Cooking Borsch and Ukrainian Dance in Lutsk + Poltava

We can find meaning in pretty much anything — give us a pair of character shoes and we’ll connect it to our entire Ukraine journey; give us a matching tattoo and we’ll literally never stop talking about it; give us a bowl of borsch and it will inspire our next podcast episode.

A beautiful borsch board somewhere in Lutsk. Our mouths are watering.

We’ve talked about three of the five cities we’ve danced and lived in, and it’s about time we give you the overview of our last two cities — Lutsk (Volyn region) and Poltava (Central region). While we could just reminisce and bounce memories off of each other, it’s much more our style to cook everything into a grand metaphor and share it that way.

Turns out making a pot of borsch and Ukrainian dancing aren’t all that different. Both take time, patience, and don’t always end perfectly on the first try. The style from cook to cook or dancer to dancer may change leading to a different borsch every time.

Are you totally beet trying to figure out what borsch and Ukrainian dance have in common? Let’s go.

LUTSK

Ballet and warm up are like growing your own vegetables.

Imagine you have this beautiful space to grow a garden — the perfect soil, great plot of land, and excellent seeds — then once the garden is in, there’s not enough rain to grow your veggies. This is what dancing in Lutsk was like.

This isn’t to say that dancing in Lutsk wasn’t ideal, because we truly had the greatest experience — but we have to admit that ballet and warm-up with the Volyn Ensemble was tough! Our level of ballet coming into the year was low — we had some experience, but most of it was in the context of Ukrainian dance, and we didn’t have much extra training.

The ensemble members were all very talented dancers, and we saw them continuing to push themselves during their warm-up, which in turn inspired us to keep working through the challenges. We would come to the studio around an hour early every day so we could work on the various classical exercises and warm-ups — when it came time to do them in class, we were focused to use our bodies properly rather than just trying to recall what movement comes next.

Roman Smyrnov (son of the ensemble’s Artistic Director Valeriy Smyrnov) led ballet and warm-up. Besides the barre exercises changing every couple of weeks, sometimes Roman would ask us to start an exercise with the barre on our right side — this was a simple but effective way to keep our brains from getting lazy and not robotically moving through exercises. All of the dancers were so helpful in giving us pointers, showing us combinations and exercises 5 million times, and just generally being very encouraging. We went from working-out-the-combos-on-the-side dancers to fake-it-til-you-make-it-finally-taking-centre-stage dancers, going in our own group during exercises.

Trying to keep the veggies surviving and our ballet skills thriving was no easy feat, but with proper nurturing, patience, and dedication, it paid off.

Technique and Centre work are like washing, chopping, shaping, and prepping the vegetables.

Some people shred their veggies for borsch, while others dice them. There’s no wrong way — it’s simply a preference. This is just like shaping a dancer to match a certain style.

When we think of how we chopped our vegetables or shaped ourselves in Lutsk, an image of a dull knife comes to mind — we know, very encouraging. It’s not that we didn’t have the proper tools to shape us into Volyn dancers, but the journey to shape us into their style was a difficult one. We tried to be patient as we developed a new style but often got frustrated at the time it was taking to reach our goal.

With each ensemble we danced in, it took time to get to know their style of dance — and just when we felt like we had gotten the hang of it, it was time to pack our bags and head to the next city. We were coming from Chernivtsi, the Bukovynian region of Ukraine, where the style of dance is more upright, full of rhythm, and accompanied by speedy-quick music. Certain portions of Bukovynian and Volyn dances overlap, but stylistically the ensembles were very different from one another.

Cheesing hard through the massive studio windows at the Volyn Philharmonic.

The Volyn Ensemble worked on ballet and technique for about 45 minutes and then took a break. During that break we would continue working on combinations, steps, and turns. You could probably chop beets with how fast the Volyn Ensemble did chaines turns, and by the end we were pretty speedy too.

Like a dull knife chopping vegetables, figuring out the ensemble’s style was difficult but not impossible.

Working on choreography is like cooking and blending all the flavours into one delicious dish.

This is when you really get to apply the exercises, technique, and training into something beautiful. With the Volyn Ensemble, we often worked on choreography along the sides of the studio while the ensemble dancers worked in the centre. Once they would go on break, we would flood the studio floor and work on as much as we could. Some of the dancers would spend their breaks with us, teaching us pieces of choreography and even working through entire dances.

