Ukrainian Zabava Festival

Toronto's Harbourfront Awash in Sights and Sounds of Ukrainian Culture

By Olena Wawryshyn

 
Toronto’s waterfront was awash in the sounds and sights of Ukrainian culture this Labour Day weekend as the city’s Harbourfront Centre presented Zabava, a four-day festival of Ukrainian music, dance, food, visual art, crafts and films.

Every summer, the arts centre features a series of international festivals focusing on different parts of the world. This year, the organizers chose to put Ukraine in the spotlight during what is possibly their highest-traffic weekend.

The Zabava festival, co-produced with the Ukrainian Culture Festival, featured entertainment representing a wide range of musical styles–from the traditional sounds of the bandura, performed by bandura virtuouso Victor Mishalow and the Canadian Bandurist Capella to heavy-hitting rock. The long lineup of entertainers, too long to list in full, hailed from Canada, Ukraine, the United States and Britain.  Some of the notables performing were Canadian blues singer Suzie Vinnick, prairie band Kubasonics, rock star Vika Vasilevich, the American Celtic-Ukrainian band Scythian and violinist Vasyl Popadiuk.

The performance of U.K.-based indie band, The Ukrainians, who flew over the pond for the Saturday-night show, generated a lot of excitement. Their high-voltage reworkings of Ukrainian standards, including popular folk tunes and songs of the Sichovi Striltski had the audience on their feet. A couple of appreciative fans who stormed the stage on a number of occasions were dragged off by security officers, but re-emerged and were back dancing along with the enthusiastic crowd minutes later.

Luba Goy of CBC’s Air Farce fame found time in between her stints on the national broadcaster’s picket line to emcee a number of the shows, including the late-night cabarets, which featured musical entertainment by several entertainers, including Toronto actor and singer Lada Darewych on both Saturday and Sunday nights.

At an outdoor pavilion, visitors had a chance to see how gerdany and pysanky were made and could learn about iconography from master painter Pavlo Lopata. The Shevchenko Foundation was represented through an exhibit about the life and contributions of Vasile Avramenko.

One of the big draws was the screening of Mamay, Oles Sanin’s 2003 feature film. On Saturday night, movie buffs lined up almost an hour ahead to ensure they got a seat, though the lyric style of the film left some in the audience scratching their hands afterwards. Dr. Yuri Shevchuk, head of the Ukrainian film club at Columbia University fielded their questions. Ukrainian short films. Shevchuk asked those in attendance to log onto the club’s website to post their comments so that the directors in Ukraine could read them.

Other hightlights included Intersection, a small art exhibit curated by Darka Maleckyj-Griffin, which featured work by Vera Jacyk, Inya Levytsky, Olya Mistchenko, Terry Pidsadny, Olexander Wlasenko, Anna Yuschuk, and Vladimir Zabeida. Over 30 photos of the Orange Revolution by Kyiv photographer Kyrylo Kysliakov were shown along with a video of the December 2004 events.

And what would a Ukrainian festival be without dance groups, especially one called Zabava? Modern dance artist Sasha Ivanochko presented Is This Love, a dance solo, and a number of dance groups performed.

Nobody went hungry: Several Ukrainian caterers set up shop at the festival and those interested in cooking could attend workshops on making traditional delicacies such as paskas, presented by Future Bakery, and borscht, presented by Hanya Cirka.

Kids were not forgotten as the Sunday schedule featured hands-on activities, readings and performances geared to them.

All in all, the festival was a great way to spend a weekend, soaking in Ukrainian culture, along with  the sun by the water on the last weekend of the summer holiday season. And, thanks to a long list of generous sponsors—Labatt, CIBC, the Federal government, the City of Toronto, the Ontario Arts Council and the Government of Ontario—the price for festival goers was right. Admission was free for all performances and activities, apart from a nominal $1 fee for some of the food-preparation demonstrations.