Events & News
Check out our calendar of upcoming events, including performances and community happenings. You can also read our latests posts about what we’ve been up to. Scroll down or click on the News Blog button to take you there!
EVENTS CALENDAR
UPCOMING PERFORMANCES
Call for information or visit OldHeidelbergfl.com
OCTOBER 11, 2024
Tallahassee, FL • Time and location TBA
https://dos.fl.gov/cultural/programs/florida-folklife-program/artist-in-residence-series/
WE REGRET TO REPORT THAT, DUE TO THE IMPACT OF HURRICANES HELENE AND MILTON, THE FESTIVAL IN ST. PETERSBURG HAS BEEN CANCELLED.
This event is an important fundraiser for the Epiphany church, and now they are also dealing with damage and recovery. We encourage you to visit them at
https://www.epiphanyukrch.com
WHAT'S NEWS WITH US
We're a Recipient of the 2024 Florida Folk Heritage Award!
We have been honored as a recipient of the 2024 Florida Folk Heritage Award! This award honors Floridians, whose lifelong accomplishments in folklife and folk arts, affirm the cultural legacy of Florida. The award recognizes our contributions to our cultural heritage through your mastery and preservation of Ukrainian music and dance.
After 75 years of promoting and perpetuating our Ukrainian heritage through dance, we have finally been recognized as an important contributor to the cultural history and future here in Florida. We acknowledge that this recognition stands on the boots of every Dancer that has ever participated in our group, whether it was for half a season or for their entire lives; we honor every single one of you for your commitment to keeping this part of our Ukrainian culture alive.
Click logo to find out more
We will be recognized for this achievement at a celebration honoring all of this year’s Florida Artists Hall of Fame Inductees and Florida Folk Heritage Award Recipients. The event will take place on November 19, 2024, at the historic Florida Theater in Jacksonville. We share these honors with the following artists:
2024 Florida Folk Heritage Award Recipients
JULIA BELEN ALVERIO (lacemaker, Orange County)
MARISOL BLANCO (dancer, Miami-Dade County)
JUDE “PAPALOKO” THEGENUS (musician, Miami-Dade County)
THE UKRAINIAN DANCERS OF MIAMI (dancers, Miami-Dade County)
2024 Florida Artists Hall of Fame Inductees:
ROGER BANSEMER (visual artist, St. Johns County)
GEORGE CLINTON (musician, Leon County)
XAVIER CORTADA (visual arts, Miami-Dade County)
LYNYRD SKYNYRD (band, Duval County)
We are honored to be given this award, and we are incredibly grateful to have been able to keep our Ukrainian dance heritage alive and accessible to the people of Florida for 75 years—Слава Україні!
We're Heading Into Our 75th Season!
—September, 2023—
It’s almost hard to believe that our group has reached its 75th season of Ukrainian dance.
75 YEARS. It humbles us immensely, and it also drives us to keep going—because we have such a legacy here in South Florida of keeping Ukrainian traditions alive, and, especially in these difficult times, we don’t want that to disappear.
All we ask of anyone is to keep supporting us. We hope you support any cause for Ukraine, but we also hope you will help us continue our mission that began in 1949: to promote and perpetuate the Ukrainian culture. No matter what happens, we know that mission is an important one. So we hope you can find a way to donate to our cause, and we definitely hope you can see us perform somewhere (hint: Our 30th A Ukrainian Montage concert is on April 22, 2024!) during this silver season.
Thank you to everyone who has supported the Dancers for all these years. Thank you to everyone who has volunteered their time and work to keep this group going. Thank you to every parent who gave up their Friday nights, struggled to put tights on a little one, or endured countless viewings of dances so that their child could learn. Thank you to every great audience who helped us remember why we do what we do. And thank you to every single Dancer who has belonged to our family; you ARE the Ukrainian Dancers of Miami!
We're on Summer break!
—June, 2023—
The 22-23 season was, for many reasons, an incredibly busy one, and it actually began in the latter half of the 21-22 season when Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022. The horrors of the war aside, the international attention has given the Ukrainian community at large what we have long wished for: people now know that Ukraine is not Russia, and they want more information—and we have so longed to share our story with the world!
On top of that, the necessary restrictions from Covid started to ease up, and while we mourned the loss of several community members, we were now able to resume public performances. So yes, we had a pretty busy season!
We were accorded the great honor of being named the HistoryMiami Museum’s Artist in Residence for the Fall of 2022, and what a residency it was! The Museum’s program and the FolkLife Curator, Vanessa Navarro Maza, and the HMM staff, helped us present many events that allowed us to share our Ukrainian heritage with an unprecedented amount of people. For these four months, we truly felt we were fulfilling our mission to promote and perpetuate the Ukrainian culture.
Our other performances included the Beer4Bombs fundraiser for Ukraine, Coldwell Banker’s Got Talent, the Coral Gables Museum, SPIFFS in St. Petersburg, the Miami Beach Chamber’s naming of Odesa as a Sister City, the Polonaise Ball, and a joyful return to Oktoberfest at Old Heidelberg restaurant. The season capped off with our 29th annual “A Ukrainian Montage” concert at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts.
So, we’re all ready for a little summer vacation, though once again we’ve had to say not farewell, but “we’ll see you soon” to another of our amazing families; we wish for the Andrews family a great new adventure in their move to New Jersey and try not to wish too selfishly for their return . . . but just like when a young Dancer goes off to college or starts their career someplace other than South Florida, we say “Once a Ukrainian Dancer of Miami, always a Ukrainian Dancer of Miami.”
See everyone in the Fall for the 23-24 season!