Performance Costumes
The Northern Lights
The costume is designed to depict the Gold and Diamond mines of the north, the cold white winter snow and the Aurora Borealis. Try to picture a clear, cold winter night. As you look into the sky you see the Northern Lights start to dance, breathtakingly awesome to the onlooker, we have tried to capture a small piece of this beauty today in our dance "The Northern Lights
Poltava
The Poltava is one of the more popular forms of dance and one you will see most often performed by Ukrainian Dance groups. The land from this region (the Central Ukraine) is very black and fertile and is very heavily populated. The costume from this area has become known as the "national" costume of the Ukraine. They are very brightly colored and you will see many colorful flowers and ribbons adorning these costumes.
Bukovyna
The Bukovyna area is made up of mining, agriculture and forestry. Culturally they are related somewhat to their neighbor the Hutsely, hence the dance steps of the Bukovinian somewhat resemble the Hutsul but with a flair all their own as seen both in the dance and the beautiful costumes worn by the group. Folk lore states that the more beads the young women wore the wealthier the family.
Hutzel
From the western mountainous region is the Carpathian Mountains where the second largest style of dancing originates, the Hutzel. In the Carpathian Mountains the climate is cooler, the area hilly, hence, the movements of the dance tend to be more sharp and upward. Because these people were hidden away in the remote mountains their lives changed slowly and many of the archaic customs and rituals are well preserved there.
Transcarpathian
Also from the Carpathian region comes another style of dance, the Transcarpathian
