Real name: Василь Миколайович Верховинець

Vasyl Verkhovynets (1880 - 1938) was a Ukrainian composer, conductor, actor, voice teacher, amateur musicologist, balletmaster, choreographer and dance ethnographer He is credited for fundamentally altering the course of Ukrainian dance by devising a method of transcribing dance to paper, recording traditional dances and steps from numerous villages, setting dances on a stage, and fostering generations of Ukrainian dance researchers and practitioners. He was also the founder of the modern three-part hopak.