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After 20 years, Scott Jackson thought he’d seen it all.
For two decades, he has directed and produced the grand spectacle that is the Virginia Arts Festival’s International Tattoo.
Jackson creates the choreography, and finds and brings in civilian and military bands from around the globe to perform alongside U.S. military musicians. He has booked flights, dealt with delays, rebooked flights for performers stranded here, there and everywhere from Africa to Asia — always ensuring they made it to Norfolk for curtain call.
But he’d never encountered anything as “dramatic” as what it took this year to get a group of Ukrainians to Hampton Roads and help the young women overcome the obstacles of war. The Crazy Drummers, an all-female group of 16 dancers and drummers, will perform at the tattoo Thursday through Sunday.
The difficulties in coming to America derive from two simple sounding words: “travel” and “visa.”
Unlike most western European countries, the U.S. does not have a reciprocal visa policy with Ukraine. Such policies allow U.S. citizens to travel, for example, to France and Germany without visas because French and Germans can do the same when entering the U.S. Americans and Ukrainians must have travel visas to cross each other’s borders.
The one place Ukrainians can obtain a travel visa is at a U.S. Embassy, but the U.S. Department of State suspended services in Ukraine shortly after Russia invaded the country last year.
Most acts performing in the tattoo have their trips to Virginia planned two years in advance, but whether the Crazy Drummers would even attempt the journey remained undecided until December. They weren’t certain they could come and, if they did, they weren’t sure if traveling during wartime would be worth it. Still, Jackson really wanted them and worked to persuade them.
“They were the last piece of the puzzle, but they were the perfect piece because they’d bring something unique culturally, performing-wise,” he said. “And, really, they would bring their stories.”
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The theme of this year’s tattoo is a salute to military families. The Crazy Drummers are expected to tap dance, drum and use giant flags to enhance their visual display. Their flags will mirror the colors of the Ukrainian national flag.
“In the middle, the dancers and drummers, we all, will all stop and just wave flags,” said Crazy Drummer member Ann Binovska during a video call from a dance studio in Odesa. “Yellow and blue. The flags are yellow and blue.”
Binovska, 27, is one of the oldest Crazy Drummers. The youngest are in their early teens. Jackson, who often likens the tattoo to a meal, had to persuade his vital and “last ingredient” into the performance mix. He explained the patriotic symbolism of the show to the Crazy Drummers’ director, Igor Tkachuk. Jackson told Tkachuk about the size, scope and beauty of the symmetry of the opening and closing scenes when all the performers march in unison.
Tkachuk agreed to brave the potential hazards and packed all 16 young women into a bus and drove across the southern region of his war-torn country from their home in Odesa to the nearest U.S. Embassy, in Chișinău, Moldova. Under good, peacetime, circumstances, that trip takes four to five hours.
To get the Crazy Drummers’ appointments at an embassy, all of their travel visas had to be prepaid for in leu notes, Moldova’s currency. This first step alone required an obstacle course of wire transfers and money conversions.
Next, they learned that the embassy works on travel visas only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Ukraine has a strict wartime travel curfew of 11 p.m. that’s “no joke,” Jackson said.
The Crazy Drummers and their leadership loaded onto a bus and headed from the Moldovan border on a Monday morning with plans to stay in a hotel and get to the embassy when it opened the following morning.
“It all had to be done in one day,” he continued. “We get this bus load of young women to Moldova, get their visas and back and they can’t travel after 11 at night.”
When they arrived at the Moldova office on Tuesday morning, Jan. 31, the embassy wouldn’t accept the consent forms filled out by the parents of performers younger than 18. The paperwork was written in Ukrainian. The embassy accepts only English.
Tkachuk, unsettled and desperate, called Jackson. They’re at the embassy, he said, but they need a translator and have only a handful of hours to spare or risk late-night travel.
Tkachuk began to frantically search the city for a translator. By the time he found one, it was too late. They wouldn’t have time to make it back before the curfew and the embassy refused to grant the visas on a Wednesday. The Crazy Drummers had to stay in Moldova until Thursday.
Jackson started emailing the embassy and stateside political contacts. U.S. Sen. Mark Warner got involved, but the embassy still would not guarantee that the visas would be completed Thursday and leave time for the Drummers to depart around noon and make curfew. Tkachuk told Jackson if it didn’t work Thursday, that was it: the Drummers’ trip to Virginia would be a no-go.
Jackson couldn’t sleep Wednesday night. Moldova is seven hours ahead of Norfolk. He lay in bed staring at the ceiling, waiting for a report about the Crazy Drummers’ morning at the embassy. Around 2 a.m. his phone rang. The embassy had assured the dancers that they would receive their visas by noon. He screamed, “Success!!,” accidentally awakening his wife.
The Crazy Drummers headed back to Odesa with plenty of time to make curfew. The young women emailed Jackson a picture of themselves on the bus, all smiling and holding up their visas.
Jackson said, “I was surprised about how genuinely happy I was.”
Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com
Weekend Scoop
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If you go
When: Thursday through April 23
Where: Scope arena, 201 E. Brambleton Ave., Norfolk
Tickets: Start at $10
Details: vafest.org
The Crazy Drummers are scheduled to perform with:
- The Scotch College Pipe Band, Australia
- The Bagad de Lann-Bihoué, France
- The Central Military Band of the Latvian National Armed Forces
- The Highland Dance Company of New Zealand
- The Singapore Armed Forces Central Band and Music and Drama Company
- The Royal Air Force Pipes and Drums, United Kingdom.
The Tattoo is scheduled to feature 13 stateside acts:
- U.S. Navy Fleet Forces Band
- U.S. Marine Corps Band, Quantico
- U.S. Marine Corps FAST Company
- U.S. Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon
- U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command Herald Trumpets
- Virginia Symphony Orchestra Chorus
- Andy’s Tartan Army
- Camden County Emerald Society Pipes and Drums
- Granby High School Naval Junior ROTC
- Hampton Roads police color guards
- Norfolk Fire-Rescue honor guard
- Old Dominion University Concert Choir
- Tidewater Pipes and Drums