folk-stage dance began the path to transforming into its present incarnation first and foremost through the work of Vasyl Verkhovynets (b. 1880, original surname Kostiv), an actor, choir conductor, and amateur musicologist. Verkhovynets had acquired a professional level of training in the arts as part of Mykola Sadovsky's theatrical troupe, which had itself incorporated a distinguished level of folk dance in its productions of dramas based on Ukrainian folk themes. While touring central Ukraine with the theatrical troupe, Verkhovynets' would take off whenever he could and visit the villages surrounding the cities he was performing in, in order to learn about and record the villages' traditional dances. His landmark book which he based upon this research, Theory of Ukrainian Folk Dance (Teopiя Українського Hapoднoго Taнкa) (1919), brought together for the first time the various steps and terminology now recognized by all contemporary students of Ukrainian dance. It also fundamentally altered the nature of Ukrainian folk dance by setting dances on a stage (with the audience seated at the front, two wings, and a backdrop), and laid out a method of transcribing folk dances, which was later put into use across the Soviet Union. This book has since been reprinted five times (the last time in 1990) and remains a basic instructional text of Ukrainian dance.

The history of Ukrainian dance diverges at this stage of Vasyl Verkhovynets career. Because of the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, it would develop contemporaneously both in Ukraine as well outside of the Iron curtain for more than 40 years. In Ukraine, Verkhovynets remained involved in the training of the next generation of dancers, while outside of Ukraine Vasyl Avramenko, building on Verkhovynets' work, would develop the art form in the Ukrainian diaspora.