PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Music, dancing and a celebration of 33 years of independence are just a taste of what will be at this year’s Ukrainian Folk Festival in Horsham.
“It's Ukraine's Fourth of July. So we, first and foremost, want to celebrate freedom, liberty, democracy — all of those elements that define Ukraine as a nation,” said Eugene Luciw with the Ukrainian American Sport Center. The festival will kick off at the center on Aug. 25 at noon. There will be an outdoor summer stage concert and show, arts and crafts, and traditional Ukrainian foods and baked goods.
Tickets can be purchased at the gate for $15 – people under age 15 are free.
Luciw says $2 from each admission will be donated to Humanitarian Relief of Victims of War in Ukraine.
With the war raging on since February 2022, Luciw says people need to know exactly what’s going on in Ukraine and how extensive the need for aid is.
“Widows, widowers, orphan children, destroyed hospitals — hundreds of them — schools, thousands of schools destroyed. Children learning in bomb shelters online, energy grids destroyed,” Luciw said.
Taras Lewyckyj is artistic director of the Philadelphia-based Voloshky Ukrainian Dance Ensemble, which will be performing at the event. He says some may wonder how they can dance, sing and celebrate during this awful conflict.
“It's not really a question of how can we be still dancing during this kind of tragedy. It's actually, that's exactly what we have to be doing, and that is how we survive. It is what takes us through all of this,” he said.
They say it’s an act of defiance, and that Ukrainians will continue to live and their culture will not be destroyed.
“This culture and our identity… that is [Vladmir] Putin's target, and as long as we do that, then we exist and we win,” Lewyckyj said.
Ukraine officially left the Soviet Union on Aug. 24, 1991, and became a sovereign, democratic country.