The Ukrainian parliament recently adopted as a basis a draft amendment to the law "On physical culture and Sports” granting official “national sports” status to combat hopak and other exotic martial arts. Apparently, the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Andriy Parubiy acted as a lobbyist for the "legalization" of the military hopak. He did not hide his joy at the results of the vote (it was possible to carry out the issue, however, only on the second attempt) and even admitted to the 112 TV channel that at one time he personally dealt with hopak. The Minister of Youth and Sports of Ukraine Igor Zhdanov, commenting on the decision of the deputies, noted that “during the years of independence of Ukraine, sports that have grown from Ukrainian traditions". But for people who are at least a little familiar with the history of the issue, what is happening today around the “combat hopak” cannot cause anything but Homeric laughter.
The Ukrainian edition of Wikipedia claims that “combat hopak is a Ukrainian martial art recreated on the basis of elements of traditional Cossack combat that have been preserved in folk dances, and own experience martial arts researcher Volodymyr Pilat from Lvov. Vladimir Pilate is a remarkable personality. According to the same Wikipedia and numerous interviews, his father comes from an ancient knightly family, known since 1121. His maternal grandfather allegedly served in the personal guard of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph. It was the grandfather who began to teach young Vladimir to wrestle. Pilate regularly claims that he is of "Cossack stock". At the same time, he obviously relies on absolutely dark people, since any more or less literate person knows that there are no Cossacks on Western Ukraine never happened (or rather, they came in, but not for long, to severely punish " former brothers”, who succumbed to the Uniatism, but they were definitely not inclined to create families with the Galicians).
Having been engaged in gymnastics for four years, and freestyle wrestling for two, Vladimir, who at that time was only 12-13 years old, allegedly began to comprehend kyokushinkai (kyokushinkai) karate since 1968. In any case, this is how he tells reporters about it. Where Vladimir managed to find a teacher is a big mystery. The fact is that even in Japan, the first recognized Kyokushin center arose only in 1964. In the USSR, the style was first "brought" by Alexander Ivanovich Tanyushkin, who learned about its existence in 1969 and brought it to his homeland from abroad only in the 1970s. So, in order to start mastering Kyokushin in 1968, the young Pilate had to at least have the gift of foresight.
In parallel with Kyokushin, Vladimir Pilate, according to him own confession, studied goju-ryu, sone, shotokan karate, jujutsu, aikido and kickboxing. In the late 1970s, Pilate began to teach martial arts, and in 1985 he created the "Experimental School for the Study of Martial Arts of the Ukrainian People." Last undertaking became possible thanks to the support of ... the Komsomol, which provided the "Sensei" for the needs of national martial arts gym. At this time, Pilate declared that sacramental knowledge about ancient Cossack martial arts was encrypted in the Ukrainian hopak, which he was able to “decipher” thanks to the knowledge received from his grandfather.
Soon Vladimir will move on. Excerpts from an interview he gave to the Rivne newspaper Volyn are circulating on the Internet. The material contains the words of Pilate, who claimed that, in fact, the combat hopak arose 8 thousand years ago on the Volyn lake Svityaz, from which the Hindu god Krishna and his guards “gopy” originated, dancing the combat dance “hopak”. The legacy of the "gops" was passed down from generation to generation until it was destroyed Soviet power and then restored by Pilate...
In other publications devoted to Pilatov's research, one can find statements that the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks trained with the help of the hopak.
And everything would be fine, if not for one big “but”. If Pilate had looked into the matter more carefully, he would have known that the hopak in his modern form- this is a cultural product not of Zaporozhye Cossacks, but of Soviet choreographers, in particular - Pavel Pavlovich Virsky, who worked in the 20s-40s of the twentieth century in the theaters of Odessa, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk and Kiev, and in 1955 - became artistic director State Dance Ensemble of the Ukrainian SSR. And also - Igor Alexandrovich Moiseev, who from 1937 led the Ensemble folk dance THE USSR. It was they who “recreated” (actually invented from scratch, taking into account some well-known ethnographic features) the “Cossack” dance, already forgotten by that time.
