I lived in Ukraine from 2017 to 2018. I posted on my blog about training with professional dance ensembles, the Ukrainian lifestyle, and places I visited. My one year in Ukraine has provided me with a lifetime of stories — and then some.
Since returning to Canada, I continue to post on my blog about my experience in Ukraine and about the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada. Feel free to sign up for my newsletter to get the posts straight to your inbox.
I'm still standing.
It's been a month since I started training with the Virsky studio group, and nearly two months since my Ukraine adventure started.
After one month of dancing six days a week for three hours a day — that's right, 18 hours per week — my body's not broken yet. Coming from dancing up to only six hours per week back home, I was worried about how I'd react to 18 per week. But so far so good.
Read MoreI was supposed to tour Ukraine with my dance group, Troyanda Ukrainian Dance Ensemble, in 2014, but because of the Euromaidan Revolution, the tour was cancelled. Visiting Ukraine has been on our minds since, and this year we made the trip happen. And conveniently, our tour ended just days before the yearlong program started.
I wrote about the 15-day tour at troyanda.com/blog, so check that out for more details of what we did and what we saw, but below are some photo highlights from the trip. We stayed in Lviv, the Carpathian Mountains, Zhytomyr, Chernivtsi, and Kyiv but also made stops in other cities and villages, including Kolomyia and Mamaivtsi.
Read MoreПривіт!
What makes a science student turned journalism student move to Ukraine to study dance for nearly a year?
Well, if you think of a good reason, let me know and I'll pass it along to my parents.
Actually, it's not so out of the blue. I've been a Ukrainian dancer for 19 years, starting out with Rossdale Ukrainian Dance School then Troyanda Ukrainian Dance Ensemble, a group I joined seven years ago.
In 2014, Troyanda travelled through Croatia, Hungary, and Austria, and after our trip, I went with my mom and her cousin to Ukraine for a few days to meet our relatives. Our connection to them is my mom's baba (grandmother) who moved to Canada in the early 1900s.
I've been interested in Ukrainian culture for a while, dance sparking my interest. Through dance, I've learned about folklore, traditions, and history, but I never made studying Ukrainian culture my focus — until now.
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