There were a few rehearsals where we stayed back to practise at the studio while the ensemble was away for a performance. These rehearsals were one-on-one with Artistic Director Valeriy Smyrnov or one of the dancers who also stayed back. One reminder they always gave us was to breathe! When we partnered up, they could feel how stiff and rigid we were. We were so used to leading — not to put a sweeping statement over all male Ukrainian dancers in Canada, but often we ladies had to take charge in our groups. So this reminder in Lutsk was a nice way of telling us to let go so our partners could lead.

Performing is like adding the garnish on top of your borsch.

The garnish is something a little extra that makes the borsch go from sort of memorable to unforgettable. Ukrainian dance is great, but it’s even better when you get to perform! While we didn’t exactly get to perform in a traditional sense during our time with the Volyn Ensemble, there were no shortages of this performance feeling.

We were lucky to have this backstage view on multiple occasions.

A favourite moment in Lutsk was our last day with the ensemble. They were preparing to go on tour and were running their show with the whole gang — choir, orchestra, and dancers.

We Canadians were invited to dance one number with them during that rehearsal. It started off with us standing behind the choir as they sang the opening number. We vividly remember looking out the massive studio windows as our bodies quivered from both nerves and the power of the choir’s booming voices. There was a collective passionate energy that could be felt in the air — sort of the same as when people say “tension in the air is so thick, you can cut it.” But in a good way.

The passionate energy in the air was so thick, you’d have to chop it (and a dull knife wouldn’t do the trick). The opening song led immediately into the first dance number, and away we went with our partners. We can still picture the little winks of encouragement and smiles of pride of the choir members as we danced by them. We hit our final pose of the dance, and there wasn’t a moment of silence before the entire studio erupted in cheers, whistles, applause — it felt like we had just performed for a small group of our closest family and friends, even though we had only known these people for two months.

It’s also worth noting that ensembles in Ukraine spend every rehearsal working on their performance quality. If they are dancing, they are performing. As the year went on and this became the normal for us, every rehearsal began feeling like a performance.

Tasting the borsch is when you truly get to enjoy all that Ukrainian dance adds to your life.

Our final performance in rehearsal was a reflection of our entire two months in Lutsk — the choir and dancers treated and supported us like their own family. They invited us into their homes, attended our birthdays, walked us home from outings, invited us to take dance/workout classes at their second jobs, and spent time with us showing the nooks and crannies of Lutsk. There were tears from both sides when it was time to move cities.

We didn’t leave Lutsk just with a better understanding of how to properly execute some tricky ballet exercises — we left with an entirely new second family.

POLTAVA

Everything in Poltava was sped along — partly because we were only there for six weeks, partly because Artistic Director Vadim Perepelkin was a fiery, lively man.

Ballet and warm-up are like growing your own vegetables.

In Poltava, we were growing our veggies with the best seed-starting resources. This was the last city we lived in, and we had experienced so many variations of warm-up that we felt confident. It still wasn’t easy, but we had a good handle on what was expected and were able to adapt fairly quickly. Pan Serhij, one of the seasoned ensemble members, led ballet and would often make slight variations to the day-to-day ballet exercises — this was tricky for our brains but a great way to keep us engaged.

Each portion of rehearsal with the Poltava Ensemble was about 45 minutes to an hour and then we would take a break. They maintained a strong structure to their rehearsals, which we really enjoyed and helped us stay focused and ultimately thrive in the environment.

Technique and CENTRE work are like washing, chopping, shaping, and prepping the vegetables.

And in Poltava we washed, chopped, shaped, washed, chopped, shaped, washed, chopped, and shaped! We did A TON of technique and centre work with the Poltava Ensemble. We would do a turn down a diagonal on the right, then the same from the left, then in the centre moving in a circle, then modified to be on the spot in the centre. And then we would move onto the next turn and work on it in every variation you can imagine!

Pan Poltava (what we affectionately nicknamed Vadim Perepelkin) was a tough critic. One of our last rehearsals in the studio, he called the Kanadskiy kukurudzy (Canadian corn, his nickname for us Canadians) forward to do a turn in the centre.

We turned, we posed, and we waited for feedback — this was the usual. Most often he gave a correction or two and would ask us to do it again before moving on to the next combination. This time there was a long, silent pause — uh oh, we must have looked really rough this time.

Finally Pan Poltava looked at all of us and with the most genuine, honest voice he said, "Molodtsi” (well done). He went on to tell us that he was so proud of our improvement and the growth he saw in us. He didn’t hand out favours and compliments, but when you received one you knew it was well deserved.

