Taking dance classes or joining a dance group in your adult years can feel overwhelming, but ParticipACTION’s social media and marketing coordinator, Stephanie Ehmke, loves how dancing has helped her connect with her community and celebrate her culture.
I grew up in Canada immersed in Ukrainian culture through the language, the delicious cuisine, and through the music by learning to play the Bandura (a national musical instrument), and participating in a Ukrainian dance group at my local community center.
While every part of Ukrainian culture is important to me, I have a special place in my heart for the dancing. I started dancing at the age of four and continued until I graduated from high school.
Through dance, I got to travel to and perform at many different festivals and events, including the Toronto Ukrainian Festival in Bloor West Village, Oshawa’s Fiesta Week, and even a couple of performances at Walt Disney World in Florida.
While it was always a treat to travel and perform, I loved the opportunity to celebrate my culture through dance and share it with the Ukrainian community and beyond.
Moving away from my hometown for university and trying to juggle school and work while still having some downtime to relax meant a lot of my physical activity routines – including dance classes – were put on the back burner.
After graduating and moving back to my hometown, I started to get involved in community events again, but I kept making excuses and putting off rejoining the dance group. I let self-doubt get in my way. I felt like I wasn’t young enough and not in good enough shape to be able to get back into the routine of cardio-filled dance practices and performances.
Then the pandemic struck, and I realized how important movement and activity were to my mental and physical health. I started a routine of getting active and moving again, still not imagining that I would end up rejoining my Ukrainian dance group.
Suddenly a devastating war began in Ukraine. It was time to strengthen my connection with the Ukrainian community in the best way I knew how. When my local dance group reopened in spring 2022, I joined without hesitation.
With each practice, it became easier to keep up with the rest of the dancers. After our final performances wrapped up in June 2022, I reconnected with many of the dancers from my earlier days, who said they would have rejoined the group if they had known there would be familiar faces! I shared my excitement and this feedback with the dance group organizers (one of them being my mom).
As a result, we launched an adult alumni group in September 2022. We’ve now had six months of dance practice and are working on putting together a dance routine for our year-end performance during Oshawa’s Fiesta Week. The adult alumni dance group has not only given us a place to rekindle our love of dance, but it’s also allowed the dancers, our families and adults who have never danced before to have a safe and welcoming space to experience dance and celebrate our shared Ukrainian culture in a beautiful and unique way.
Dancing has been such a great way to reconnect with my culture and familial heritage, build a community, and get physically active in a fun and exciting way.
Are you feeling inspired to dance after reading this blog post? Visit our Exercise Videos page to watch and follow along with our new dance videos that were created in partnership with Canada’s National Ballet School.