Thus, the secret techniques of the ancient martial art Vladimir Pilate restored according to developments Soviet artists ballet. The one who passed on the secret knowledge of the deadly Cossack martial arts to Virsky and Moiseev is a mystery shrouded in darkness...
Perhaps the “combat hopak” would never have gone beyond the limits of the Lviv gym generously provided by the “Soviet authorities”, if not for the political factor. Soviet Union confidently moving towards disintegration, nationalists raised their heads in Western Ukraine, to whom the “combat hopak” came in handy. In 1990, Pilate had already founded a unique organization called the “Galician Sich” (unique because, as we remember, there were never Cossacks in Galicia, and there were no Sichs until the 20th century, respectively).
The newly-minted combat hopak sensei began to train militants for right-wing radical organizations and contacted the Social-National Party of Ukraine (today - Oleg Tyagnibok's Svoboda). For all its outward operetta, the "combat hopak" was to a certain extent applicable in practice. Of course, synchronized kicks with two legs in a jump cause only laughter among experts in martial arts, but the fact that Pilate objectively practiced various types of martial arts is a fact. And under the guise of a "primordially Ukrainian hopak" he taught the youth local variant karate.
Pilate was initially skeptical about women's martial arts, but then something changed in his outlook on life, and he created a "girl's version of hopak" called "Asgarda". What exactly the relation of the ancient Scandinavian gods to the Western Ukrainian heroes is unknown ...
Following the combat hopak, a school of "Ukrainian national fitness" appeared - hopakrobika. In the hopak itself, a system of skill levels was formed, similar to the eastern belts - from “yellow” to “magus”. "Magi", according to Wikipedia, are equated to masters of sports of international class and can possess levitation, telekinesis and the ability to turn into animals. History is silent about whether these skills will now be tested by Ukrainian sports committees. But it would at least be interesting. The number of people simultaneously engaged in combat hopak in Ukraine gradually reached seven thousand people.
Maidans became a new chance for Pilate. After the first “revolution”, President Viktor Yushchenko awarded the Ukrainian “Sensei” with an order, and the leadership of the SBU promised to use his “works” in the preparation of special forces. After the second Maidan, the ascent to the stars began for the adherents of the combat hopak. In March 2014, the former Lviv physical education teacher and part-time head of one of the hopak federations, Mykola Velichkovich, became the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. And now a strange remake, whose history goes back to Krishna from Volyn and the Soviet ballet, is already receiving official status with state support. I won't be surprised if soon it will be taught in Ukrainian schools, like taekwondo in Korean.
Basically, in any physical activity There is nothing bad. Yes, and the ability to kick a direct kick to a person in life can come in handy. But the ideological wrapper in which the “combat hopak” is served today is fertile ground for the growth of Nazi sentiment and anti-scientific irrationalism. Krishna from Lake Svityaz is a worthy continuation of the stories about the “digging of the Black Sea” and the “ancient Ukrainian state of Kievan Rus”.
After the creation of the USSR, the idea of creating national types of dance arose. The tasks were carried out by Soviet choreographers strictly according to the instructions - most of the effort was devoted to entertainment Georgian lezginka. The traditions of Russian ballet were creatively reworked by choreographers, mostly Jewish. Love for the special role of the Georgian people found its dance expression. But there were problems with the creation of a special Chechen lezginka or Kabardian lezginka. Funds allocated more modest.
