Ivanka Lubomyra Watkin - Folk Violin Player

Ivanka Lubomyra Watkin Resume

Ivanka Watkin Born: To be wild Instruments: Fiddle Distinguishing marks: Constant smile Career Goals: Bendiest Bikram Yoga teacher ever Interesting fact: Addicted to peaches Ivanka grew up in central Canada with magnificent prairie people. Her mother started her off on guitar - at 18 months she was able to play 3 chords, 3 more than she can play now. Violin and dance became a huge part of her life somewhere around the age of 6 and have ruled her life from that point on. She's a classically trained dancer with ballet and tap as her main loves but she has also dabbled in various folk dance styles as well as jazz and heaven forbid, hiphop. A Ukrainian-culture oriented mother passed on the language and through forced Saturday school Ivanka was introduced to many Ukrainian musical and dance traditions. Her Welsh-Irish-British father finally got his culture through to his daughter around age 14 when she was dropped off with dance shoes and her fiddle at the Irish Club of Winnipeg. Violin lessons were few and far between - Ivanka had the opportunity of learning most of her music from fiddle icons such as Patti Kusturok, Calvin Vollrath, John Arcand, and Jerry Holland in Emma Lake Fiddle Camp in northern Saskatchewan every summer. She also studied at the University of Manitoba under Mikhail Pokhanovski. Square dancing and canoeing also stole her heart during this era. After circumstances led to the end of a dance-heavy focus, Ivanka was reluctantly dragged to a yoga class. She immediately fell in love with a new type of movement and thinking. Following life wherever the wind blew her, Ivanka one day had a message from a stranger named "Duane" and several emails later, she flew off to Vancouver and began touring with The Town Pants in May 2009. Ivanka is now a Bikram Yoga Teacher and looking forward to storming the earth with her 2 passions in life.

Updated: June 1, 2011