Virlana Tkacz accepting the award from Minister of Foreign Affairs Arseniy Yatsenuk Chairman of Yara's Broad Sam Glazer, Virlana Tkacz, La MaMa's Ellen Stewart and Wanda Phipps at the Awards Ceremony UKRAINE GRANTS AWARDS TO UKRAINIAN AMERICANS by Valentin Labunsky MEEST, Sept 8, 2007. "On the 16th Anniversary of Ukraine’s Independence President Victor Yushchenko awarded several members of our community for their significant contribution to Ukraine… New York theatre director Virlana Tkacz who heads the celebrated Yara Arts Group was named “Honored Artist of Ukraine…”     Among the honorees is an amazing woman – Virlana Tkacz. If Kyiv was going to honor only one Ukrainian American artist, without a doubt it would have to be Virlana Tkacz. Talented and unbelievably hard-working, she constantly presents her audiences with new projects which at first glance seem highly unlikely. She was the one who brought real village Hutsul koliadnyky (winter song singers from the Carpathian Mountains) to New York. It was Virlana Tkacz who introduced New York to Vasyl Yeroshenko, a unique Ukrainian poet who was blind and could not see the colors of this world, but felt the souls of people around the world. It was Virlana Tkacz who staged in New York her own version of “The Forest Song,” based on the renowned play by Lesia Ukrainka, but “adapted” to contemporary New York reality. Actors of various nationalities appear in her unique theatre troupe, the Yara Arts Group. Virlana Tkacz has managed to engage them with Ukrainian culture and inspired them to love it. This love is experienced by the thousands of people of every shade of skin and shape of eye who attend Virlana Tkacz’s theatre pieces at La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York." CONGRATULATIONS TO VIRLANA TKACZ by Ihor Slabicky Ukrainian Weekly, October 14, 2007. "I recently received an e-mail that started with 'Congratulations!!!' I've always thought of you as Honored Artist of the World!' The author went on to tell how the president of Ukraine had presented Virlana Tkacz, the director of the Yara Arts Group, with a mdeal and a proclamation naming her "Honored Artist of Ukraine."     As I read that e-mail, and browsed the enclosed links, I thought this is pretty amazing! But then, why not?     Ms. Tkacz singly and through Yara Arts Group has done more than anyone to present Ukrainian culture and life and traditions to both Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian audineces in a way that is intriguing, eye-opening and innovative. Her words delve deep into the past and bring it forward, whole and intact, to the present, to be remembered in the future. She has done this not once, or twice, but year after year, each time outdoing herself and presenting something more fascinating than the previous time. This has not been with just Ukrianian themes, but other cultures as well -- that is the art, the artist, the creative.    "Mnohaya Lita," Virlana! VIRLANA TKACZ NAMED "HONORED ARTIST OF UKRAINE" by Tamara Stadnychenko Our Life, November 2007 "In a ceremony held at the Ukrainian Institute in New York on September 24, 2007, Virlana Tkacz, director of the Yara Arts Group, was recognized for her artistic and creative endeavors by the government of Ukraine. Officiating at the ceremony was Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arsenyi Yasenyuk, who presented Ms. Tkacz with a medal and a document, signed by Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko, naming her “Honored Artist of Ukraine.”    Creator, director, and producer of numerous original theatrical works, Ms. Tkacz is also an accomplished writer, translator, and poet. Over the decades her work in theater has ranged from independent productions to collaborative works with Kyrgyz artists and contemporary Ukrainian poets and musicians. Yara productions have enthralled audiences from New York to Mongolia, in numerous theaters in Ukraine, at college campuses in the United States, and beyond. The productions are as multifaceted as the locations in which they have been showcased: sets, costumes, prose, music, and poetry interwoven in an innovative style that intrigues and enlightens while it entertains.     This is not the first time Virlana Tkacz has been recognized for her work. Her credentials include numerous grants and awards. In 1989, for example, she was named the Jerome Foundation’s Emerging Director of the year. In 1991, she won the annual Translation Prize awarded by Agni and Boston University. Since 1993, she has been awarded 11 New York State Council on the Arts Translation Grants for Ukrainian, Buryat, and Kyrgyz poetry. She was a Fulbright Fellow at the Theatre Institute in Kyiv in 2002 and a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Translation Fellow in 2005.     Virlana Tkacz is also no stranger to the Ukrainian community. In 1988, she initiated the Harvard Summer Institute Theatre Workshops for Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. For eleven years, she created original theater pieces with the students. In 1990, Virlana was presented with the UNWLA’s Young Woman Achiever Award. Over the past decade, she has contributed several articles about her work to Our Life, sharing with readers her passion for her work and for the people she has worked with, telling fascinating stories about the way they have shaped her art and the way she has shaped theirs.     Ms. Tkacz has presented numerous scholarly papers on Ukrainian theater, several of which have focused on the life and work of Les Kurbas. One of the earliest productions of Yara Arts Group was A Light From the East, a work based on Kurbas’s diary. Ironically (or perhaps fortuitously), the play was on tour in Ukraine in 1991, the year the Soviet Empire was crumbling and the year Ukraine declared its independence.     It was during this tumultuous time that Virlana and her troupe, advised by the American Consulate to leave Ukraine, decided “The play must go on.” In this decision, Ms. Tkacz and her colleagues followed an eerie precedent and created a mirror image of what had occurred decades ago: Kurbas and his company made art during a revolution that ushered in communism; Virlana and her American troupe performed the life of Kurbas as the walls of communism came tumbling down.     Accepting the medal and the title “Honored Artist of Ukraine,” Ms. Tkacz observed, “It’s a great honor. Les Kurbas was the first to be named honored artist of Ukraine in 1925. Today, I am very proud that this is another thing we share. . . and it reveals great possibilities for the development of Ukrainian theater in the international context. This, after all, was Kurbas’s goal—he wanted Ukrainian theater to step into the light on the world stage.” She graciously noted, “Every Yara artist who worked on our shows in Ukraine shares in this honor.” We congratulate Ms. Tkacz on receiving this wonderful tribute and anticipate there will be many more successes to come. Mnohaya Lita!" to return home