Libovicki, Vladimir

Libovicki, Vladimir, b 10 November 1906 in Cheski Novyny, near Ustyluh, Volhynia gubernia, d 18 December 1984 in Prague. Ballet dancer and choreographer of Czech origin. Libovicki studied in the dance school of Vasyl Avramenko in Rivne, where he was trained in Ukrainian folk dance. In 1937 he was appointed artistic director of the Regional Theater in Uzhhorod, where he favored Ukrainian as the language used during rehearsals. In 1938 Libovicki joined the Nova Stsena theater, where he worked as a director and choreographer and later became artistic director. He was noted for his production of Oleksander Oles’s dramatic poem Nad Dniprom (On the Banks of the Dnieper), with the music of Yevhen Sherehii. Libovicki played a leading role in the film about Hutsul life Polonyns'ke kokhannia (Love in the Mountain Meadows, 1938), the first Ukrainian-language motion picture made in Transcarpathia (it was destroyed in processing). Between 1939 and 1945 he lived and worked in Switzerland. In 1954 Libovicki was appointed choreographer in the operetta group of the Prešov Ukrainian National Theater. In 1955 he was coauthor, with the composer P. Spisak, of Marijka, the first full-length Ukrainian ballet to originate in Czechoslovakia.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]