The people's attitude to dancing before the advent of television was generally "uncultured" - no one took upon themselves the obligation to limit themselves to a strict set of movements prescribed from above. They selected movements for themselves, so the Terek Cossacks or Kabardians danced the lezginka, not paying attention to what was Georgian or purely Dagestan in it. In the same way, the notorious Russian squat did not prohibit dancing without squats, waving your arms in the style of a Georgian lezginka, or taking elements of a "gypsy", that is, clapping your hands on your ankles and jumping. In addition, in many places they danced to different tunes and made different movements depending on the music. There was no rigid unification of dance styles on the principle of nationality, there was something else - the difference in dance styles depending on the melodies. Lezginka different nations they danced in a similar way, because the melodies set a similar rhythm and mood. For the same reason, there was often no fundamental difference between Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian dance. The Moldavian ones differed due to traditions, but they danced to the violin more often, as a result they had a different rhythm and mood. However, here, too, the similarity of music and style, for example, of the Bukovinian Slavs and Moldovans, testified that the people did not really adhere to the principle - this is the Slavic movement, and that is the Moldavian movement.
The powerful Soviet choreography, backed up by all the power of the traditions of Russian ballet, made it possible to create a whole system of dances. Moreover, the principle of the socialist hierarchy of cultures, where Russian national culture with its squalor and colorlessness, it was supposed to emphasize the colorfulness and originality of other cultures, demanded that Ukrainian dances be obviously more colorful than Russian ones. Therefore, acrobatic elements were introduced into the hopak. Later, Americans, without any reference to authorship and copyright, used these elements of the Soviet remake to create break dance - the national dance of blacks, which blacks did not want and did not want to come up with until the moment this dance was invented for them. The essence of breakdance is simple - to emphasize the physical superiority of blacks. Hopak pursued a similar goal - to emphasize the special strength and acrobaticism of Ukrainians against the background of other nations. True, a hopak in an ideal performance required gymnasts-dischargers, then break dance turned out to be even cooler. For high-quality performance of breakdance, it is desirable to have at least the level of a candidate for a master in gymnastics and the corresponding conditions - short stature, the ability to calmly sit on the twine, to have excellent skills in acrobatics. However, even a hopak in at its best simple peasant was never available. And the Cossack warrior, when performing a hopak in the style of the Alexandrov ensemble, would be hindered by a large muscle mass and great growth. It is not for nothing that good gymnasts and acrobats are mostly short in stature.
Naturally, good gymnastic and acrobatic training is easily used in martial arts. Martial arts initially always included training in the form of acrobatic exercises, stretching, bridges, etc. Exercises, among other things, promote coordination and speed of movement. However, only an idiot could invent a combat hopak, who did not understand anything either in the history of Russian ballet, or in the logic of the Soviet, "national" remake, or in the history of the Cossacks.
If you open the first page of Gogol's story Taras Bulba, you will immediately stumble upon a description of a training, fisticuffs. Blows are applied to the body, blows to the head and neck are prohibited. If we add here the right to kick, we get classic version Japanese karate. Please train, practice hitting and defending. Control check with blows to the head will be during the fist fight on holiday. The Russians had all this, the Ukrainians had it, and the masses of other peoples had it. At the time of Taras Bulba, it would never have occurred to anyone to engage in "combat" hopak. They put on armor, picked up wooden sabers and cut themselves. Then the nobility came up with special rapiers for themselves with a safe tip, and before that, from Rome to Japan, wooden weapons were used that could not damage the armor, in addition, they were often covered with leather for softness. A similar sport and military training existed until the beginning of the 20th century. For example, Chekhov first met Gilyarovsky in the gym, where Gilyarovsky practiced espadron (saber) combat with a partner. True, the armor was already used by sports. And now there is a sport fight on "saber". Previously, the armor was heavier, they protected the trainees even more reliably. In the same way they trained in saber combat, sitting on horseback.
Another thing is that firearms made the armor useless. Therefore, by the end of the 19th century, armor was not preserved in every Cossack family and not in every noble family. Many simply did not have the opportunity to properly train. Therefore, more often family lore retained other training methods necessary for the transition from a conditional battle with an enemy to a real one, when force is put into a blow in a slightly different way. This is cutting a vine at a gallop, practicing hitting a trickle of water. But before the main way of training was the fight in armor. In the same way, the art of turning the saber was an exclusively auxiliary way of training the muscles of the hand. Nothing could ever replace real sparring.
