Festival Showcase at Premier Venue

John Pidkowich interviewed Jurij Klufas, Chair of the Toronto Ukrainian Festival which takes place August 31 to September 3, 2007 at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto.

John Pidkowich: What is the role of the Toronto Ukrainian Festival in the community and for building community spirit?

Jurij Klufas: The primary purpose of the Festival’s mission is to offer the largest celebration of Ukrainian spirit in the world, showcasing the best of Ukrainian arts and culture. Our mission is to present and introduce Ukrainian culture to the broad mainstream Canadian public. This is the reason why we created the Festival. The thought of it came from seeing how 5^th generation Ukrainian Canadians in Dauphin MB present their culture. Having seen their enthusiasm in what they did, I thought to myself this is what we need to do in Toronto. The feeling was that we have beautiful community venues such our camps and cultural centres. I thought all those places were doing very well on their own presenting our culture internally (with respect) “in the Ukrainian ghetto”. The vision of what I saw in Dauphin is what I thought we needed to do together with the mainstream Canadian public … the mission of the Festival is more of an outreach!

JP: With respect to the image the Festival portrays Ukrainians and Ukrainian culture to Toronto and beyond, do you think the Festival plays a role once held by the Ukrainian pavilions of Toronto’s “Metro International Caravan”, when it was a time we opened our doors and showed our face to society in a broader sense and not strictly for ourselves to see our children and friends dance as on a typical Sunday afternoon?

JK: I think the parallel here is that we had all these pavilions within the format of “Caravan”, where as with the Festival, we took the best of the pavilions, brought it all together and built one huge professional stage. The stage was the key and the focus of our activities in Bloor West Village. Our artistic cultural community – dance ensembles, choreographers, choirs, conductors, singers and other people are the core of our real Ukrainian being. Offering them a professional stage to perform on with proper lighting, flooring, audio facilities etc., I felt, was central to the whole concept of presenting our culture – bring it closer to a professional level. As is, all our ensembles perform in a quasi-professional atmosphere. Offering them a professional venue is something they don’t normally have.  We were able to offer them both this present and acknowledgement that they could rise to a professional level (and self-realization), having not always been able to showcase their professionalism.

JP: What is the importance of youth, young professionals and family involvement in the Festival?

JK: I think it is not only crucial but key. I would suggest our Festival Board and Committees, on average, have an age well below that of the traditional Ukrainian community committee. One of our key factors is that we expect everybody to perform at their best in relation to their professional capacity. If a member has a relationship to music, we expect comments in relation to music and not to marketing. We have various committees, but everyone is steered to express and to be as open with professional knowledge, within the framework of what they know how to do. The underlying current to all the work involved is supposed to be fun, engaging and warm. I think we have created a very positive atmosphere internally and projected externally. We realized the concept of developing volunteers and actually processed and received a Trillium Foundation grant. Over the last four years, we’ve been working very strongly to build up the feeling of volunteerism not just for our organization but for the community at large.

JP: How far is the Festival’s reach beyond Toronto?

JK: We have a combination of reaches to the West Coast in Vancouver, in Alberta (and other Prairie provinces) and south to Philadelphia, New York and Chicago. In those cities we have a “double-edge”, showing the Program “KONTAKT” which a strong marketing engine for the Festival. In terms of programming, we invite performance groups from those various cities to perform at the Festival. In addition to media promotion, viewers see that their performing friends are travelling to Toronto and, in-turn, also wish to attend the Festival. There is a synergy of marketing used to spread word about the Festival beyond the borders of Toronto. In this, advertising dollars are attracted from the likes of Tourism Ontario who see the practical workings of our festival marketing.

JP: Would you briefly comment on the Festival’s working relationship with Harbourfront Centre, the City of Toronto and the Province of Ontario?

JK: Harbourfront provides the infrastructure of the venue as well as staffing in terms of arranging and doing the programming. Technically, it’s a full production between our organization and theirs. We were invited by them to stage our 4 Day Ukrainian event over Labour Day Weekend. A few years ago, we had a little funding from the Toronto Arts Council. From the Province, we’ve had significant funding based on proposals to the Trillium Foundation, specifically for programs to develop volunteers. In some sense, the volunteer project does not stage the Festival but does benefit the health and growth of the Festival organization.

JP: Would you comment on the reason for the change in venue and name change of the Festival?

JK: These are two separate issues. In terms of our main aim or mission, that is to present Ukrainian culture to the mainstream Canadian audience, Harbourfront offered a higher level of opportunity to test – infrastructure not just for the performing arts but also to present Ukrainian films, present different aspects of Ukrainian culture on different stages, large and smaller cabaret style venue. Therefore, we are offered the opportunity to show a greater breadth (shyrshyj diapozont) of culture.

We do not have the financial nor human resources to stage an event both on Bloor St. and at Harbourfront although there are parallel benefits to our Festival. For example, Bloor Street has grown to become one of the few opportunities to galvanize our community, bringing various demographic levels together being children, student youth, adults and seniors, all at one venue. Bloor Street brought together novoprybuli and davnoprybuli and those whose families’ came generations ago – both vertical and horizontal demographics all in one - which we may or may not experience at Harbourfront and remains a test. With the Festival, we have at this time the luxury of working with interested and interesting people … We are at a peak - we can afford to try new things, investigate and negotiate from a position of strength and not from a position of weakness with nothing to offer or offer what is not wanted by anyone. For next year, in terms of marketing, promotion and fundraising, we are working towards presenting the Toronto Ukrainian Festival in Bloor West Village in 2008.

As far as name change, our organization has realized that we are going to be asked to present different (event-theme) issues, for example at Black Creek Pioneer Village. In doing such presentations, the name Bloor West Village is limiting in terms of our organization’s nomenclature (and scope). The core organizational group will be called the Toronto Ukrainian Festival.

JP: With respect to your demographic target, does it include the lost generation of Ukrainian Canadians who are not necessarily active now in the community, as they once were in their youth or as their parents/grandparents once were?

JK: Our target in reality is the mainstream Canadian public. The fact that we were able to touch the hearts and souls of Ukrainian brethren and of different demographics is a very pleasant by-product of our main mission and very proud to be able to achieve.

We welcome one and all to the Toronto Ukrainian Festival. The more we have of our Ukrainian brethren present at Harbourfront, the more successful the event will be. With participation of one’s own present, every thing becomes more pleasant and more heart-warming! 

For more information on the Toronto Ukrainian Festival’s program and show times, Harbourfront directions and updates, visit www.ukrainianfestival.com