Meeting with Diana Cuckovic

On March 10th, we met with my good friend Diana Cuckovic, a student at the University of Windsor. Diana takes part in Ukrainian traditions in Windsor and is a member of the Windsor Barvinok Ukrainian dance ensemble. Her family attends the Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Vladimir and continues Ukrainian customs and traditions in their home here in Canada. Victoria and I have never attended an Orthodox church service (let alone a Ukrainian one) so we asked Diana what a typical Easter-Sunday Orthodox church service would be like. She explained that the service is always at least two and a half hours long all spoken in Ukrainian, and the congregation remains standing for the whole service. There are no instruments played during the singing of the hymns and definitely no clapping. We also found it interesting that the room is split up by gender, men standing on the right side and women on the left. This is very different to the church services Victoria and I attend on Easter Sunday. Ukrainian Orthodox Great Lent is a time where they abstain from eating all meat, poultry and byproducts. For some families eggs, milk, cheese, and even fish are not allowed. Diana's family eats fish on Good Friday with potatoes. Their typical Easter Sunday meal would contain borscht (beet) soup, bread, perogies, lamb, cabbage rolls and kutia (sweet grain pudding made of wheat, honey and nuts). There is a fun Ukrainian game called navbytky that is played at Easter gatherings where each person chooses an Easter egg and knocks each other's eggs together. The point of the game is to crack the other person's egg without cracking your own. The last egg/person standing wins! Ha ha, this sounds like a lot of fun, I will have to try this at my family Easter this year!

 In this meeting Diana also taught us about the different types of Ukrainian dances and the order in which they would be performed in a program. The first dance in a Ukrainian Easter program is the Pryvit. It is a welcome dance with a lot of bowing, formal and slow where they present the blessed bread. This is one dance that is very presentational and non-participatory. There is one woman holding the bread and one man holding wheat. Next comes the Hopak a less formal dance, much faster than the Pryvit and participatory with much clapping from dancers and audience watching. The performers have many solos and high jumps showing off their hardest tricks. The final dance at the end of the program is the Kolomeyka. This is a social dance where the audience members join in and show off their own Ukrainian dance moves. Diana says although this is not a competitive dance it often turns into a showdown! Everyone forms a big circle and groups or individuals come into the center to dance. This dance is often seen at Ukrainian weddings and New Years celebrations. After learning all about the Ukrainian dances Diana taught us three basic dance steps from the Pryvit. 

We wanted to thank Diana for taking the time to talk with us, and give us a mini dance lesson. :)

Monica Lamos