By the way, the notorious cracks as a symbol of a special, Slavic martial art are also nonsense. Yes, you can knock out an opponent with a slap, but the logic of the battle that we see in Gogol shows that, most likely, touching with the fingers as in a slap or a slap, and not touching with the base of the palm, was used to simulate blows to the head - with fingers to knock out or to you can’t send a knockdown, but if you hit with your fingers, then you could get it with your fist. And in the presence of helmets, it is quite logical to use a slap in the face to practice blows. We must not forget that training is aimed at developing skills, and is not intended to cripple an opponent.
Combat hopak is a typical example of nonsense that occurs in the minds under the influence of the Soviet remake. A real Cossack or a nobleman who has been training and sparring regularly with sabers since childhood would simply hack to death any specialist in combat hopak. And they didn't kill them. For example, we are told a lot about ninjas. Yes, they knew how to do a lot - sneaking, eavesdropping. But in the vast majority of cases, the fight between the ninja and the samurai ended in favor of the samurai. The samurai were taller and more massive, they could not hang on their fingertips and crawl along the walls for so long, but they were excellent with swords and prepared to repel any attack. Whack with a sword and no ninja. By the way, in the West, the nobles also prepared against various surprises - an attack with a club, kicks, etc. Good command of the sword made it possible to deal with any peasant who imagined himself invincible from success in a fight with clubs or from the ability to kick.
Soviet remake - terrible phenomenon. It would seem that under the sauce of fighting for a national remake, it's time to throw it away, but, no, the remake turns out to be stronger. Moreover, the remake is especially convenient for fools. Create, invent, try. Russian ballet, in principle, allowed to imitate anything - saber fight, circus acrobatics, dance of little swans, tug of war. The Ukrainian hopak was created so that the Ukrainian layman looked at the stage and admired - oh, how cultured and cool we are. But dance is not martial arts. And, in general, if there was a task to create a Chukotka hopak more beautiful than the Ukrainian one, they would have created it. And they would have created a combat Chukchi hopak. By the way, it's time to deal with Western nationalism - where it was more composed, in Lvov, in the West or in Moscow.
Ukrainians constantly want to be proud of something. And they are not even proud - they often "puff". Although the word "puff" is translated into Russian as "arrogance."
Although, as Anti-Fascist already wrote, there is no word for “proud” in the Ukrainian language. Where a Russian has pride, a Svidomo has “pihatist”, which in Russian is “vanity”.
But you have to be proud. Because how else to glorify the nation? To justify the murders of all sorts of "subhumans" - "separators", "cotton wool", "enemies of Ukraine"? That is why “cyborgs”, “heroes of the ATO” were invented, as well as fairy tales about the fact that Buddha and Christ had Ukrainian roots, and ancient Ukrainians founded the entire earthly civilization. And, of course, they reshape the history of Ukraine, talking about a state that was not on the world map before the formation of the USSR.
But it’s somehow violet for Ukrainians to be proud of the ancient Ukrainians, especially since many adequate citizens of Ukraine who have an education and read smart books, understand that this is the most blatant lie that the Ukrainian authorities could think of. And need some more real examples. Because you can’t be infinitely proud of just one vyshyvanka and dress up dogs in it.
And here we have found it! And they immediately canonized it - the combat hopak officially became national sports. Previously The Verkhovna Rada in adopted bill No. 5324, which introduces the concept of “national sport” into the legislation, and now the Ukrainian parliament has legalized dancing in bloomers in the sports arena.
Well, okay, dance has become a martial art, who feels bad about it? Look, Brazil has capoeira, they dance for themselves and wave their legs, they like everything. But the Brazilians did not call capoeira an ancient martial art, it was originally dances of slaves who disguised hand-to-hand combat training in their dances. But with the “combat hopak” it is much more difficult.
The author of this style is Vladimir Pilat, who has been developing it since 1985 and has even published two books. By the way, he is not only the supreme teacher of the combat hopak, but also the president International Federation military hopak, General-Ataman (respectively - Colonel-General of the KVU), Chairman of the Holy Council of the Association of Sons and Daughters of the Native Ukrainian National Faith ("RUNVera").
