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Virtual Souls in photo: Tom Lee undergoes a traditional rite of passage guided by Sayan Zhambalov and Erzhena Zhambalov as Cecilia Arana looks on. Photo by Watoku Ueno. Sometimes we'll be the source And sometimes the seekers And there will be no difference Then words will be magic...' Olya Radchuk played this mysterious part in our show in Kyiv. Her voice was very familiar to many people in the audience. Not only had she previously worked with Yara on Blind Sight and Water fall/Reflections, she was now a well-known late night host for a radio station in Kyiv. Oksana and I then translated the traditional Buryat folk songs, so they could be sung in Ukrainian to the original melody. Previously we had translated these songs into English. We now had the texts to sing the mythical part of the play in Buryatia in Buryat, Eng lish and Ukrainian. Our actors Zabryna Guevara, who is of Venezuelan ancestry, Tom Lee, who is of Chi- nese-Polish ancestry, Lydia Radziul, who is of Ukrain ian ancestry, Katie Takahashi, who is Japanese and Erzhena Zhambalov, who is Buryat, all learned to sing sections of our piece in Ukrainian. Natalka Shevch enko, who worked with us previously on In the Light and Waterfall/Reflections filled in the Bard's narrative as a voice-over in Ukrainian. Yara creates its pieces in rehearsal. We start each project with many separate poems, songs or historical texts and in rehearsal weave them together to create scenes. During our rehearsals in Kyiv we dis covered new solutions to some of our scenes. The most important change occurred in the ending. In New York, after the Hunter returned the swan's wings to the swan, we played a scene in which the Buryat actors tell the New York actors that the traditional legend has a different ending than that of our play. This scene was a favorite of New York audiences. Its appeal was based on the actors' struggle to communicate without a common language. Translating the scene would have killed it. A hymn to Lake Baikal followed and the New York production ended. In Kyiv, we decided to try something completely different to convey the same feeling. We repeated the Buryat folk song which had carried the New Yorkers to the mythical Buryatia. Are those swans flying high in the sky? I sing ho-hey Do they gaze from above on our land? I sing ho-hey2 In the beginning of the mythical section Erzhena had sung this song in Buryat dressed in the traditional dress of a shaman. The American women answered her in English and then as they tried to sing the song in Buryat the landscape transformed into mythical Buryatia. Erzhena sang the piece once more at the end of our play in Kyiv dressed in contemporary clothes. She started the song alone in a down light, at first unsure anyone would answer her. Slowly the oth ers all dressed in contemporary clothes start to answer b'Wind in the City" by Virlana Tkacz and Oksana Batiuk 2 "Yoxor" traditional Buryat song, translated into English by Sayan Zhambalov, Virlana Tkacz & Tom Lee.
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