This Year's TC Ukrainian Heritage Festival is:
Sunday, September 18th, 2011,
12-5pm
301 Main St NE Mpls, MN, 55413
About the Twin Cities Ukrainian Heritage Festival:
The Twin Cities Ukrainian Heritage Festival is held every year to celebrate all things Ukrainian in our community and to demonstrate Ukrainian-American contributions to community life in the Twin Cities area and beyond. We invite all our friends--Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian alike--to join us on this fun, celebratory day!
The first Twin Cities Ukrainian Heritage Festival was held in 1999, and was organized under the initiative of Mr. Mykola Mehyts. Since then it has been a dedicated group of volunteers who have worked hard to keep the festival going and growing.
Each year at the festival there are carnival games and other activities for children, Ukrainian food, an outdoor beer garden with Ukrainian beer, and a live concert program both inside and outside of the Ukrainian center. There is also a varenyky (pierogi) eating competition and a competition for Festival Royalty. The Festival Royalty receive pride of place on the Ukrainian community float for the annual Northeast Parade, Aquatennial Parade, and Columbia Heights parade each following year! Also for the first time in 2011 the festival introduced the Ukrainians Got Talent competition.
The festival concert program is a regular hit that both represents the extraordinary talent that exists in our local Ukrainian community as well as featuring Ukrainian performers from outside our TC area.
In years past there have been guest performances by singers Ihor Bohdan and Annychka, both from Lviv, Ukraine. Roma Vasylevych, also from Lviv but now resident in the TC area, has regularly performed at the festival. Like Ihor Bohdan, Roma holds the title of Заслужений артист України (Zasluzhenyj artyst Ukrajiny = Honored Artist of Ukraine), the highest honor awarded to artists by the Ukrainian state. Another native Ukrainian now resident in our TC area who has performed at the festival is virtuoso concert violinist Taras Umrysh. Ethnic Dance Theatre, an award-winning, TC-area based professional folk dance ensemble has performed from its Ukrainian repertiore at our festival and, of course, our own TC-area Cheremosh Ukrainian Folk Dance Ensemble is a yearly hit! Also, the Twin Cities-based Ukrainian Village Band (UVB) made its debut at the festival in 2007.
All of this is in addition to the wide variety of excellent performances by other members of our community!
Discover with us the richness of Ukrainian culture in our Twin Cities area!
A History of the Twin Cities Ukrainian Community:
Coming soon. . .