After this enumeration of titles, any sane person should understand everything. But this is only the beginning.
Ukrainian historians seriously believe that every movement of the hopak carries coded information. This style is aimed at reviving a harmonious warrior and is still considered exotic. And now, after the word “esoteric”, it is enough to recall another charlatan style - non-contact combat. Experts have heard about it.
But back to the combat hopak.
Let's start with the fact that there is nothing national in this so-called martial art. I can confidently state this as a martial arts coach and as a person involved in martial arts for 30 years. Let's take a look at these "combat elements".
The lower level - rotations (mill, barrel, garmelon) - that is, different kinds undercuts.
All this has long been in the arsenal of Chinese wushu, which is much more ancient than the most ancient Ukrainian. There are also these movements in Korean and Japanese martial arts, which almost all borrowed from the same China.
Next - squats (simple, lateral, with a hand strike on the floor, on the bootleg, on the sole), stretching down and to the side, slider, panicle, undercut, bookmark - the same undercuts and kicks from below from a sitting position. Many of these elements are known in jiu-jitsu, and in sambo and in any other fight, when a wrestler sits down to knock out the opponent's legs or to produce throws with the capture of his legs.
Upper level - jumps (string, ring, hawk, toad, etc.). These are elements of jump shots, which in hopak are more like not like hits, but rather like beautiful and high jumps. If practitioners of combat hopak at least once showed how they can break boards, tiles or something like that with such “gopas”, as Korean athletes do tang-su-do or tae-kwon-do, one could consider THIS strikes . And so - the masters of the "combat hopak" just stupidly copy the blows of Japanese karate-do - mawashi-geri, maya-geri, yoko-geri and others.
By the way, Vladimir Pilat, the Supreme Teacher of the Combat Gopak himself, claims that he was engaged in Kyokushin karate for 9 years, in 1977 he successfully passed the exams for 1st dan and received a black belt. He opened own school Kyokushin karate called "School of the Tiger", in parallel studies other styles of karate-do, kick-boxing, as well as professional boxing.
Any questions?
You can, of course, argue about the combat hopak, but let's talk about the dance itself. Because the fighting style was created, as it were, on the basis of dance, and this dance was mentioned by Gogol, and the first information about it dates back to the 16th century. The hopak melody has been used by many composers. Thus, hopak themes are present in Rimsky-Korsakov's May Night, Tchaikovsky's Mazepa and many other works.
He was mentioned - but no one remembers what he looked like.
The first to describe the hopak in detail is the Ukrainian composer Vasily Verkhovynets (1880-1938), the author of the book The Theory of Ukrainian Folk Dance. The hopak described by Verkhovynets included jumps, squats and spins, colloquially called hopkas in Ukraine. But he recorded the dances using only combinations of drawings and descriptions in words. But only words cannot describe the movements in such detail that from such a recording it was possible to reproduce the dance. For movement, as for music, a kind of recording system is needed. To date, there are two such systems that are used for records contemporary dance and ballet (Laban. Method, Benegh Method).
But the history of hopak, that is, that so-called “national” Ukrainian dance, actually began with the creation in 1940 of the Song and Dance Ensemble of Ukraine, which was headed from 1955 to 1975 by Pavel Pavlovich Virsky. Even the Ukrainians themselves admit that “it was this choreographer who created the academic folk dance based on classics and traditional folklore, and staged that famous hopak, with which he still completes concerts academic ensemble dance of Ukraine named after him.
But the “traditional folklore” was not Ukrainian. After all, Hutsul dances or circle dances can be considered traditional Ukrainian. As historians write, Ukrainian stage dance existed until then only in the form of inserted numbers in the performances of the Ukrainian musical drama theater and single Ukrainian operas. And so Virsky created the Ukrainian folk dance, as they say, from scratch.
The Pravda newspaper of March 13, 1936 wrote: “It must be said frankly that dancing is the best thing that was shown in the performance. Gopak in the fourth act "put on its feet" literally the entire theater!
