Defence

Government funding here is not, as you might expect, doled out evenly regardless of merit and without incentive for improvement. Government employees, let's use teachers as an example, are asked to "defend" their skills every 5 years. If a teacher can prove that they are implementing modern methodological methods, improving students' abilities, and successfully imparting the required national curriculum, they receive a raise. If not, they are stuck at entry level pay for another 5 years. This process is called "defence," and it entails a lot of preparation, stress, and observation by important officials from the capital.

Just as teachers' pay is determined by these demonstrations of success and improvement, so is the House of Culture's funding. Any HoC receives a base budget from their local administration, in our case the Lutuginsky Region. However, if a HoC has dance, theatrical, or musical groups that are performing at a particularly high level, those groups can earn the status of "National." This means that the local administration's base budget is supplemented by a federal bump. This is rewarded since, aside from encouraging excellence, it is also assumed that excellent groups will need better costumes, transportation to festivals, and registration fees for competitions. The more National groups a HoC has, the more its overall funding.

Okolitsa (The Outskirts) defended its National status last Monday. Given that we are a "Cossack Folklore" group, we not only had to build a vocal repertoire, but also weave it into a skit that demonstrated traditions, told popular stories, and showed dance styles. We even prepared a spread of Cossack foods for the judges (which seemed ever so slightly like bribery).

Our local newspaper Glorious Labour, quoting the Director of the Lugansk Oblast Centre of National Arts, Honoured Employee of the Ukrainian Department of Culture, and Representative of the Certification Commission Vasily Yarovoy:

Today you have demonstrated the traditions of Ukrainian musical art, and what I've seen today has simply touched my soul. Yourperformance had wonderful voices, it had the beautiful spirit of giving, a high level of mastery and just a shocking atmosphere....It had soul, and that's all from you. Thank you for bringing our culture - Russian, Ukrainian, Don Basin Cossack - to the people. I'm proud that I myself have the opportunity to congratulate you. Such a young group, which means you are going to go places. Best of luck! Be creative!

 The result: we succeeded in defending our National title.

You can find more from the Okolitsa defence performance here.