BYU Folk Dancers

So Tuesday night, the BYU International Folk Dance Ensemble performed at the Polytechnical Institute's theatre here in Kyiv! The performance was the last stop on their tour that went throughout Central Europe. I invited some of the people that I work with, but none of them could come (they all work way past 6pm when I leave... but most of them also get there later than I do). Anyways, I met up with Lena Gorbenko, who served with me in Nizhny Novgorod back at the beginning of my mission. It was fun to see her again and meet her sister and brother in law. We are all going to go (along with Kostya and Elena Chernova (another mission friend)) out to Pyrohovo this Saturday. Should be fun!

So the concert was great. They did mostly American and Canadian dances, and there was a lot of clogging. The guy from the embassy who introduced them (the US embassy was sponsoring the event) mentioned that he hoped they could convince the dancers to do the Hopak (a traditional Ukrainian dance) even though it wasn't part of the program. So after the amazing show, everyone was clapping and saying "now they're going to do the Hopak," but they never did. A lot of the people were kind of bummed that they didn't do it, but they all seemed to like the stuff that they saw. I asked one of the dancers afterwards and apparently the director took it out of their repetoire last year. But he said they got so much flak for doing so that they are probably going to put it back in. In any case, the dancing was awesome.

While there, I ran into Professor Cole Durham, who teaches at the law school and taught one of my classes from last semester. I guess if he's busy running around Europe, he won't have time to read my paper and see how crappy it is. Ha ha. I also got to see Lena Nechiporova, who is the church's director of public relations for the Europe East Area. She was busy greeting and chatting with everyone as usual, but I got to say hi to her for a second. Good times! The folk dancers are doing a fireside tonight but I don't think I'll be going. I am meeting with someone in an hour to look at an apartment that I can stay in for the next two weeks.