This film is a record of Ostap Buriak's work as choreographer for Bradford's Krylati dance ensemble. It documents a typical dance rehearsal for the younger dances and includes a short interview with Mr Buriak. The film was made by the Ukrainian Video Archives Society. The language of the film is Ukrainian. There is no credit to UVAS at the start of the film. The film begins with Mr Buriak at Bradford club at the front of a class of children. Everyone is dressed in summer...

This film is a record of Ostap Buriak's work as choreographer for Bradford's Krylati dance ensemble. It documents a typical dance rehearsal for the younger dances and includes a short interview with Mr Buriak. The film was made by the Ukrainian Video Archives Society. The language of the film is Ukrainian. There is no credit to UVAS at the start of the film. The film begins with Mr Buriak at Bradford club at the front of a class of children. Everyone is dressed in summer clothes. He stands with his back to the students and shows them how to move their arms into position, accompanied by mandolin music. He is assisted by several adults and they all work through numbered foot positions. The scene changes and shows the room from another angle – chairs are stacked up to make space and there are lots of children in the dance class. They form a line and stand in the first position and they start walking in time to Hopak music then Mr Buriak joins the line and shouts right left in English and Ukrainian to help keep time. The music speeds up and they change to dribushka (the basic step used in Ukrainian folk dance), moving their arms as they go. Mr Buriak asks the two mandolin players to change to hutzul music (they play Kolomeyka) and they practice going round in circle practicing a hutzul step. The scene changes again to Mr Buriak at the front of the class with his back to the children who are practising arms and leg movements in lines. Girls are on the front line and boys on the back, with teachers walking between the lines to check or help as they work through a number of different steps with Mr Buriak shouting out the names of the steps and right or left. Mr Buriak calls thank you in Ukrainian and lines up the students again, repositioning their arms. They continue practising dance steps and then pose. The children line up at the back of the room and Mr Buriak organising them. Some of the students stand in a line at the back clapping (the mandolin players are seated behind them), whilst some children are partnered in threes (one boy, two girls) holding hands. They start to dance a Hopak. Mr Buriak is at the front calling out steps as the dance continues. Buriak calls pose and they pose then the dance ends and the children dancing go to the back of the room with their friends. Mr Buriak then gets a couple of smaller girls to start dancing a duet to the Hopak music. All the other children are at the back of the room clapping. More children come forward to do solos of steps or small group dances as is usual with a Hopak. Mr Buriak then stops the dance and gets all the children to stand still with their arms in an outstretched, elevated position which is the finale of the dance. The scene then moves to Mr Buriak lighting a cigarette at the end of the rehearsal, and being briefly interviewed by Wolodymyr Demtschuk of UVAS. They discuss his arrival in Bradford in 1948, his career as a choreographer and dance teacher, his education, training and career, including work at Heidelberg Opera and the National Theatre Mannheim. The interview ends with both men thanking each other.