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May 1, 2005 Dear Friend, The Rusalki are calling to us! If you don’t know what a Rusalka is, we hope you will very soon. In fact, we’d like you to become intimately involved with Rusalki by supporting KITKA’s Rusalka Project and Travel Fund. In doing so, you can help KITKA realize a dream of mythic proportions and international scope. KITKA is embarking on the most ambitious and exciting creative project of our career. This summer, we will set out on a three-week performance tour and research expedition to Ukraine, led by the Ukrainian composer, performance artist, and folklorist Mariana Sadovska. On this adventure, we will visit villages that celebrate the ancient spring festival Rusal’naia Nedelia (Rusalka Week) with beautiful songs and earthy rituals. We’ll also study with an amazing group of professional folk singers, village musicians, choral directors, and contemporary theater artists. We will learn songs and gather stories from village elders and perform in concert with Ukraine’s premier folk singers and ensembles. The visionary videographer and director Lars Jan will document our trip. All of these activities are connected to the creation of an new folk opera, The Rusalka Cycle, which KITKA will premiere in Oakland, CA in November 2005. The Rusalka Cycle will weave traditional Slavic folk songs together with original vocal and instrumental music composed by Mariana Sadovska in a contemporary theatrical presentation directed by Bay Area stage treasure Ellen Sebastian Chang. Rusalki are powerful female figures in Slavic folklore, appearing in many old songs sung throughout Eastern Europe. Rusalki are enticing, shape-shifting entities that inhabit the waters, forests, and fields and lure people to them with their songs and laughter. They are thought to be the restless spirits of women who have died untimely, unnatural, or unjust deaths (such as brides who died on their wedding night, or young mothers who perished in childbirth). Rusalki are spinners who regulate human, animal, and agricultural fertility, the cycles of the seasons and the weather. In Slavic peasant culture, the Rusalka is feared, appeased, and celebrated through song, dance, storytelling, and ritual during the Rusalka Week festival. It is during this week that the Rusalki are believed to leave their water dwellings to wander in the forests and fields, bringing moisture to the new crops. As a composer-performer, Mariana Sadovska astounds and inspires us with her boundless energy, creative vision, deep knowledge of folklore, incredible vocal skills, and generosity of spirit. Our work with Mariana connects us to an ancient and rich culture of elder song bearers in villages throughout Ukraine. Since our first meeting in 2002, Mariana has been determined to bring KITKA to Ukraine to meet the grandmothers who have passed their songs on to her. Through Mariana’s contacts, we have been invited to experience the Troitsa (Trinity Sunday) festival in the village of Svarytsevychi, located near the Belarusian border. On this Pagan/Christian holiday, women perform fascinating laments while visiting their deceased loved ones in the cemetery, then process through the village singing songs to chase away evil spirits and invite health and fertility into each home. Svarytsevychi is the last village in Ukraine to practice this ancient ritual. We have also been invited to participate in Provody Rusalok (The Leading of the Rusalki) in Havronshchyna, a village located two hours outside of Kiev. A large percentage of Havronshchyna’s population is comprised of people who were permanently evacuated from their homes, which were declared contaminated and uninhabitable in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Despite the incredible losses that these people have endured, they have managed to keep their old traditions alive. It is a poignant irony that some of the richest Rusalka lore comes from a place now poisoned by radioactivity. Experiencing the rituals and hearing the stories of the grandmothers of Havronshchyna will certainly powerfully influence the Rusalka Cycle project, whose premiere will mark Chernobyl’s 20th anniversary. In Ukraine, KITKA will also work with the ethnomusicological vocal ensemble Drevo, the experimental theatre troupe Les Kurbas; Natalka Polovynka, vocalist and director of the vocal theatre group Maisternia Pisni; and Ukraine’s most famous folk singer Nina Matvienko. We also plan to meet and work with actress and choreographer Joanna Wichowska from Poland’s famed Gardzienice Center for Theatre Practices and Vladimir Zenevitch, director of Belarus’ premier folk chorus, Gramnitsy. In Lviv, Mariana’s hometown, we will perform in concert with Mariana and Natalka Polovynka. And in Kiev plans are in place for a major concert featuring KITKA, Nina Matvienko, Drevo, Mariana, and a very special group of singing grandmothers from the village of Kriachkivka. Our 2002 trip to Bulgaria planted the seeds for much of our work over the past three years. It’s again time for us to go to the source of the music that inspires and sustains us. As ambassadors of Eastern European folk music, we feel a responsibility to maintain fresh connections to its roots. As our world becomes increasingly globalized, we feel that it is vitally important to cultivate relationships with singers who are dedicated to keeping their indigenous cultural traditions alive, traditions that are intimately tied to the land and essential human spirituality. This trip to Ukraine is a labor of love and devotion to songs and traditions that must be remembered. We also aim to give something back to our Ukrainian artist-hosts. Beyond sharing our songs, we hope to help and advise them on creative and collaborative ways to build an audience and support base in America. We will carry home collected folk songs from villages and stories from Ukraine, and disseminate them through our concerts, recordings, and workshops. We’ll build important cross-cultural bridges that we hope will usher more beauty into this crazy world in which we live. This is a very exciting time to visit a newly democratic Ukraine. However, the economic situation there is still desperate and we cannot expect remuneration from our Ukrainian hosts beyond their very generous hospitality. Rusalka Week is in June when airfares to Ukraine are at their highest. The Trust for Mutual Understanding has granted us some seed money for this international project, but we need to raise $30,000 more to cover our travel and project-related expenses to make this dream trip happen and to fully realize The Rusalka Project. So now we turn to you, a faithful friend of KITKA, for assistance. We are counting on our community, those who believe in our work, to support us in this adventure. Please contribute generously to our RUSALKA PROJECT/UKRAINE TRAVEL FUND. WE NEED YOU! Donations of all sizes are welcome and will be accepted with our sincerest gratitude. We’re sure that the Rusalki will reward you for your generosity. For more earthly gestures of thanks from us, see the next page. In harmony,
The Women of KITKA P.S. SAVE THE DATE: MAY 25, 2005—A KITKA VECHIRKA. Join us for a Ukrainian-themed fundraising party at the Hillside Club in Berkeley, CA. Visit www.kitka.org for complete information. The Rusalka Project/Ukraine Travel Fund
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