Showing 33 results

Archival description
Gordon Gordey, director and dancemaker: Creating original Ukrainian dance in Canada
Print preview Hierarchy
Card view Table view
23 results with digital objects Show results with digital objects
Gordon Gordey, director and dancemaker: Creating original Ukrainian dance in Canada
CA BMUFA 0050 · Collection · 1996-2016

Gordon Gordey autobiographical reflection of a 40-year creative journey with The Ukrainian Shumka Dancers of Canada recounts his experiences creating his original artistic works with The Ukrainian Shumka Dancers of Canada. By documenting his dance concepts and librettos Gordey reveals his challenge to contribute original works to the canon of Ukrainian dance that is spiritually connected to generations of continuous cultural practice and resonates with 20th and 21st century audiences in Canada, Ukraine, Russia, and China. He speaks to evolving dance stories that embed themselves in viewer’s minds and become shared cultural touchstones in the evolution of our Canadian identity at home and abroad. Dance concepts and librettos for: Shumka’s Cinderella, Pathways to Hopak, Girl in the Red Dress TANGO, Vechornytsi (the multi-works in Life is a Cabaret), Eve of Kupalo - a Midsummer’s Night Mystery Masque and Voices of the Silenced are enhanced with photographs and video excerpts of the dances in performance.

This work was published in Ukrainian as a peer reviewed chapter in Collected Papers on Ukrainian Life in Western Canada, edited by V. Polkovsky and M. Soroka, Ostroh Academy National University Press, 2014, Vol. XLVII, Part Seven, pp. 242-275. All rights reserved. The English text was revised in 2016 for the deposit into the Archives. We have digital and physical access copies.

 Gordey, Gordon
Shumka remembers dance exerpt
Shumka remembers dance exerpt
Item
Part of Gordon Gordey, director and dancemaker: Creating original Ukrainian dance in Canada

Video performance excerpts for a contemporary original dance theatre work titled Shumka Remembers, conceived and directed by Gordon Gordey. Video excerpt contains commentary from Gordon Gordey at the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village, Alberta, Canada. This dancework was created for The Ukrainian Shumka Dancers of Canada. Shumka Remembers is a contemporary Ukrainian Canadian narrative folk dance theatre work with video exploring the unjust internment of Ukrainian Canadians as “enemy aliens” in Canada during WWI. These “enemy aliens” were subjected to having to carry registration identity papers, often pay monthly registration fees, and were under constant surveillance. Of the 80,000 who were registered under the authority of the Act, 8,579 were deemed: “enemy aliens”. The majority of “enemy aliens” were Ukrainians and were arrested and interned in 26 makeshift encampments located mostly in Canada’s frontier hinterlands. They were forced into hard labour clearing land for roads, building bridges, and building the railway.
Vechornytsi (Life is a cabaret)
Vechornytsi (Life is a cabaret)
Item
Part of Gordon Gordey, director and dancemaker: Creating original Ukrainian dance in Canada

Video performance excerpts of Vechornytsi-Life is a Cabaret edited in 2013 featuring live performances with orchestra and on stage projected video. Six cabaret style contemporary original dance works are featured to upbeat re-envisioned folk songs in a pop style including the classical style Melodia by Ukraine composer, Mykola Skoryk. These danceworks were created for The Ukrainian Shumka Dancers of Canada.