Dancers flying high into the air with sabers in their hands, mind-blowing spins, masterful swordsmanship in dance, swift jumps and various “squats”, also performed with the preservation of technical canons classical choreography(eversion, elongated rise, clear positions of arms and legs, etc.) shocked not only the ordinary Moscow public, but also K. S. Stanislavsky himself, who enthusiastically appreciated the tour of the people of Kiev.
That is, the hopak was created precisely by Soviet choreographers in the USSR in the mid-30s of the last century. That is, the national Ukrainian dance, the pride of Ukrainians, was created by the communists, hated by today's Ukrainians.
Hopak urgently needs to be decommunized!
But that's not all.
Let me add the last fly in the ointment to the Ukrainian conceited fairy tale. Where do you think the main elements of Ukrainian folk dance came from? Never guess. From China. More precisely, the hopak received its main, so to speak, basic elements from ... the Uyghur folk dance. In the video, this is very clearly visible at 2.26 minutes.
Uyghur national dance
Uighurs - Turkic-speaking people, the vast majority of whom live in a region called Xinjiang in the far west of China. But the Ukrainian hopak surprisingly looks like Tajik, Turkmen, and Adyghe folk dances. That is, the dances of the Turkic tribes became the basis of Ukrainian dance.
Thus, not only the so-called “combat hopak” has nothing to do with the national martial art, but is a weak copy of Japanese karate-do, but the “hopak” dance itself is a symbiosis national dances other peoples.
It turns out that Ukraine steals not only holidays?
And the time has come to talk about the nation itself - the Ukrainians. Maybe it is also artificially created?
Today, the deputies adopted a bill that recognizes the combat hopak national view sports. Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Andriy Parubiy immediately boasted to his parliamentary colleagues that he had been working on it for many years. What is a combat hopak, sorted out "Country".
Story
The combat hopak is just over 30 years old. It was revived on the basis of elements of the Cossack battle: it is believed that the traditional martial art of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks was lost, and only some elements were preserved in folk dances.
The founder of the combat hopak is a Lviv resident, martial arts researcher Volodymyr Pilat. He studied various martial arts for 17 years. Taking up the study of folk dances, Pilate drew attention to the diversity of their movements. He discovered that Ukrainian dances, especially popular among the Cossacks - "hopak" and "metelitsa", include a large number of elements that are not common among other peoples and similar to military equipment - kicks in a jump, squats or spiders, various steps, reflections, sweeps, kicks, etc. Later, these movements, transformed with the requirements of modern martial art, formed the basis of the technical arsenal combat hopak.
The first experimental combat hopak school was founded by Volodymyr Pilat in Lvov in 1985. In Kyiv, it began to actively spread in the mid-90s. Now the most big centers military hopak are located in Kyiv, Chernivtsi, Ternopil and Lvov. They are engaged in about 7 thousand people in Ukraine.
Structure
Hopak military equipment combines dance plasticity with punches, blocks, grabs and throws. And also this is work with cold weapons from a peasant sickle or two to a two-handed sword.
There are 7 levels of military skill in the combat hopak. Three student workshops - Zhovtyak, Sokol, Yastreb, one intermediate workshop - Dzhura, and three workshops - Kozak, Kharakternik and Magus. Each step has its own coat of arms, as well as a characteristic hairstyle.
Elements
Stretching. For kicking two opponents at once or for jumping on a horse from behind. Illustration school.buza.ru
Pike - an ordinary jump over an obstacle, such as a moat. This movement can also be used as a jump kick with two legs.
Falcon. Avoiding an attack on the legs with a swing of the weapon to strike. Illustration school.buza.ru
Goat. An unexpected way approaching the enemy with a weapon attack. In this case, a kick could be performed on the hands or weapons of the enemy, or, if it worked out, then on the head. Illustration school.buza.ru
Gun. A move to knock down an opponent. Illustration school.buza.ru
Earlier, Strana wrote that he had been engaged in combat hopak for many years.
