PEMBROKE — The folk dances of Ukraine are coming to Pembroke on Tuesday when the Virsky National Dance Company performs at Givens Performing Arts Center. The show starts at 8 p.m. as the next installment in the Broadway and More series.

Tasha Oxendine, director of marketing at Givens, said more than 30 people from Raleigh, Chapel Hill and South Carolina have snatched up tickets to see the troupe’s first performance in Pembroke. Tickets range from $15 to $30 and can be purchased by calling the box office at (910) 521-6361 or (800) 367-0778.

“We have a lot of people of Ukrainian descent,” Oxendine said. “It’s unique for us to learn that there is a Ukrainian church in Raleigh.”

Oxendine said the center’s staff also learned that some people attending Tuesday’s performance have seen the dance company before.

“They try and go wherever they’re at to see them,” she said.

The troupe has been showcasing Ukrainian dances and traditions since 1937, performing in more than 60 countries. Through the decades, ballet-masters and founders Pavlo Virsky and Mikola Bolotov shaped a group of folk dancers into professional dancers. They became known worldwide for their bright costumes mixed with powerful and vigorous technique, according to a New York Times review.

Anna Kisselgoff wrote in her 2004 review that the male dancers “are still soaring high in the air in splits, careening around the stage in gravity-defying butterfly jumps and spinning like tops in the 18th century equivalent of break dancing.”

Virsky led the dancers for 20 years until his death in 1975. In those years, he choreographed folk traditions into dances such as “We’re from Ukraine,” “The Sailors” and “We Remember.”

When Myroslav Vantukh took over the troupe in 1980, he called upon his expertise in folk traditions to create new pieces that showcase the choreographic art of other regions.

“Ukraine, My Ukraine,” a dance Vantukh choreographed and part of the 2009 season, pulls together these regional differences.

“Bread and salt on an embroidered towel is a symbol of the sincerity and kindness of the Ukrainian people. This is a greeting dance encompassing the vast and diverse regions of Ukraine. Each region has its own local flavor, its own dialect through dance — here, all these wonderful flavors are united into a single dance,” the program script reads.

The season continues on Nov. 14 with production “Avenue Q” will be presented on Nov. 14 followed by “Letters Home” on Nov. 16. Tickets for “Letters Home” will be $10 for veterans.

The Broadway and More series will continue in December with “Camelot.”