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20 “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, СІЧЕНЬ 2010 Yara at Twenty: Two Decades of Dreams and Destinations by Virla na Tkacz I discovered that Yara was going to be twenty in the middle of my talk about our company for the Coffeehouse Chronicles at La MaMa last spring. When I was invited to talk at this series , which documents the history of American theatre in New York , I assembled my favorite photos from each of our productions . I was showing them to the audience, when suddenly it dawned on me: “We just did our twentieth show — that must mean Yara’s twenty.” I just said it out loud and then started figuring it out. “Let’s see, we started our company in the winter of 1990, so next winter Yara will be twenty , ” and the audience applauded. I was a bit startled — both by the news and that I let everyone in on the random passing thought. Perhaps this had happened because it was La MaMa — I was at home. A month later I was sharing this same revelation with an audience in Africa. I had been invited to come to Central Mozambique to record traditional folklore. Since this was my first trip to the country, I was first to stop in Map uto, the capital city , and meet people involved in culture. When I shared these details of my itinerary with Peter Bejger ( Yara’s great friend in Kyiv who now liv es in the United States ) , he told me there were Ukrainians in Mozambique. Quite frankly I was not sure how to react to this news . Was he pulling my leg? Afterward I Googled this and sure enough someone had a blog about Ukrainians in Mozambique. I wrote a note and heard back almost immediately from a Dmytro Yatsyuk who offered to organize a lecture for me at the Polytechnic University in Maputo . I took him up on this offer. I already had all the pictures for a presentation assembled in Power P oint. Soon a flyer about the event appeared in my e - mail. There was a press release in the major newspaper , a nd my Wikipedia entry appeared in Portuguese , the predominant language of Mozambique. After a very long flight — Mozambique lies on the east coast of s outhern Africa — I was delighted to meet Mr. Yatsyuk. We spoke in Ukrainian, but he wanted me to speak in Eng lish at the lecture . Many of the students and artists invited to the event could speak a little English , and he offered to translate what I said into Portuguese for the rest. The lecture (co - sponsored by the “Comunidade Ucraniana de Moçambique”) went very well. There were interesting questions and I met some wonderful artists from the local theatre and the National Company of Song and Dance . The day after my lecture , Mr. Yats y uk and his wife took me around Maputo and introduced me to the sights of the capi tal. I stopped by to see the couple two months later on my way back to New York, and now we are old friends. So now “next winter” is here. Yara is celebrating twenty years of theatre with a winter festival of poetry, music , and art at the Ukrainian Institu te of America on January 22 - 23, 2010. We’ve invited other artists to create new art inspired by our twenty shows. Please join us. You never know what you will see or who m you will meet. Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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