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Winter Songs

from Song Tree

Workshop in Ukrainian Folk Singing with Maryana Sadovska.

Yara Arts Group and La MaMa Theatre presents two workshops in Ukrainian folk singing conducted by Maryana Sadovska, who for the last ten summers has traveled through Polissia, the Poltava, Hutsul and Lemko regions of Ukraine collecting songs, stories and documenting rituals.

Discover the folk voice in you. Enjoy traditional harmony singing. Learn the ancient winter songs Yara artists recorded this year in Ukraine. You do not have to be able to read Ukrainian or music to participate.

Saturday January 20 12-4 PM, and Sunday January 21 2-6 PM $20 each session or $35 for both. Each session covers different material, so you can take either one or both. Call or e-mail to pre-register and get exact directions to the theatre's rehearsal space where the workshops will be conducted. (212) 475-6474 or yara@prodigy.net

MARYANA SADOVSKA was born in the city of Lviv in Western Ukraine. In 1991 she graduated with honors from the Lysenko Music College in Lviv. From 1988-91 she worked as an actress with the Kurbas Young Theatre in Lviv, appearing in plays based on the works of Dostoyevsky, Vynnychenko, Lesia Ukrainka and Alexander Dumas. She took part in the international projects "Slavic Pilgrim" at Jerzy Grotowski's seminar in Italy, Anatoli Vasiliev's "Laboratory-School of Theatre Arts" in Moscow and Virlana Tkacz's production of In the Light with artists from La MaMa in New York.

From 1991 she worked with Gardzienice Center of Theatre Practice in Poland which was founded 20 years ago by Vladimierz Staniewski. The theatre's productions are the result of "expeditions" to places where traditional culture is still preserved today. The theatre first traveled around Poland and the eventually throughout the world collecting folk songs, rituals legends stories and local histories. Maryana traveled with Gardienice on expeditions to Brazil, Egypt and Ireland. She appeared in the theatre's productions of The Life of Protopope Awwakum, Carmina Burana and Metamorphosis or The Golden Ass, which she co-created using ancient Greek music. Maryana took part in tours to Sweden, England, Belgium and Germany and performed at many international theatre festivals: Togo Festival in Japan, the Sao Paulo International Festival in Brazil, the Cairo International Festival in Egypt, the MESS Festival in Sarajevo, Bosnia where the theatre won first prize.

As the musical director of the Gardzienice Theatre, Maryana has conducted numerous workshops at American colleges and universities, as well as one with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford. For the past ten summers she has systematically traveled through the villages of Ukraine collecting folksongs and rituals. In 1993 she organized a large expedition to Ukraine with an international group of artists, musicians, researchers. Last year she released a cassette of her favorite songs from her expeditions to the villages of Ukraine.

Last year Maryana took part in Yara's Harvest: Ukrainian Folk Song Today, as well as Yara's GOGOL/HOHOL: Contemporary Artists, Writers and Performers React to the Master, where she performed Ukrainian folk songs that inspired the writer Nikolai Gogol (Mykola Hohol). Audiences were enchanted by her breath-taking performances. Her Calling Songs, workshops in Ukrainian folk singing sponsored by Yara and La MaMa last winter, received raves from participants and were sold out. So register early.

This summer Maryana Sadovska traveled with Yara artists to villages in Poltava and the Carpathians collecting songs and stories that became a part of Yara's production Song Tree which performed at La MaMa in December. For more see Song Tree

Maryana Sadovska will also perform January 26-28 at Yara's MALANKA: Contemporary Artists, Writers and Performers React to the Pagans January 26-28 at the Ukrainian Institute of America, 2 East 79th Street in New York. For more see Malanka


photo © Yuri Lev
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