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YARA BRINGS DIVERSITY TO COMMUNITY COLLEGE by Oksana Bauer |
On April 3 I had the pleasure of inviting the Yara Arts Group to Passaic County Community College (PCCC), where I teach, to be part of our Distinguished Lecturers Series, Student Activities. Since April is designated as Diversity Month, the Office of Student Affairs joined me in sponsoring the Yara artists, who presented an extraordinary multimedia program. The presentation brought to light the mystery and beauty of faraway cultures and land to students at a college located in Paterson, N.J.
Director Virlana Tkacz showed slides from Yara's theatre productions since 1990 and spoke about the importance of cultural exchange to Yara's artistic process. Yara's dramaturg and translator Wanda Phipps, read a poem she wrote based on her experiences traveling through Buryat villages in Siberia in 1997. Meredith Wright, who created the lead role in Yara's Flight of the White Bird, sang a song she composed based on her experiences performing in these villages in 1998. The evening ended with a presentation by Akiko Hiroshima, who traveled with Yara to Ukraine last fall to appear in Kyiv at the International Festival of Ukrainian Theatre in Diaspora.
Ms. Hiroshima was accompanied on the three-week trip to Ukraine by Yara's Zabryna Guevara, Jina Oh and Marina Celander (who brought her ten-month old daughter Maya). There they rehearsed many old Ukrainian midsummer songs with Mariana Sadovska who was the musical director of Kupala. The piece, directed by Virlana Tkacz, also included four vocalists from Kharkiv's Oira Musical Ensemble and two Crimean Tatar actresses.
In addition to performing at the festival, the cast and staff of the Kupala project traveled to two Ukrainian villages, Kraichkivka in the Poltava Region and Svarytsevichi in the Polissia Region. They sang with the women of these villages in the local cultural centers. Nina Matvienko, who appeared in Yara's Waterfall/Reflections in 1995, joined the Yara artists in celebrating the women of Kriachkivka.
Oira's Halyna Breslavets and Nina Matvienko sing with the women of Kriatchkivka
Ms. Hiroshima began her presentation at PCCC by singing some of the Buryat and Ukrainian songs she has learned while working with Yara in her soaring voice. Her account of her experiences in Ukraine reads as follows:
"I learned these Buryat songs and Ukrainian folk songs in New York. When I say: 'I know Mongolian and Ukrainian folk music,' people usually wonder, 'Why Mongolian? Why Ukrainian?' I am an immigrant from Japan. I left Japan when I was still a teenager to study here in the U.S. As a child, I was very resistant to the traditional Japanese culture. When everyone else in my family was eating the traditional Japanese breakfast with rice and miso soup, I was the only one eating toast, cereal and cheese omelet. I would listen to American pop 40 on the radio. All the traditional stuff seemed so old-fashioned and boring to me.
"Last year I had a chance to visit Ukraine with the Yara Arts Group to develop a show we did in New York, with local artists Virlana had met, and perform it in a theater festival in Kyiv. The interesting part was that all of the four 'American' actors who went there were not really typical Americans. As I mentioned earlier, I am an immigrant from Japan. [Among the others were]: a Venezuelan girl who was the first American born in the family after her parents immigrated with her sisters; a Korean girl who immigrated when she was very young; and a Swedish girl whose mother was a Japanese-born Korean. But that's very typical New York, isn't it?
Yara artists Marina Celander with daughter Maya, Jina Oh, Akiko Hiroshima and Zabryna Guevara"Kyiv itself was a very interesting city. I saw old cathedrals from the 10th century and buildings left from Soviet times, as well as post-Soviet or "modern" influenced buildings in one city. However, the most amazing experience was to visit grandmothers in two small villages, who still sing their folk songs.
The singers of Kriachkivka with Mariana Sadovska
"The bus trip was so much fun. The almost-all-girl cast and crew got together one snowy morning and left Kyiv. We were on this 'main highway' which was just one straight road in the middle of a vast field. It was something I had only seen on the Discovery Channel. When we asked for a 'bathroom stop,' the bus driver pulled over next to the woods. My head was filled with many question marks, and soon realized the woods were our bathroom! What a refreshing experience! Then, we got to the village. I saw cows and chickens roaming in the field. We pulled over in front of this small house. Even before we got off the bus we saw these ladies in their colorful traditional costumes singing their hearts out. How powerful their voice! We jumped off the bus and they sang more. We also tried to sing, but we could not holding back tears of excitement. I had never been welcomed in such a powerful, exciting way, especially by people who I had never met!
"That evening's performance was very intimate and exciting too. It looked like the whole village was in the community center. I, along with my Korean colleagues, were probably the first Asians they had ever seen live! The grandmothers sang, and we sang the songs we learned from them, indirectly, in New York. Then, they sang again. It was almost like a competition. They call that 'calling.' It's like a catch-ball with songs. Those old ladies don't move much. They don't even open their mouths very wide. But their sounds could carry for miles. One of the oldest ones sang a very powerful song. We didn't know what else to sing back, but my impulse told me to jump in. I sang an old Japanese song of fishermen. And then they sang something else and one of us sang a song of our origins. Then that grandmother said we don't have to fight… So we sang together. We tried to learn from them on the spot. They sang clearly so we could get the words and melody. Just to remind you; none of us spoke Ukrainian.
Yara's Zabryna Guevara and Jina Oh learn from Kriachkivka's Nadia Rozdabara
"This whole experience made me look at my own culture in a very different way. What seemed boring before became something really beautiful. It took me a long time and a long trip to realize that. I gave grandmothers and grandsons of my host family origami paper cranes, as my thanks. The little boys were so excited, and they were playing with them all day. Now I am studying Japanese traditional dance and am enjoying it very much. And I hope the young local audience who were at the community center will give much more well-deserved respect to their grandmothers and learn to sing the beautiful songs that I was so fortunate to learn."
That evening's presentation ended with another Ukrainian song sung by Ms. Hiroshima and Ms. Wright. After the performance students filled out evaluations in which they expressed their awe and appreciation of what they had seen and heard. Among the numerous remarks were the following: "Continue to give us cultural presentations from other cultures around the world," "I feel learning about cultures and art from other places across the world is a valuable asset to community college. It broadens the local persepcetive on foreign cultures and helps people to be more accepting of others. The music was very intersting and beautiful." and "We need more of these programs that reflect cultures most of us know nothing about."
For my part, I am very happy to have the opportunity to host Director Virlana Tkacz and her talented Yara artists at my college. It is one thing to hear Ukrainian songs sung by Ukrainians but to hear them come out of mouths of African American and Japanese
American performers adds a whole new dimension to the experience. And to further see their presentation bring an audience of American students to their feet in admiration was at once unexpected, thrilling and very moving.
I congrtulate Ms. Tkacz for her heroic pioneering efforts to weave Ukrainian culture into the fabric of the American collective consiocuness, thereby enriching the ever-changing face of American culture.
published in The Ukrainian Weekly June 15, 2003.
BRAMA, Inc.
Copyright (c)1995-2003 Yara Arts Group; all rights reserved. Photos by Vitali Horbonos
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