Hopak

While the militaristic Zaporizhian Sich generally frowned upon amusements and diversions from military training, such regulations were overlooked when Kozaks returned victorious after battle.

Often fights from the battlefield would be re-enacted in pantomime, with real swords, lances or other weaponry, as the performer lashed out at invisible enemies.

While the lead role was retained by male performers, structural elements began to be added in, such as circle forms and pairs moving together in formation; these developments most likely were derived from the choreographic history of ritual dances in the area.

Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan recorded the fact that Cossacks danced in such a manner, and other historical accounts verify this.

It was the pioneering work of a performer in a dramatic ensemble, the ethnochoreologist Vasyl Verkhovynets, in the early 20th century, that enable the dance to develop into its current format.

Verkhovynets' initial work entailed gathering authentic village steps throughout central Ukraine and constructing dances which more accurately represented the Ukrainian cultural tradition.

In the spring of 1935, the All-Union Organization of Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries agreed to send a delegation to the upcoming First International Festival of the Folk Dance in London.

In 1990, twenty members of the State Folk Dance Ensemble of the Ukrainian SSR, split off and created the Hopak!

Much of the seemingly improvised parts involve solo dancers, usually male, performing visually and technically amazing acrobatic feats.

[2] The Hopak was performed as a part of the choreographic suite Friendship of Peoples by dancers in Ukrainian folk costumes during the opening ceremony of the 1980 Summer Olympics.

This event took place on the field of the Central Lenin Stadium, with a large section of the tribune under the Olympic Flame Cauldron coloured in Ukrainian folk patterns during the performance.