0 commentsUkrainian folk dance has developed throughout the history of Ukraine and absorbed the results of the centuries-old formation of Ukrainian identity. Moreover, each region of Ukraine has its own peculiarities of folk dance in terms of tempo, steps, jumps and penetrations.
In this article, you can see some paintings dedicated to Ukrainian folk dance and read some interesting facts.
Yuri Evdokimovich Balikov (b. 1924) Ukrainian dance. 1986
Eduard Evgenyevich Pavlov (Ukraine, born 1937) Dance 1986
Veselovsky Details of the triptych "Hutsuls". 1937g>
Amvrosy Andreevich Zhdakha (Ukraine, 1855-1927) Gopak. A series of postcards on Ukrainian themes folk songs. 1911-1912
Without a doubt, the Ukrainian dance hopak is world famous, it is a kind of visiting card of Ukrainian dance art, and they usually write about this dance: “The whole Ukrainian soul is concentrated in the hopak.”
The emergence of hopak is associated with the Cossacks of the Zaporizhzhya Sich in the 16th-18th centuries. Initially, hopak was considered an exclusively male dance, in which the performers demonstrated strength, dexterity and heroism. It was a kind of combat training of the Cossacks. No wonder in Lately schools of “combat hopak” appeared in Ukraine, which are in no way inferior to famous schools oriental martial arts.
Women in hopak appeared later, thanks to the founder and head of the State Folk Dance Ensemble of Ukraine Pavel Pavlovich Virsky, who created the composition of this now famous folk dance based on classics and folklore.
The main movements of the hopak are the runner, the rope, the pick, the pas de basque and the low cabbage rolls. Male dancers perform virtuoso squats, jumps and spins, each movement is practically a trick. Among the main ones is the “spread” (twine in a jump, when the legs and arms are carried apart in different sides), “spider” (the dancer in a squat leans on his hands from behind and moves in a circle, throwing his legs forward), as well as cabrioles, jumps “ring”, “hawk” and “toad”, squatting “creep”, “panicle” and “ cutting”, rotations “mill”, “barrel” and “garbuz”.
Gopak, being a cheerful, sparkling and temperamental dance, has been included by composers in operas and ballets more than once. Among the famous ones are the ballets "Gayane" by Khachaturian, "Taras Bulba" by Solovyov-Sedogo, "The Little Humpbacked Horse" by Puni, "Marusya Boguslavka" by Svechnikov, the opera "May Night" by Rimsky-Korsakov, " Sorochinskaya Fair"Mussorgsky, "Zaporozhets beyond the Danube" Gulak-Artemovsky, "Aeneid" Lysenko, "Mazepa" Tchaikovsky.
Aleksey Gennadiyevich Kulakov (Ukraine, born 1967) Military dance "Segovy Gopak". 2012
Natalia Papirnaya (Ukraine) Ukrainian dance. 2011
Alexey Gennadievich Kulakov and Natalya Papirnaya (Ukraine) Wedding. 2010
Alexey Gennadievich Kulakov (Ukraine, born 1967) Gopachok. 2005
Aleksey Gennadiyevich Kulakov (Ukraine, born 1967) Sketch of a dancing girl. 2010
In general, Ukrainian dances can be divided both by genre and by the ethnic directions of the peoples inhabiting the country.
So, ritual dances include "Vesnyanki", "Gaevki", "Rokhulki", all kinds of round dances that originate in the ritual holidays of paganism. These dances remain a favorite theme of choreographers to this day.
The second large group are Ukrainian household dances. They arose in all regions of the country, both in the central regions around the Dnieper (Kozachok, Gopak), and in the west, in the Carpathians (Kolomyyki, Hutsulka).
The third type of Ukrainian folk dances are story dances, which are based on movements that imitate the work of certain groups of people and the use of pantomime in the plot. Vivid examples the dances “Shevchiki” (Shoemakers), “Kovali” (Blacksmiths), “Mowers”, all kinds of compositions that tell stories at fairs, rural holidays, weddings, etc. can serve.
