So you think you can (Ukrainain folk) dance?

My parents came over to the house this past weekend for a celebratory dinner of Chinese take-out after K's ballet recital. While they were here, my Dad was kind enough to come up to my office and get my scanner up and running.

You know what that means don't you? Yep, I have more grainy pictures from my past to share with you. Today's pictorial focuses on the very early 1980's when I must have had the desire to really delve into my cultural roots.

But since there were no Irish, German or Swedish extracurricular activities at my school, I decided to branch out & delve into someone else's cultural roots instead.

Despite my total lack of grace and coordination, I spent a lot of time in my formative years doing Ukrainian folk dancing. I think the program started when I was about 9 years old. My social studies teacher got our entire class really excited about folk dancing. So excited that we were all willing to give up time normally spent watching Tom and Jerry re-runs to meet in the school cafeteria and listen to Ukrainian folk music. How did she do this? I have no idea. Perhaps she offered us all extra credit, or maybe we were just really excited about all of the fringe on our costumes.

I remember more about the costumes than any of the dances we did. The white skirts were actually pillowcases and our red shoes were made from red rope and circular cutouts from a vinyl tablecloth. We weren't supposed to wear those shoes outside. Ever.

If memory serves, I don't think anyone in my class had a lick of Ukrainian blood in their background. Our teacher's parents had immigrated from the Ukraine and she spent much of that year immersing us in the Ukrainian culture. I'm not really sure why, but we went along with it. (I will once again point out here how much we all loved the fringe on the costumes.)

We even got to travel up to Toronto and perform for what I think was a group of Ukrainian students. Imagine their excitement. "Hey guys, do you want to see a bunch of German and Irish kids from Ohio do some Ukrainian folk dancing for you?" I mean really, who wouldn't be thrilled to watch a bunch of 10 year olds hop around the floor in pillowcases with bits of tablecloth strapped to their feet?

Despite all the practices and performances though, I can't help but notice I always seem to be looking down at my feet with total concentration. Dancing is not really what I would label a strength of mine.

But, at least I was enthusiastic. A surplus of enthusiasm is one of my defining (and some might say annoying) personality traits.

The excitement over folk dancing must have been contagious. It looks like my sister joined in the act the following year. My enthusiasm looks like it's waning a bit in this picture. Perhaps it's the lack of fringe on my costume that's got me so down.

Oddly, sometime later that year we stopped doing Ukrainian folk dancing and started doing country/western clogging instead. I have no idea why the sudden change occurred. I think one day we came in for practice and our teacher announced that now we'd be strutting our stuff to country music. I have never really been a fan of country, but my lack of interest in the music was more than offset by the thrill of getting to wear tap shoes! And twirly square dancing skirts! (also made from pillow cases I believe). Thankfully, I have no photos to share with you from my trip into the world of clogging.

The trip was a pretty brief one. By that point we were all starting down the slippery slope of adolescence and the idea of dancing around in pillow cases just didn't seem as cool as it once had. So, the group disbanded and we spent our newly acquired free time talking about boys and playing Atari (and watching Tom and Jerry re-runs).