Ukraine’s Ultimate Talent – Sand Animation

I would like to present you with yet another video on YouTube that has everyone going nuts. This video, originally posted two months ago, already received 1,300,000 views. It shows Kseniya Simonova, a 24 year old artist, who just won the Ukraine’s version of “America’s Got Talent.”

According to YouTube, “She uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and sand painting skills to interpret Germany’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII.”

If you watch this video below, you’ll see that she tells a story with the sand in her performance. The thing that I noticed about this video is that there are many pieces of this puzzle that fit together perfectly. In addition to being an insanely talented artist, she also uses the music, her gestures, her dress, and her facial expressions, anything and everything she can to make this a performance like we’ve never seen before. It is quite a colorful example of how we can use everything around us to our advantage to be the best we can be.

This type of art, called sand animation, is a style of live performance art. It’s hard to believe that she just started making these sand paintings on the beach last year. The video below shows her most famous performance, in front of 13 million people. She won first place and $1,000,000 Ukraninan Hryvnia (approx. US $125,000).

I found this performance to be both riveting and powerful. I ran through the gamut of emotions from sadness to joy. It was delightfully exhausting. I hope you have a similar experience when you watch it. Enjoy!