Working on choreography is like cooking and blending all the flavours into one delicious dish.

Turn that stove element on high — there was no coming to a slow simmer here, this was a full on rumbling boil. No time was wasted when we arrived in Poltava to get us thrown into dances and start learning choreography. “You learned six dances with another ensemble? Here you will learn seven!”

Pan Poltava was extremely particular about getting the style of his choreography just right — so much so that we spent upwards of 20 minutes on multiple occasions working on our bow. He wanted us to achieve the perfect tilt of our head, blink of our eyes, posture of our chest and back, angle of our hand, timing of bending forward, all while exuding genuineness to thank the imaginary audience. Nothing was too insignificant for Pan Poltava to pick apart.

Poltava is the only place we have videos of our entire rehearsals. Of course we have clips from practising combos at different studios, but all of them are planned and intentionally recorded. Poltava was different — Pan Serhij set up a camera in the corner of the studio and recorded the ENTIRE rehearsal.

He would send them to us later in the day and we got to watch ourselves like an athlete watches film. This was such an effective way to pick apart corrections for ourselves, and at the same time it was incredible to see how much we had improved. Since this was our last city, we could truly appreciate how far we’d come not only with the Poltava Ensemble but also throughout the whole year in Ukraine.

Performing is like adding the garnish on top of your borsch.

And what better garnish for borsch than a massive dollop of sour cream?

This whole borsch theme was inspired by Pan Poltava. A man after our own hearts, he used metaphors and silly anecdotes all the time to give corrections or to get a point across.

We can’t quite recall the context, but one of his golden phrases we have never forgotten is, “Borsch without sour cream is like kissing without tongue.” And this perfectly fits in with Ukrainian dance — what is Ukrainian dance without the chance to perform? Borsch without sour cream, kissing without tongue, Ukrainian dance without performing — they’re all just missing that one thing.

We had a chance to perform in Poltava at the Halushky Festival — a festival celebrating a delicious dumpling from the central region of Ukraine. The stage was TINY, but nothing was going to stop us from soaking up our final performance in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Dance Workshop Tour was a separate tour group that met us in Poltava and watched our final performance — it was special for us to have some fellow North Americans cheering us on. Some of our new friends we made in Poltava came to see our final performance and gave us flowers — we felt like true Ukrainian dancers in Ukraine.

The Kanadskiy kukurudzy and the Poltava Ensemble ladies at our final performance at Poltava’s festival of halushky. — The *Kanadskiy kukurudzy* and the Poltava Ensemble ladies at our final performance at Poltava’s festival of halushky.

And finally, tasting the borsch is when you truly get to enjoy all that Ukrainian dance adds to your life.

Pan Poltava eagerly took us under his wing and treated us like his own. He was so excited for us to experience Poltava and accompanied us many times on various excursions.

We even celebrated Pan Poltava’s birthday with the Poltava ensemble. We finished only a couple ballet exercises when suddenly an old door was being carried into the studio and set up as a makeshift table. Fast forward an hour when everyone is full of food (even though the table is still packed with heaping dishes), we’re singing Ukrainian songs with the accordionist following our lead, and we’re teaching the dancers the Boot Scootin’ Boogie.

Pan Poltava arranged movie afternoons for us to see Ukrainian classic “must-sees.” The movie afternoons were complete with a projector and theatre seats set up in the rehearsal studio, with our Ukrainian teacher whispering English translations over our shoulder throughout.

He took us to Poltava’s huge mall, accompanied us to the train station when we went on a weekend trip, introduced us to his family, took us to an opera at Poltava’s theatre, arranged various excursions, took us to the pharmacy when we were sick, and spent many, many hours speaking Ukrainian very slowly to us so that we could understand.

Between Lutsk and Poltava, we thoroughly enjoyed the borsch dishes they had to offer (quite literally and figuratively). Three year later (!!!) and the people, experiences, feelings, and memories still take up many of our daily thoughts.

And maybe we don’t remember exact details, but we simply need to read a line in our journal, take a look at one photo, imagine a moment in our mind, or remember a goofy phrase from Pan Poltava, and we feel like we’re still there hearing their voices and feeling their presence.

This is yet another reason why we do Vsi, to celebrate what we learned and who we met, and maybe inspire people to stick with Ukrainian dance to see where it takes them.

Life is simply better with borsch. And our lives have simply been better with Ukrainian dance.

You can listen to the podcast version of this blog post at this link.

Schaslyvo!