Video Spotlights Virsky Ukrainian Dance Company
At Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus

Brooklyn, N.Y. – In its newly inaugurated film and video series, Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus will present a video on The Virsky Ukrainian National Dance Company, as the centerpiece of a one-day exploration of Eastern European culture.

The screening will take place on Wednesday, October 6, at noon, in the Spike Lee Screening Room (LLC 122), as part of the Dance Department’s free “Afternoons at LIU” concert series.

Conceived as a celebration of the spirit of a people through dance, the company’s repertoire is characterized by innovative choreography that emphasizes virtuosity, agility and balletic prowess. By combining ballet technique with traditional Ukrainian folk dance, the company has garnered critical acclaim worldwide.

Originally known as the State Dance Ensemble of Ukraine, the company was founded by Pavlo Virsky in 1951. He noted that the operative principle informing his work was not the simple copying of ethnographic patterns of Ukrainian folk dance but rather the enrichment of existing forms “by means of creative interpretation.” The company was named after Virsky in 1977, two years after his death.

Myroslav Vantukh, appointed artistic director of the company in 1980, has revived and revitalized many of the renowned dances choreographed by Virsky that are the company’s signature works.

The Dance Department of Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus developed its “Afternoons at LIU” series of dance concerts more than a decade ago to make dance artists accessible to students and the public. The department offers a B.F.A. in Dance, with concentrations in performance and choreography.  

For more information, call Noel Hall at (718) 488-3355.

Long Island University opened its Brooklyn Campus in 1926, welcoming a diverse population at a time when other major universities enforced quota systems against racial and ethnic minorities. Some 30,000 students currently are enrolled at the university’s three residential and three regional campuses, including more than 12,000 at the Brooklyn Campus. Located at the corner of Flatbush Avenue Extension and DeKalb Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, the Campus is accessible to all major bus and subway routes and the Long Island Rail Road.