This morning, while enjoying my leisurely Sunday cup of coffee and a bagel, I stumbled across this amazing performance by a lady named Kseniya Simonova. It seems that the Ukraine has a version of "Britain's Got Talent", the show that brought Paul Pott's astounding performance to the masses.
Kseniya tells a story through the use of constantly shifting sand. It depicts Germany's conquest of the Ukraine during World War II - there is love, hope, death, and redemption all told with a particularly Eastern European dramatic flair. Not only was the audience brought to tears, but her performance reached through the screen and pulled a few from me also.
At the very end she captions the final scene with the words "You are always near". In doing a little further research I learned that the Ukraine was particularly hard hit during the war, losing approximately 10 million citizens.
After viewing this it came as no surprise to me to learn that she went on to win the competition. Here is her performance at the finals, in two parts.
Part 1
Part 2
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Comments: 23
Hugs and blessings - S.
Hugs and blessings - S.
Stunning.
This young lady's sand art seems to be part of a healing process as well. Isn't it amazing how elements of art and ceremony seem to repeat themselves all over the world and throughout human history. Thanks for sharing this Tonia!
Thank you for sharing these!
If you don't know Ken Poltier on Gather, you might enjoy checking him out. He posts sandart of a different style.
Would you mind posting this to Culture Haven.
Ukraine suffered horribly during the 20th century. In the 1930s, Stalin tried to commit genocide (they call their holocaust the holodomor). Stalin's method was especially cruel. He sent the Soviet army during the harvest season to expropriate *all* the crops and transfer them to ethnically Russian areas beyond Ukraine's traditional borders. The soldiers even destroyed houses looking for hidden crops. People of all ages starved to death during the winter.
And of course, the well represented horrors of the WWII era and the many Ukrainians who were killed. In addition, there are appalling stories of Nazi invaders' mistreatment of Ukrainian Jews, from mass slaughter in Kyiv to the destruction of entire Jewish villages in western Ukraine. This in addition to generalized slaughter of Ukrainians without regard for religion or ethnicity.