The Seven Step
The kitchen is a magical place.
It’s where food is cooked up, where everyone seems to gather — no matter how many people there are and no matter how much space outside of the kitchen there is — and it’s also where, at least in my house, I review classic Ukrainian polkas with family.
There was that time last weekend my dad asked to go over the “fancy” version of the schottische, a dance done with four people holding hands in a square. The regular version is where you, if you’re in the front, let go of your partner’s hand and swing around to join up again at the back. The fancy version is where the couples stay joined up, and the front one ducks and scoots backwards while the other couple turns around themselves and becomes the front. Confusing? Yeah. Just ask my dad.
Another time the kitchen became the go-to polka lesson spot was when my brother and I went over the Seven Step, a shared favourite, so that we could be prepared for my sister’s wedding.
Though I can’t think of a time I didn’t know of the Seven Step, I can’t say I always knew how to do it. So I turned to the internet (I must have not trusted my parents’ rendition). And I found the video of all videos: Silver, MB-"7 step" dance.
It was perfect, because a) my baba grew up in Silver and b) the video shows various ways to do the same dance. You can go only side to side or you can turn in a circle, you can make big movements or you can make small movements, you can hold each other typical polka style or you can hold hands over the shoulder, Heel-Toe Polka style.
That video changed my life.
The Seven Step is my all-time favourite Ukrainian-Canadian polka. Wait, is it even considered a polka? I couldn’t find solid evidence online of what counts as a polka — though there are quite a few resources out there about the dance’s history — so for the sake of simplicity, I’m going to call the Seven Step a polka. And though it doesn’t necessarily have purely Ukrainian roots (do a quick Google search to read all about Seven Step dances around the world), I do know it’s a common one at any Ukrainian zabava a.k.a. social (or dance, for those outside of Manitoba).
The moves
So how do you do this dance?
Join up with a partner.
Take four steps to your right (your partner will go to their left).
Take four steps to your left.
Take two steps right.
Take two steps left.
Step right, left, right, left.
Repeat steps 4 to 6.
Do it all again! Over and over and over for 3.5 minutes. Add in your own moves — spin your partner! hop instead of step! turn around in a circle with your partner! switch partners! — and smile big and be proud, because you’re doing a great job.
The seven of the Seven Step comes in since when you do steps 2 and 3 above, you count it 1-2-3-4-5-6-7. (So I assume that’s where the name comes from? If you know otherwise, let me know.)
I like the dance because of its simplicity, that you can jazz it up a bit with your own moves. I like it because you feel kind of silly doing it, because it is so simple — it’s repetitive and slow.
I also like it because not everyone knows it. People watch on, jealous (so I imagine) of those on the dance floor, so they themselves slowly approach the area, start marking out the steps on the side, then find a partner to try it out for real. And next thing you know, the dance floor is full of people dancing (or attempting to dance) the world’s greatest polka.
I used to question why I loved this dance so much, but then I realized others love it just as much. It’s like we’re in a club. The Seven Step Club. We know the moves. We recognize the music — when the song starts playing and others shout out, “Hey, it’s the schottische!” we shake our heads, stand up, make eye contact with someone else in the Club (when you know, you know), and head to the dance floor, able to join in to the dance part way through a phrase.
(Though, actually, I did read that some call the Seven Step the Spanish Schottische, which was made popular in France, so maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on those who insist on being the one group of four as other groups of two dance around them.)
When I learned of my brother’s love for the dance — OK, he might argue “love” isn’t the right word, but it is one of the songs he encouraged me to request at his social and wedding — I realized that there are others out there who feel just as strongly about it as I do.
Like Mykhailo Vanivskyy, the artistic director of the Ukrainian dance ensemble Yunist in Lviv.
I trained with Yunist in November and December of 2017. At the end of December, right before we were about to move on to our next city, Yunist had its annual Christmas/New Year’s party. There was food. There were drinks. And there was dancing.
As a surprise, some of the Yunist dancers performed a Gypsy dance, though the ladies dressed as the guys and did those moves, and the guys dressed as the ladies and did those moves. Part of our surprise/gift to the ensemble was showing Yunist some Canadian dances.
Though we can’t take credit for the idea. A few days before the show, one of the dancers told us it would be great if we could show some dances from Canada and North America.
Like, line dances? The Boot Scootin' Boogie? Cadillac Ranch? We brainstormed a bit, and finally decided to just share some good ol’ Ukrainian-Canadian polkas. We showed the Heel-Toe. (Some of the Yunist dancers already knew it from grade school.) We also showed the Seven Step.
We had fun. We left the city. We trained with other groups. And eventually we moved back to Canada.
Then in December 2018, my friends and I got a message from one of the Yunist dancers, saying that the artistic director was asking about the dance we did the year before. We hummed and we hawed, and we gave a couple guesses as to what we did.
And then, she sent a video, a video that officially beat out the one of people doing the Seven Step in Silver.
It was a video of Pan Mykhailo! Doing the Seven Step! And he remembered it perfectly, quietly humming the melody.
Mykhailo Vanivskyy, the artistic director of Yunist, dancing the Seven Step.
So we sent the song, and Yunist once again did the dance at their Christmas party.
My friends and I talk about our time in Ukraine all the time — even though we haven’t been there for a year and a half. We talk about the dancers and instructors we met, keeping up with some on social media and just having them in our thoughts the old-fashioned way through memories.
These people are a part of our conversations as if we just saw them in the studio or hung out post-practice at our favourite café. People we pass by in Canada still remind us of our Ukrainian friends. We see one item — a knit turtleneck, a pair of red pants, some slip-on sandals (to wear outside when you still have your dance boots on) — and we can pinpoint the exact time those items became more than just things, when they became a part of our year in Ukraine and a part of our lives.
One month ago, I got a message from that same Yunist dancer, a few days before the group’s Christmas party. She again asked for the Seven Step song — she couldn’t find it from last year.
When we showed them that dance two years ago, I didn’t think anything of it. Yeah, I love the dance. Yeah, it’s my favourite one to do. But I didn’t think anyone would still be thinking about it two years after the fact.
But they are. And, in turn, I guess they’re reminded of us.
Sometimes when my Canadian friends and I message our Ukrainian friends, a birthday note or holiday greeting here and there, they seem a bit surprised. Or when we get a phone call from a dancer in Ukraine, and they ask, “So, you still remember us?” all we can do is laugh because they are pretty much all we talk about.
We wonder if they know just how much of an impact they’ve had on us, how much our lives have changed, how we think differently and act differently — in a good way — thanks to them.
So maybe the feeling is mutual. That sometimes they think we see those two months we danced together as exactly that — two tiny dots on our life’s timeline. And sometimes we think the same thing, that they see us as just a few Canadians who swooped in and swooped out, for just enough time to learn a word or two of the local dialect.
But there’s more to it than that — something my Kanadskyy friends and I feel and talk about all the time, and I think the Seven Step story shows us that we, too, had some sort of impression on their lives.
Even if it was just to teach them a polka or two.