Kseniya Simonova's Sand Art Wins Ukraine's Got Talent

Surely almost everyone has heard about Susan Boyle and her run at fame in the United Kingdom recently, but have you seen what Kseniya Seminova did in Ukraine? The show really does have worldwide appeal, and is produced in more countries than just the UK and USA.

There are several different performances of Kseniya's available on youtube. I selected my favorite for the link below. What Kseniya does is haunting and beautiful, especially when you understand the context. Look at the reaction the crowd has. They are deeply moved.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=518XP8prwZo

What she depicts is love and war, set amidst the turmoil of The Great Patriotic War, or as we call it in America, WWII. Ukraine was probably the area most devastated in the war, even more than Germany. It was a conflict that saw nearly one in four Ukrainians killed. A population of almost 42 million lost between 8 and 11 million people, depending on which estimate one references. Ukraine represented almost 20 percent of all the causalities suffered during WWII. And that was after Stalin had killed millions during the manufactured famines before the war. It to this day touches every Ukrainian. That's the context of war memory that Kseniya reaches out to.

The sand art of Kseniya is set to music that reflects the tone of what she is trying to project, and the combined effect works very well. Sand animators use simple grains of sand to tell a story, in a way many people haven't seen before. What Kseniya Seminova does in a few short minutes is all the more memorable because it is so fleeting. Once she is finished, the grains of sand go back into containers and the art is swept away.

Check out her performance, and you might just become a fan of the art of sand animation too!