Slavjane will return

July 8, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

By GUY D’ASTOLFO

YOUNGSTOWN

The Festival of Nations is the ethnic-culture segment of YSU’s Summer Festival of the Arts. But to many of those involved, it is the only reason the SFA exists.

Groups that are passionate about their heritage run the booths in the Festival of Nations, proudly sharing their homeland’s food and culture.

The Carpatho-Rusyn Society of Youngstown is one such group. And for the fourth straight year, the organization will bring back a dance troupe that has become a highlight of the annual event.

Slavjane Folk Ensemble will perform at 3 p.m. Saturday at the Festival of Natinons area.

The troupe’s athletic dance style comes straight from its homeland and is centuries old. But its enthusiasm is as fresh as its young performers.

Carpatho-Rusyns are a small ethnic minority, a bit mysterious to outsiders.

A people without a country, Carpatho-Rusyns have lived for centuries in a mountainous region that straddles what today is southern Poland, western Ukraine and part of Slovakia.

But they have found themselves in different countries over the centuries, as wars and invasions shifted boundaries. Perhaps that is why they’ve clung so strongly to their culture.

Slavjane is led by Dean Poloka of Pittsburgh, whose father, Jack, founded the group in 1956, and led it until he died unexpectedly in March at age 71.

Slavjane consists of several dozen youngsters aged 6-18, all from the Pittsburgh area. Many of them go on to college-dance programs, especially the famed Duquesne University Tamburitzans in Pittsburgh.

But the group’s appeal is strong in Youngstown, where there are many Carpatho-Rusyns, said Poloka, as well as many other eastern Europeans who have similar dance styles.

“Our experience with the YSU festival has been very positive,” said Poloka. “Every year we have a very receptive audience that embraces the Carpatho-Rusyn culture very nicely.

“I like the idea of including ethnicity into the arts festival,” he continued. “Being a person who has preserved his ethnic heritage all his life, I rather enjoy seeing different ethnic groups keep and preserve their traditional arts through dance and music, along with crafts and food.”

At this year’s SFA, said Poloka, Slavjane will present a “fiery” new dance from the Romani minority of eastern Slovakia.