9. Soul Flower 2.0

Anastasiia Boiko and Oksana Saiapina perform Soul Flower (Квітка Душа) at Harpies, Fechters and Quines Festival, 7 June 2023, Edinburgh Central Library as part of the two presentations curated by Traditional Dance of Forum of Scotland celebrating the role of women as tradition keepers and dance innovators in our contemporary world.
Anastasiia and Oksana both fled Ukraine in April 2022 and since settled in Edinburgh. A year later, In April 2023, Oksana and Anastasia met, taught and performed for the first time together at our Pomegranates Festival, acclaimed as “a rhythmic wonderland of vibrant folk dances and melodies spanning almost all continents” by art critic Inesa Vėlavičiūtė.
For Harpies, Fechters and Quines Festival Oksana and Anastasiia selected and performed a set of Ukrainian folk dance duets, including Soul Flower - a choreographed dance, set to music with lyrics by Diane Golde and composition by Kostyantyn Meladze.
Always advocating for live music and dance whenever possible, we were pleased to welcome the Ukrainian Community Choir Oberig led by Karina Cherviakova to accompany the duo perform Soul Flower creating collaborative magic on stage.
Hoptsa Dritsa, a dance full of humour and cheek, as well as Hutsulska, a dance based on a folk tune with Scottish motifs. These popular and fast-paced trad dances of Ukraine soon got nearly everybody on their feet.
While Oksana has led a dance studio training young people for over 15 years and won high-level competition awards, Anastasiia is studying remotely and about to graduate from Serge Lyfar Kyiv Municipal Academy of Dance in Ukraine.
If Pomegranates 2023 was Oksana and Anastasiia debut on the Edinburgh festival stage, the 10th anniversary of the Harpies, Fechters and Quines Festival provided them with another opportunity to bring Ukrainian folk dance centre stage.
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Videography: Barrie Barretto
Curated by Wendy Timmons and Iliyana Nedkova for Traditional Dance of Forum of Scotland as part of To Ukraine with Love project: tracscotland.o...
Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland: www.tdfs.org/
Pomegranates Festival: linktr.ee/pome...
Harpies, Fechters and Quines Festival: www.eventbrite...