The Gopak is popularly referred to as the National Dance of Ukraine and is also very popular in Poland.
Gopak is a dance excerpt from The Fair at Soroshintsky, a comic opera in three acts by Mussorgsky, composed between 1874 and 1880 in St. Petersburg.. The composer wrote the libretto, which is based on Nikolai Gogol's short story of the same name, from his early (1832) collection of Ukrainian stories Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka. The opera remained unfinished and unperformed at Mussorgsky's death in 1881. Today, the completion by Vissarion Shebalin has become the standard. The best-known numbers from The Fair are the orchestral Introduction and the closing Gopak.
A Gopak or a Hopak is a Ukrainian folk dance originating as a male dance among the Zaporozhian Cossacks, but later danced by couples, male soloists, and mixed groups of dancers. It is performed most often as a solitary concert dance by amateur and professional Ukrainian dance ensembles, as well as other performers of folk dances. It has also been incorporated into larger artistic ensembles and danced in operas, ballets and at the theatre.
