“Those who honor their own culture can appreciate someone else’s”

The Fourth International Ethnic festival called “Land of Dreams,” inspired by Oleh Skrypka, will take place on Kyiv’s Spivoche Field (Singing Field) on July 6-8. Last week a press conference was held in the Ivan Honchar Museum in connection with the upcoming festivities.

Since the date of this year’s festival coincides with the feast of St. John the Baptist, the emphasis will be on Ivan Kupalo merrymaking. The Great Festive Kupalo Procession will start on the afternoon of July 6 from Andriivsky uzviz. Riders on horses, wagons with all sorts of wares, a straw Marena decorated with flowers - an indispensable attribute of Ivan Kupalo Day - and boys and girls carrying small Kupalo trees will pass through St. Michael’s Square, European Square, Mykhailo Hrushevsky Street, and through the Square of Glory to reach Spivoche Pole. The procession can be joined at any point. The only requirement is Ukrainian national dress.

One of the groups headlining the festival is Vartinna (Finland). According to Skrypka, the lead singer of VV, this is a Finnish version of ABBA. It is a successful folk music group that has been around for 24 years. The other groups are Troitsa, a group that is popular abroad but banned in its native Belarus. The Algerian singer Cheb Khaled, whose songs “Didi” and “Aicha” are popular with Ukrainian audiences, will also perform at the festival. Incidentally, Khaled’s fee is one-quarter of the budget of this three-day event.

Among the regulars at this year’s festivals are the bands Nadobryden, Buttia, Drevo, Hurtopravtsi, Serpanok, Fanfare Orchestra, Red Cardell (France) the Dakh Theater, and kobzars Taras Kompanychenko, Kostia Cheremsky, and Eduard Drach. Four new bands - DrymbaDaDzyga, Choboty z buhaia, Sontseklosh, and Bandurband - will be making their debut. “Today we are seeing the spread of traditional music and folk traditions in general,” Skrypka says. “The fact that this year the festival is presenting four new bands that play modern Ukrainian music is a clear example of this. Encouraging young musicians to create in this direction is the task of our festival.”

“Land of Dreams is promoting Ukrainian songs, no matter whether they are rock, pop, or any other kind of genre,” says music critic Yurko Zelenyi. “At the same time the festival offers Ukrainians the only possibility today to hear songs from all over the world, while instilling good taste in them and without jamming their minds with cosmopolitan, hot hits that don’t come from anywhere. Those who honor their own culture can appreciate someone else’s.”