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Ukrainian Shumka Dancers
 Gordon Gordey was named to the position of Artistic Director of the Ukrainian
Shumka Dancers in October 1999. Under his leadership the company has advanced
the fusion of Ukrainian dance theatre and character dance with the ideals of
classical form and vision of the world. Shumka's repertoire reflects a clear
focus on highly theatrical values sharing equal importance with individual steps,
line, and movement. As audiences for dance in the 21st century experience a
landscape of shorter, faster, multi-media laden, pop-culture influenced choreography,
Mr. Gordey believes that these same audiences will continue to embrace a vision
grounded in classical dance form. Cirque de Soleil has successfully fused circus,
ballet, sculpture, and visual art. The works of Balanchine and Martha Graham
will continue to move audiences along-side the works of Petipa, Ashton, and
Tudor. It is always time for beauty, heroes, and extraordinary physical movement
showing what the human body and the human spirit can accomplish.
Under Mr. Gordey, Shumka is undertaking the next step in it's 40 year history
committing to the vision that the vocabulary of movement it has developed is
capable of telling any story.
It is this belief in the arrival of Shumka's style of Ukrainian dance that
brought Mr. Gordey to realizing his full-length libretto for "Cinderella".
Intrigued by founders of the narrative ballet like Noverre and Petipa who brought
to folk tales into the ballet, Mr. Gordey addressed the conceptual direction
of putting folk dance back into the folk tale. However in doing so, all of the
lessons of 100 years of classical ballet and character dance development were
not abandoned. Nor were the lessons of evolution of Ukrainian dance in Canada.
They were embraced as part of the fusion of styles, form, and technique. The
movement of Ukrainian regional dance styles, the poetry of folk melodies, the
spirit of the rise of Ukrainian nobility, the vibrant paintbrush of village
arts and the expressive energy of the European baroque period became the backdrop
for his inspiration. "Cinderella" became "a classical tale…a
journey of love, magic, and triumph".
Mr. Gordey brings 30 years experience in dance and theatre to his vision of
Shumka and the work it creates. He spent 14 years as a dancer and choreographer
with Shumka, studied ballet with Ruth Carse, earned B. Ed., M.A. and M.F.A.
degrees in Theatre Criticism and Stage Direction, and was instrumental in evolving
the acting program during his professorship at Dalhousie University. As a theatre
director he has staged, among others, the works of Shakespeare, Ionesco, Beckett,
and Sam Sheppard. During his 20 years as an Arts Consultant with the then Department
of Culture in Alberta, he is most gratified of his promoting support for playwrights
such as Sharon Pollock, Brad Fraser, Lyle Victor Albert, and support for the
collectives Decidedly Jazz and One Yellow Rabbit. He is an actor and proud member
of ACTRA. Mr. Gordey has danced under all of Shumka's artistic directors and
has been the dramaturge for Shumka's main stage productions since 1971.
In 1986 he gathered those experiences as the Managing Editor of Shumka: Tradition
in Motion, a first full color book in English in the world on Ukrainian dance
selling over 2000 copies.
Versed in both a theoretical and hands-on foundation, one of Mr. Gordey's trademarks
is nurturing and bringing together production teams who believe and commit to
the vision of Shumka's undertakings. Mr. Gordey believes that there is always
an artist, craftsman, visionary, and believer that is a kindred spirit that
has a burning passion to tell a story. They only have to brought together where
others gather to see, feel, and listen.
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