Ukrainian embassy warns of ‘impostor’ ballet company due to tour Ireland

A company that calls itself the Ukrainian National Ballet of Odessa has been described as an “impostor” by the Ukrainian embassy in Ireland.

The Ukrainian National Ballet of Odessa will tour Ireland later this month with 12 performances of Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. The venues include the Helix, the Cork Opera House, the Town Hall Theatre in Galway and the National Opera House in Wexford.

In a statement Dmytro Schedrin, the embassy first secretary, said there is only one national ballet company in Odesa and “neither the National Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre of Odesa nor any of its dancers are involved in the impostor project called the Ukrainian National Ballet of Odessa”.

He added that the word “national” is an honorary title assigned by the Ukrainian president to the best cultural institutions and companies only under a certain procedure.

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“So, it seems unfair that a private dancing company uses this mark of merit without any right to do so.”

Mr Schedrin said he had contacted the venues involved outlining the embassy’s concerns.

The embassy also criticised the ballet company for touring a Russian ballet at a time when the Russian military is committing atrocities in Ukraine.

“Every time one thinks about the ‘great Russian ballet’, every time one talks about the ‘great Russian culture’ of music and literature, think of the murders and the intentional missile attacks on civilians or the hundreds of dead bodies in the streets of Bucha, Irpin and Gostomel. Think about mass burials in the yards of residential districts – mass burials in the 21st century,” he said.

“It deeply hurts our feeling to see a ‘Ukrainian’ company dance wearing Russian national costumes to Russian music amid the Russian army destroying our cities, Russian soldiers torturing and murdering numerous civilians.”

Ukrainian musician and refugee in Ireland, Olesia Borsuk, said Tchaikovsky was part of the Russian imperial tradition and not part of Ukrainian culture at all.

She had studied at the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine in Kyiv, she added, but the name was imposed upon Ukraine during Soviet times and now there are plans to change the name following the Russian invasion.

“They don’t have moral rights to use his name and his music and tell us they are Ukrainians,” she explained.

“Russia should be cancelled throughout the whole word. I’m upset that you can still find the Russian music being performed everywhere. Cancellation should be at all levels.”

Ms Borsuk said she was particularly upset that the ballet company used the Russian spelling of Odesa as Odessa and that it will be playing on the first anniversary of the Russian invasion at the TLT Theatre in Drogheda on February 24th.

The Ukrainian National Ballet of Odessa has no phone number or email listed on its website. A contact form bounced back. It does not appear either to have a social media platform.

It has posted a message on its website stating that it is in “no way affiliated or connected to the Odessa National Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet” and has “never purported to be, in the media or online”.

It added: “Our company is 100 per cent Ukrainian in both the cast and crew, and tour Europe to spread the culture that we have all dedicated most of our lives to and to remind the world of the struggles of our country as it fights for its survival and freedom.”

It posted a link to a performance in France that was followed by the Ukrainian national anthem.