He/Him When Maksym Kadziela was 11 years old, he began to lose interest in Ukrainian dance. But when his parents surprised him with a ticket to Shumka’s 50th Anniversary show, he was inspired to keep dancing and to expand his knowledge about Ukrainian culture and tradition. “Since that day, I made it my personal goal and worked towards joining Shumka.…
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He/Him Murray Steel has been a Shumka dancer for 10 years. When he was 12 years old, his dance instructor Doug Rachinski, gave him tickets to see Shumka’s Cinderella in which Doug was performing the role of the Fencing Master. “Before that, I only knew Shumka’s name. After watching my very own dancer teacher perform in such an awesome show,…
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She/Her Elyse Dzenick started her dance career at Dance Unlimited at 4 years old. She trained in many styles of dance, which gave her many performance opportunities and eventually led her to travel to, teach and perform throughout the USA, Japan, Germany, and Poland. Elyse joined the company in 2018 as a way to embrace Ukrainian culture and reconnect with…
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She/Her Annikka Dobko began her dance training at the age of 4 years old in Grande Prairie. There she studied ballet, modern, tap, jazz, lyrical and contemporary in addition to Ukrainian dance. At the age of 15, Annikka left home to pursue further ballet training at the School of Alberta in Calgary, Alberta. During her time in Calgary, she also…
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He/Him Les Sereda began his dance career at the age of 12 and joined Shumka four years later. Throughout his ten years in the company, he had the privilege of working with such artists as John Pichlyk, Viktor Lytvynov, Brian Webb and Yuri Shevchenko. He toured Canada and the United States in Shumka’s productions of Absolutely Shumka and Cinderella and was honoured to…
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She/Her Courtney Basaraba can still recall the day Wendy Kolonsky came up to her at the age of 5 and said “you would be a great Ukrainian Dancer”. From that moment on Courtney was enamoured with Ukrainian dance. Courtney joined Shumka two and a half years ago. After taking a break to pursue rugby, Courtney watched Shumka’s Nutcracker and was…
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He/Him Jacob August began his dance career when he was three years old, and although at the time he took more of an interest in the stage lights, on some level he knew Ukrainian dance was going to be a life passion. After completing all the rigorous requirements for the company over the past five years, he was accepted as…
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There are many people who have given so much back to Shumka and for so many reasons. For Evan Zukiwsky, the people that made up the company was his motivating factor. “I always wanted to be part of the organizational and leadership roles in the company because of the people who influenced me. I learned from those people who were…
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Peter has been with Shumka for more than two decades, embarking on his Ukrainian dance journey at the age of eight when he enrolled at the Shumka School of Dance. With dedication and unwavering commitment, he honed his skills as a student, eventually becoming a member of the Ukrainian Shumka Dancers in 2008. Peter has extensive training in Ukrainian folk,…
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He/Him Joshua Semchuk has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Alberta in theatre and film production, communications, operations, and administration, and a Masters of Organizational Leadership from Colorado State University. He is such a huge fan of the CFL and the Edmonton football club he has appeared on the fan podcast Eskimo Empire not once but 10 times.…
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