Today’s session of the English Speaking Club at
Window on America center Dnipropetrovsk was dedicated to the Independence Day
of Ukraine. The session was planned as a cross-cultural presentation and dealt
with phenomena of American and Ukrainian culture.
The starting task for the Club members was to
render into English the content of two Ukrainian articles.
The articles announced the publishing of the
first Ukrainian comic book. It has an unusual title “DAO HOPAK”. To understand
the author’s idea we had to explore the following topics
- American comic books as a
combination of art and writing
- Zaporizhja Cossacks
as fighters for the Ukrainian independence
- Traditional Ukrainian dance Hopak and
Combat Hopak, a martial art based on the traditional dance.
We had several foreign guests at the session:
our American friends Sam and Mr. Joseph and a visitor from the Netherlands, Ruud.
They have been very grateful for the explanations of the historic and cultural
facts about Ukrainian Cossacks. The videos that illustrated the Hopak dance and
Combat Hopak impressed our male guests and they asked for more information
about this martial art.
The facts that brand “Cossaks” is popular in
the world’s showbiz was illustrated by the video of Madonna featuring a Ukrainian
dance group.
The topic of “comics versus normal books”
triggered a lot of debate. The comics format as we know it today is a unique
art form and literary medium that originated in the U.S. in the late 1800s. Our
American and Dutch guests turned out to be fans of this genre and gave their
arguments in favor of comics. It was suggested that a separate session should be
prepared about the American comics as they are a good tool to learn the spoken
language.
The books about Ukraine in English were
presented to support the topic.
The session was a success and provided an
educational value both for the Ukrainian and foreign participants.
The number of participants – 20 persons.
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