Parity Pipeline

Genre

Synopsis

Ukrainian-American dancer, Katya Madsenko, is trying to secure a professional dancing position after leaving her expat life in Kyiv. Irritated by a lack of understanding of her style of dance, she heads to her one safe space, the Ukrainian Culture Center, where she has been teaching folk dance alongside her lively and boisterous father Mads who has spent the last 30 years of his life building a school in the US. Katya arrives just as Mads is teaching a children's class. The rehearsal hall is lively and full of families and food. At the end of class, Mads announces that in a few weeks he is returning to his childhood home in Ukraine and that Katya will officially be the new Artistic Director. Something she hasn’t fully agreed to or accepted. Katya quietly slips away to a smaller dance studio. There, she dances just for herself, without the eyes of the community watching. After a few beats, her father interrupts. He wants to talk. In his office, the conversation flows between the war and the future of the school. Katya, who misses dancing, asks her father to reconsider his decision to move back to his homeland. Mads, who insists he needs to be present for victory day, has made up his mind. The disagreement about the future splits them. Each of them retreat, until Katya notices her father alone, bidding farewell to the grand hall as only a dance maestro would, with a bow. This sparks an emotional reaction and an idea for her. She finds their red Ukrainian folk dance boots and invites her father for one final dance. The once quiet hall now starts to shimmer. They perform a powerful duet together. As the tempo of the music shifts into high gear, Katya breaks the fourth wall and transports herself and the audience into a new world - a Ukrainian folk dance extravaganza ensues.