From afar, the dancers of Syzokryli look like dolls with floral halos—vinki—around their heads. Up close, their faces tell a different, fiercer story. Today the women of this Ukrainian dance company have come together to perform at a small studio a few blocks from Union Square. The modest room, packed with roughly 11 women ranging from their early teens to their late 30s, gets blisteringly hot after each routine. The footwork is intricate, fast, and executed with almost military precision.
There are a handful of expat Ukrainian dance companies around the world, but what sets Syzokryli apart is the addition of ballet and interpretive dance to the centuries-old footwork and routines. “She wasn’t strictly a folk dancer,” says Lonkevych of her late mother. That merger of dance styles is evident: The routines are both magical and dramatic and sometimes heart-wrenching.
Many of the young women here playfully abridge the name Syzokryli to simply “Syzo.” They are in high school and college and professionals. They’ve known each other for years after training in Pryma-Bohachevsky’s summer dance camps as children. Now they all travel to practice with the company once a week at the Ukrainian American Youth Association building in the historically Ukrainian heart of New York in the East Village. Many of them are first-, second-, or third-generation Ukrainians.