Roman and Nadezhda Fedyshyn (Ukraine) Hutsul dance series.
It should be noted that long before Pavlo Virsky, many prominent figures of Ukrainian culture were popularizing Ukrainian dance, who emigrated after 1917 to the West - to Canada and Australia (where huge diasporas of Ukrainians still live), and who appeared in Ukraine in the Soviet era.
Among the names that were previously consigned to oblivion, one can name the actor, choirmaster and musicologist Vasily Verkhovynets ( real name- Kostiv, 1880-?), who in 1919 published the book "The Theory of Ukrainian Folk Dance", where he first classified the various steps and introduced the terminology.
Based on the work of Verkhovynets, his work was continued abroad by Vasily Avramenko (1895-1981), who emigrated to Canada in 1925, Vladimir Kaniya and Natalia Tyravskaya, who founded the Ukrainian National Ballet, later renamed the ensemble "Veselka".
In Ukraine itself, the national dance art promoted by Pavel Virsky and Nikolai Bolotov, who founded in 1937 State Ensemble folk dance of Ukraine, Yaroslav Chuperchuk, who founded the Galicia song and dance ensemble in 1946, Kim Vasilenko, head of the Dnepryan dance ensemble, who compiled the Dictionary of Ukrainian Folk Dance. It should be noted that only the most famous names are listed here.
Anzhela Valerievna Moiseenko (Ukraine, born 1970) Gopak. 1997
Anna Vladimirovna Khomchik (Ukraine, born 1976) Joyful wedding. 2011
Anna Vladimirovna Khomchik (Ukraine, born 1976) Bukovinian dance. 2010
Anna Vladimirovna Khomchik (Ukraine, born 1976) Polka. 2008
Returning to the theme of the diversity of Ukrainian dance - this is due to different ethno-cultural regions of the country, which originally had their own music, language dialect, folk costumes and traditions. Of course, it will not be possible to place here a detailed study on the topic of differences in Ukrainian dance by region. Therefore, we list only the regions themselves and the names of popular dances.
For example, in central and eastern Ukraine, in the Poltava region, "Gopak", "Kazachok", "Crawler", plot compositions about plagues.
The highlanders, who inhabit the Carpathians and are called Hutsuls, are famous for their dances "Hutsulka", "Kolomyyka", the male dance "Arkan", many of the dance steps of which are taken from Bukovina, adjacent to the Romanian regions. Bukovinian dances embodied many of the folk choreography Romanians and Moldovans, because historically Bukovina was ruled long years Romanian principality. The dances in this region are distinguished by many shots and kicks.
But in Volyn, located in the north-west of Ukraine, the steps of the dance are characterized by energetic jumps and high-lifted legs. The dances in this area were influenced by traditional Polish folk dances, due to Volhynia's geographic proximity to Poland.
Polissya dances are based on the characteristic high movements of the knees, calling card region is considered to be a dance with Polish name"Mazurochka".
The dance traditions of the Ukrainian Transcarpathia are based on wide movements, the most famous dance here is considered to be "Bereznyanka".
There is also, with geographical proximity, differences between the folk dances of Podillya, Boykivshchyna (the northern and southern slopes of the Carpathians, where the mountainous regions of Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions are now located) and Lemkivshchyna ( historic land settlement of Lemkos, located now in the territory of the southeast modern Poland, Slovakia and the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine).
However, about the subtleties, characteristic choreography and traditions of Ukrainian folk dance in different regions Ukraine should not be told to me, but exclusively to specialists who understand the peculiarities, historical conditions etc.
Oksana Zbrutskaya (Ukraine, born 1982) Kolomyika. 2012
Oksana Zbrutskaya (Ukraine, born 1982) Gaevka. 2009
Oksana Zbrutskaya (Ukraine, born 1982) Dance of spring. 2008
Oksana Zbrutskaya (Ukraine, born 1982) Joyful dance 2012
