Recommendations from the Kyiv Independent: Ukrainian folk dance (Patreon)

Hi! This is Valeriia Snopkova. I’m the Video Production Manager at the Kyiv Independent, and I’ve been in this role for about a year now. I joined the Kyiv Independent back in October 2023 as an editorial assistant, but this is actually my first time writing an email for our community!

I’m usually behind the scenes of our video content (go check out our YouTube after reading this), coordinating productions and all the people involved. But today, I want to share something a little more personal. A part of Ukrainian culture that has been with me since I was a child, and a few recommendations that might help you better understand the tradition of Ukrainian folk dance.

I spent ten years in an ensemble called Radist, or “Joy” in English, starting when I was just five years old. It shaped me not only physically (yes, I’ll be forever grateful for the posture I have), but also gave me one of my earliest connections to feeling Ukrainian.

Don’t be surprised. In Ukraine, enrolling your child in folk dance is about as common as signing them up for football, drawing classes or music lessons.

Long before folk dance became something taught and performed on a stage, dancing was simply part of everyday life in Ukraine. People danced at weddings, seasonal celebrations, village gatherings and rituals, with different regions developing their own music, movements and traditions.

In the Carpathians, the Hutsul arkan, traditionally performed by men around a bonfire, was also part of a Hutsul rite of passage. Other traditions followed the agricultural and ritual calendar: vesnianky welcomed spring, hayivky were performed around Easter, and Kupala dances accompanied midsummer celebrations. 

If you want to see what these traditions actually looked like beyond the stage versions, you can find some great footage of traditional Ukrainian dances, melodies and songs being performed in their original social and ritual settings here.

And then there is hopak, the dance most people associate with Ukraine today. It developed from Zaporizhzhian Cossack dance traditions and was originally more improvisational, with dancers showing their strength, agility and skill through jumps, squats, kicks and acrobatics.

Most of these dances were never meant for an audience. They were simply part of community life, passed from one generation to the next.

And then the Soviet Union came.

During the Soviet period, one of the institutions that had a major influence on Ukrainian folk dance was the Pavlo Virsky Dance Ensemble, founded in Kyiv in 1937.

But here is the twist. 1937 was the height of Stalin’s Great Terror, when the Soviet regime was carrying out mass arrests, executions and deportations across the USSR. The Soviet state was suppressing Ukrainian political and national identity while also promoting a carefully controlled version of Ukrainian culture.

When it came to folk dances, they were choreographed, standardized and transformed into theatrical performances, becoming just another Soviet propaganda tool.

But Ukrainians are kind of champions when it comes to playing with double meanings. Dancers found ways to preserve and pass on traditions, even within a system that was actively suppressing them. You can see the Pavlo Virsky Ensemble’s stage version of Ukrainian folk dance here.

Many members of the Pavlo Virsky Ensemble later returned to their hometowns and formed local groups of their own, creating a vast network of folk dance ensembles across Ukraine.

That’s how, in a big industrial city like Kharkiv, where I’m from, an ensemble called Radist eventually appeared. We rehearsed at the Palace of Culture of the Kharkiv Tractor Plant — one of those cultural centers created by large Soviet factories for their workers and local communities. 

We performed for the plant workers on major holidays like Independence Day, New Year’s Eve, Christmas, Easter and many others.

Even if the costume wasn’t as authentic as it could have been. Even if everyone around you spoke Russian. Even if the dance itself had been shaped, in many ways, by Soviet policies.

Every time you heard Ukrainian music and saw everyone dancing, it was hard not to feel that rush of joy and pride. Pride in being Ukrainian or just the adrenaline of going on stage?

At five, it’s hard to tell the difference. But I choose to believe that this was one of the first times I felt Ukrainian.