When Prof. Borys Sharvarko, People’s Actor of Ukraine and stage director, took the floor at a press conference summing up the first Ukrainian variety performers’ contest, the audience thought he had almost lost his voice over the five days of arrangements for the competition of young talent and when staging the gala concert. Rasping, he told those present that the contest’s idea actually belonged to President Kuchma and that the chief executive had placed it under his persona patronage.
Yuri Bohutsky, Meritorious Artist of Ukraine and Minister of Culture and the Arts stressed that the event would become traditional and held on a regular basis. Presidential grants have been issued in the past to sustain individual creative projects, various regional creative contests and festivals were organized, but a comprehensive national program to support creative youth remained badly needed. It will help young talented people in a variety of ways, creatively as well as socially (like with employment, bonuses, and premiums). Creative youth contests are back in circulation after a twenty year lapse. A creative youth forum is planned next year, meaning that the participants will receive a fresh impetus in implementing the most progressive and fruitful creative ideas. The project is expected to be assisted by a planned volunteer inter-union creative youth organization.
That the current contest is treated very seriously is evidenced by the jury membership, including noted creative personalities such as People’s Actors of Ukraine, laureates of the Taras Shevchenko National Prize, composers Ihor Poklad (chairman), Myroslav Vantukh, and Anatoly Palamarenko; People’s Performers of Ukraine Ivo Bobul, Yan Tabachnyk, and Borys Zayets.
Analyzing the development of various genres, jury members noted that there were no masters of ceremonies nor stand-up comics at the contest. In contrast, graduates of the capital’s college of variety and circus arts presented so many original and highly professional numbers that some at the conference suggested granting the college the status of an institution of higher education and using its graduates to establish a youth circus (or maybe a youth variety-circus group).
A true discovery of the contest were presidential Grand Prix winners Olena Dobrytska, soloist with the Model Orchestra of the Armed Forces of Ukraine; magicians Olena and Vitaly Horbachevsky, graduates of Kyiv circus and variety college, and the Ekipazh vocal ensemble of the Kharkiv Military University with its singular a cappella performance.
